Genre: Adventure Indie Visual Novel
Developer: Uzumeya
Publisher: Fruitbat Factory
Release Date: Nov 15, 2016
Enigma is an interesting visual novel from Fruitbat Factory. You take on the role of Chester, who leaves his home country on a journey to see things he has never seen before, after he finds out he has been diagnosed with an incurable disease. As he is journeying the sea, an accident occurs and he wakes up in the home of a young maiden named Colette. You then find out you were washed ashore on an island called Carlyle, which you have never heard of and do not remember on any map. As you explore the island, the people seem to care nothing for outsiders, save for those that rescued you, and the other outsiders. You eventually discover that there is a white, man-eating forest with the same name as your disease on the island called “Enigma”.
What link do the two have, if any? How will you chose to spend your final moments? Who’s lives will you change for the better, or worse? You answer these questions as you play the game and make decisions. The game has a healthy 19 endings, but you don’t have access to all of them at the start. When you first begin the game you are automatically locked into the Lauro route, which has 7 endings, and can only unlock the Ignis route once you clear a certain ending for Lauro. Conversely, you have to clear specific two out of seven of the Ignis endings to unlock the final route which has the last 5 endings, one of which is the “true” ending.
Moving onto the graphics, I have to say overall, though the graphics are A quality at best, and definitely not AAA standard, they do their job for the story exactly as intended. I especially enjoyed the character designs, which I would say are AAA quality. What brings the rest of the graphics down to me is the fact that some are overused, and in doing so makes them pop less. As far as sound effects and music go they are very atmospheric, so much so that as I was playing the ground the music itself seemed to fade into the background as I was focusing on the story. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike it, I love losing myself to music to the point I hear it but not notice that it’s there.
Now the story started off to me at like, D level but quickly jumped to AAA with a turn of events very early on. I won’t go into more details other than what I stated earlier because it will ruin the story for some. I can tell you, through, what I would consider the bad endings to the story are kinda twisted. Conversely, the good ones are equally amazing, like my favorite one I unlocked, Ignis Ending 7. It is also what one would consider the loli ending as well. The gameplay controls are standard for VN’s. I estimate it taking anywhere from 15-20 hours to play through all endings.
BoxCatHero gives Enigma: a Drastik Measure of 7.5 out of 10 (75).
Pros:
- AAA quality story
- Wonderfully designed characters
- 15-20+ hour playtime
Cons:
- Backgrounds overused
