Genre: Casual, Indie
Developer: Innocenceイノセンス
Publisher: Sekai Project
Release Date: Nov 10, 2018
Edited by KnightAvenger
Last Stanza is another in the line of western original visual novels published by Sekai Project; it is developed by Innocenceイノセンス, a Brazilian amateur group.
Let me start with the music. It is good. The tone it gives is pretty somber and melancholic most of the time, with a lot of violin and piano used throughout the few songs that make up the game’s soundtrack. Although there are, at times, some, to an extent, upbeat moments, most of it is meant to evoke a feeling of sadness, but those rare moments that seem somewhat upbeat give it a very nice contrast. However, it is never happy, there are no legitimately jolly sounding songs; it’s like raining some rays of sunshine make it through the clouds but they, very quickly, get lost amid the clouds again. The music is very fitting for the tone of the story as well as the apparent setting the story takes place in – England. The number of songs is rather small and the soundtrack, though good, can become repetitive after a while. Still, it never becomes outright annoying to listen to it while going through the novel. There are a multitude of sound effects throughout the game and they are all mostly good. There is, unfortunately, no voice acting.
The story has a similar tone to the music but with a difference of having some genuinely funny and happy moments. Still, the majority is written in a somewhat poetic, at times almost pretentious, style but never quite becoming such. There are also parts that seem to try and be deep and the two often intertwine, but I never felt too much originality or depth with the things being said. There is also quite a bit of down-to-earth casual dialogue between different characters. The story itself gives us different perspectives from different people on the same event – the death of a certain person. I won’t give away too much, but the different characters, their personalities, and stories are very nicely done and genuinely interesting to go through.
As you can tell, the game is supposed to be sad; it is definitely an utsuge. Not a nukige because the one ending it has isn’t really optimistic or gives any sort of a happy note but is very much in line with how real life often works. There is a theme that is noticeable throughout the novel, which is happiness over someone else’s death; specifically, certain characters feel relieved and even happy over the death of someone relatively important to their lives. That is mostly the note that the ending leaves off on. As such, there is no spectacle here, the death isn’t shown, there is no CG of it, there isn’t an endless stream of tears coming from characters, there is no proper catharsis; it is a story of people dealing with the tragedy in a way that feels pretty realistic. There are even some plotlines which are left off unresolved and even that feels intentional. The style of writing heavily reminded me of Narcissu 1. Especially in one of the later chapters, which is why, even if there is no endless stream of tears, the story is still sad, it’s still meant to evoke emotions, and the feelings of sadness and it managed to make me cry by the end, just like Narcissu did. Aside from all that, in regards to the technical side of writing, I did not see a single spelling or grammatical mistake.
As I already mentioned, there is only one ending. That is because this is a kinetic novel, which means there are no choices or different endings; it is a single story that goes linearly from beginning to the end. This makes the game, which is rather short, feel a bit longer than it actually is. On the other hand, it also makes it so that there is little to no replayability, but that is something present in all kinetic novels and, as such, can’t really be held specifically against this singular game.
The artstyle looks very similar to other original western Sekai Project VNs I played. The character sprites seem to give off a feeling of being like porcelain anime dolls with very pastel colors while the backgrounds look unfocused and fuzzy but, more or less, done in the same style as the character sprites themselves. CGs follow the same style. As is pretty clear, this is not an eroge and, as such, there are no erotic CGs. The game was made with the Ren’py engine and the only languages it can be played in are Brazilian Portuguese and English. I tested it in English, of course, but I cannot verify if the quality is the same in the other language, as I do not speak it.
I would highly recommend this game to anyone interested in visual novels, in more serious stories or more serious tone or approach, even at full price on Steam, which is $7.99 (USD). If someone is looking to get into western visual novels, I definitely recommend it, alongside another game I reviewed, Sweetest Monster. If you are into moe or eroge, though, you should probably stay away from this one.
Pros:
- Amazing story
- Characters genuinely interesting
- The artstyle is very nice
- Music is extremely fitting for the mood
Mileage May Vary:
- It is a kinetic novel
- It is rather short
Cons:
- There aren’t many tracks, so music can become a bit repetitive
- It’s pretty short
Faris gives Last Stanza a score of 9.2 out of 10 (92) Moé Blobs.
