One Small Fire at a Time – by Eivmoe
Genre: Indie Visual Novel
Developer: Kidalang
Publisher: Culture Select
Release Date: Jun 10, 2016
One Small Fire at a Time is set in the world of Overture, the world of magic. However, in a world where magic controls every point of one’s life, magic is the most important thing. Just like time affects ours, everything needs to be on time and time kept in check. Developer Kidalang is back with a new publisher, Cuture Select, with the heart wrenching story of the so called insane girl Janise, whose madness is that she can’t use magic.
Kidalang is back once again with beautiful picturesque characters, backgrounds and designs. The character detail is through the roof, from facial expressions changing, to the changes of posture, bruises, scars, the detail in every single stance they have flows perfectly. It creates this visual aid like few VNs are able to do. Kidalang does it again from An Octave Higher to One Small Fire at a Time putting deep detail, into background and characters that both their games easily make it into a top 3 list of the most beautiful visual novels I ever seen.
Background art mixes what I would believe are oil paintings and watercolour paintings perfectly in its own style, with clear defined lines from oil paintings, bright, contrasting colours with details to the smallest thing, like freckles on a small guy in the background. Yet brings it further to life with a certain blurriness to the furthest back in an open space to give the illusion of perspective. Characters are perfectly drawn in the style of the entire backgrounds, making them appear like they are meant to be there rather than put in at mid production. The characters make the background more than it already is. To sum up the artwork it is something that I easily could hang on my wall proudly!
As you begin your adventure in the madhouse you are quickly given loads of leads to what the plot of the story is, so before the first 3 chapters are up you will wonder, what is really going on in the madhouse, who are these people, and will you ever get your magic back? What kind of madness do these others have, what happens over in the adult ward? These are all stories that come together in different endings depending on your own choices, while you try to explore them all, will you befriend them all or will you blitz through everything? The story in One Small Fire at a Time is unraveling before your eyes as you start the game with more and more depth which makes it easy to just drag you in. One Small Fire at a Time has 3 different endings and a true route which extends the game even further.
The music, while better than decent, is better and more beautiful than most AAA games, but I can’t help but feel like it is a step down from their previous game. However, with the mellow gentle tones the soundtrack floats through the different story segments, fitting just perfectly yet again. Its action sequence has faster but quieter music where they focus on sound from the magic and movements.
Characters you are introduced to have all their own little stories, their flaws, development and emotional patterns that make them both relatable and makes you curious to see how they evolve with the story. Maybe in the end you might cross the boundaries of what is real madness and what is just normal in society that makes them out to be mad? With loaded questions and mysteries to solve the characters quickly find the need to improve to progress, yet with the help of others is it even possible to cure “lunacy”?
All in all a One Small Fire at a Time will spark thoughts and reignite the thoughtful mind that An Octave Higher first lit, by continuing to ask questions about if they can or can’t, rather than the question if they should. However, when it comes to recommending this game, I can only say I do. One Small Fire at a Time lights the passion inside for most people with a interesting story, deep characters and development and can say I recommend getting this game at full price if not even a bit higher. You do NOT need to have played An Octave Higher to understand anything in this game.
Pros and Cons:
+Multiple endings
+Deep characters
+Wonderful art
+Beautiful character design
+Soundtrack that fits beautifully to the design of the scenes
~Lack of graphical options compensate with stretchable borders in window mode
~Predictable plot and twists
~Medium length
Eivmoe gives One Small Fire at a Time a Drastik Measure 9,3 out of 10.0 (93).
