Selenon Rising – PC Review – by Eivmoe of We Touch Games
Genre: Indie , Visual Novel
Developer: Fastermind Games Publisher: Sekai Project
Release Date: Apr 29, 2016
Selenon Rising is a sci-fi episodic mystery visual novel that plays on elements of many genres from “The Room” and “Clue” where you have to watch carefully in different scenes to get clues, which serves as your evidence in your cases and interrogations. However, the clues are not your only asset. You are a psychic with the ability to tell others emotions, making you a perfect lie detector. Selenon Rising is developed by Fastermind Games, and Published by Sekai Project.
Gameplay in Selenon Rising is much like a visual novel during its story segments, with a wide array of characters that are introduced. While little is known about them at first, their own stories get a lot deeper after playing for a just a few hours. The questioning, statement and mystery part comes into play often, and reminds you of everything you’ve learned which makes it a great learning curve from the moment you open the game.
Characters are plentiful in this game, from simple thugs, to witnesses, to your partner(s). As the main character, you are able to choose between neutral, bad or good, and your choices alter the outcomes and choices you have to make. However, due to the episodic nature of the game, some choices seem to bring the same conclusion to the conversation, with nothing affected but your “Alignment” meter, which you can check on the pause screen.
While your game is paused, you can also go into depth for almost every person or organization you meet along the way in the “Dossier”. Here, yet again, your knowledge of everything can be increased from backstory to theories about the people you meet, which all updates almost every scene.
You are against aliens and your own technology, and you quickly learn that being a psychic, with a clairvoyant as your partner and teacher, is not all just detective play. Romance, betrayal, and forgiveness are all added into the mix quite quickly, adding flavor and excitement to the already hectic and deep story. This brings up more questions than answers when first starting out.
The soundtrack is varied and decently size, however if you are a slow reader, the music gets repetitive rather fast. Every area and interrogation has different music, so the variety is nice and most of the songs feel like a perfect fit for the scenes.
All in all, Selenon Rising is the essence of visual novels, mystery, crime and player choice, all bundled up perfectly with puzzles to figure out what a person is lying about, and finding the right clues. A deep story, character depth, and awesome powers of a psychic make this game well worth it for anyone who enjoys more interactive visual novels, or story and player choice driven games, that don’t mind only partial controller support or lack off voice acting. While few VN’s have little to no voice acting, it is something that draws more attention when it is there, making it overall more enjoyable compared to when it is not.
PROS:
+Character depth
+Amount of player choice
+Visualisation off your allegiance.
+Puzzles
+Story
CONS:
~Music/soundtrack. (While fitting, it feels repetitive quite quickly.)
~Dialogue
~Partial controller support.
Eivmoe gives Selenon Rising a Drastik Measure 7.8 out of 10.(78)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/358760/
