Winter Voices is an Estoric, fantasy horror/strategy RPG video game released episodically, episodes one to seven.
Winter Voices spawned something of a short lived flare. It was praised for its goregous art, mature story (with a suprisingly good female lead, at that) and interesting battle system. However, the game's reception was basically crippled for its main criticism: It's slow, pretentious, hard to get into.
Yep, it's one of those "it's different and artsy, so it's shitty and self-indulgent" deals before that discussion even started.
Character customisation is actually pretty cool: There are three classes, quickly paralleled and explained:
Volva (rogue-ish): A storyteller and artist. They take more damage in combat, but they have a ton of health, in exchange for quicker stat development. In general, this is the "hard mode" class.
Huntress (tank-type): They specialise in what few "offensive" spells the game gives you. They also have more health than either class combined. Middle-ground
Weaver (cleric, or something like that): The Weaven specialises in nothing in particular. The easy-mode class.
..And you know what else is cool? You learn your skills by gaining points with your levels, then unlocking them from a skill tree, specialising in different "points", such as defensiveness, generosity, intelligence.
..And the skill tree.. is a massive snowflake... you special little snowflake, you!
For example, my character was something of an intelligent young woman rarin' to go and meet people, though those people hurt her, but she walks off chearful nonetheless. So, I learned towards healing spells, and imaginary friends, as I also imagined she's the kind of person to smush up berries, put it on as lipstick in the middle of the night and laugh crazily to herself, disturbing her bunkmates and mentally scarring their children.
The game also advertises itself as a "defensive strategy game". And that it is: In combat, you don't kill your enemies; you survive for a number of turns, or make it to a certain area, or try to collect items and put up shields while being pestered. So, you won't get many offensive attacks. Some stun enemies; some temporarily knock them out, others drain their stats, ect. However, much later in the game, you do gain the ability to kill enemies outright, making the game much easier.
Winter Voices's story starts blunty: After leaving your village, you are hollered back by the death of your ill father. The industrial age is just around the corner, so he'd like his ashes to be taken to the Sapphire Bay, a city ruled by a (atleast what you hear of her) benevolent dictator type queen.
You'll also notice that talking to people gives you XP. That's because you're not getting stronger physically - well, you are - but the main development your character makes is mental. And.. there are a lot of people, who mostly talk about nothing.
Almost immediately, you are talked to by a strange, human-like figure, questioning you on your father, how you hated him, and how little you knew him.
Then you are forced into battle.
You're not fighting people or rabit animals or ghosts. You're really just fighting.. well, dust. Figments of your fevered mind. And "fighting" is a giving word... more like, a tutorial plays as they constantly damage you.
This sequence is rather extended, so it's worth actually paying attention to the tutorial. Many critics complain about games holding you by the hand. In this case, it's like being held by the hand while walking over a thinly-frozen lake with sharks underneath capable or operating guns and water-proof electronic heaters, which they are well-supplied in.
...Hold god, are the battles hard. Especially if you're a Volva (stop snickering) who are designed to take damage a lot, but also well.
If you move in the wrong direction, you get flattened. Waste your healing spell too early, you get flattened. If your party member dies - which you can actually get really early, depending on how well you do on battles - you will get flattened. Flat, boom, crush, splat.
The game has now let go of your hand, and skated off of the frozen lake, leaving you with the sharks.
The game has now, pretty much, left you alone with its ponsy poetry and insanely difficult battles, along with illusions of your father who is telling you "you're a crappy daughter and you never liked me and I'm dead and not real you crazy dumbass" or something like that for an extended period.
The game even has the cheek to tell you how good you did at the battle. The better you did - ie, the better you subdued enemies/how many you killed (not actually possible until.. much, much later), how many companions you kept alive/ had to use, and how much of a nervous breakdown your character is suffering from, all gauge how much experience you get.
Your track is kept for each battle; say you retry it 'cuz you want the glorious xps, but you do worse, you can pick which one you want to use. Which is pretty cool.
This also adds quite a tactical element to an already tactical game, forcing you to push yourself to the limit. Most battles, however, can be skipped if you suck.
...Because they're really really hard.
Combat is also painfully tedious; the animations are much longer than they should be; walking is long, casting is long, leaning on your imaginary friend for mental support is long, jumping over gaps is wrong, and shooting lazer beams out of your forehead is long.
Long long too long. Nice animation. There's a problem though; it completely interupts the flow of gameplay.
The problem here is that it's not one of those "good plot and characters, horrible gameplay" games; it's one of those "good plot and characters, good gameplay" games; it looks nice, but it keeps getting bogged down.
It's not like you can skip them either. In the real world, people talk about fish and say sorry a lot and tell you stuff, and you get XP for socialising. It's in the dream-like, intense (and very well done) nightmare world where the plot stuff happens.
Granted, "plot" is also very giving. It's basically like a pre-industrial, artsy road-trip movie with a lot of drugs and a lot of psychadelic nightmares involving luminescant-shaped pots and cherry-flavoured explosions, sprinkled with a lot of poetry and slowness.
And this is just the first 10 minutes of the first episode, which is at least 5 hours long, and only a fraction of its plot has happened. I've come up with so many things I love straight away and can't stop harping on about, and so many things I fucking hate (which do end up getting improved as the episodes go on, however) that I can fill an entire, full-length review with.
And then the main character, after going around the village and doing her duties, goes to the elder's house and ends up taking magic mushroom tea to help ease the death of her father.
what
So, good points. There are lots.
-Relateable main character. She has that uniform blandness, yet very canvas-like personality that gets painted on and fleshed up as the game goes on that she becomes very enjoyable; she can become a deadpan, "no nonsense but only because I'm psychologically scarred" tomboy to a girl next door type to an emotional, sensitive person, whose father's death only just hit her (seriously. You get an achievment for busting into tears twelve times. You can also dress her up in pretty outfits. Which is a plus. She's also very pretty herself.. which... I guess is a plus?
-Good combat system. The combat system manages perfectly to capture the stress, tention, and helplessness that the developers wants you to be feeling; having no MP left, on half health, and surrounded by enemies makes you literally terrified to press the "end turn" button. So you spend a while, trying to muscle in whatever you can to try to save yourself. But alas; bang bang, you're dead. Dead dead dead dead dead. It's also very strategic, and it's an interesting spin on the single-character strategy system usually seen in games that will interest any strategy-fan or RPG fan alike.
-A mature story. Seriously, the story is basically just "my dad's dead, I want to take him to this country's big capital city to spread his ashes over the lake. Also, I just found out it's his birth place. Also he was a dick. Also I'm going to spend the next 25 hours of your time life trying to figure out mine and learning about the people around me-- OH MY GOD A RIVER IVE NEVER SEEN ONE BEFORE ITS SOOO COOOOOL". Yet it's handled very maturely, and many issues and characters pop up that all have something to say, even if you forget them.
-Good art. Good music. Good atmosphere. All three manage to capture the innate artistic implications that come with a pre-industrial, Norse-country brings along with it, while also building up the stress and emotional tension that the main character - and player - face.
Bad points.. there are lots.
-Slow combat. Oh god is it slow. Animations are at least twice as long as they should be. It's also very hard.
-Hard to get into. Obviously. There's no real comment on this. Not really; it's just... you need to be patient if you want to play this. You will, however, find a masterpiece if you do.
-There's too much dialogue. Dialogue is good. The world and being fleshed out is good. However, as TV Tropes puts it:
"Being flat is not automatically bad. Character depth should be proportional to the character's importance* to the story. The fact that the cocktail waitress is a leukemia survivor who is working two shifts to pay off medical bills, all while trying to polish off her doctoral dissertation on Ming-era Mandarin poetry and squeeze out enough time to decide which of her three suitors will best be able to get along with her aging, beloved Pomeranian-Pug pup all comes under the heading of "too much information." By the time all that is relayed, the customer waiting for his drink has died of thirst. " (copyright TV Tropes, dawg)
This is hard to place in either "good" or "bad". The game is good at atleast making every character interesting, but they just have too much to say. It both ties into the "atmosphere" and "good characters" good points, but it also fits into the "hard to get into" part just as much as it does the other two.
In general, you can interpret this part as you like.
So, is Winter Voices a good game.
It depends.
If you're patient, looking for a story - but also suitable gameplay - and like the colour white (there's lots of it) then this game is for you.
If you don't like being bored to death, look elsewhere.
All in all, if you're going to play at all, you may as well pick the Volva class. There's a lot of dialogue you can miss without their "humour" and "memory" stats.
Winter Voices spawned something of a short lived flare. It was praised for its goregous art, mature story (with a suprisingly good female lead, at that) and interesting battle system. However, the game's reception was basically crippled for its main criticism: It's slow, pretentious, hard to get into.
Yep, it's one of those "it's different and artsy, so it's shitty and self-indulgent" deals before that discussion even started.
Character customisation is actually pretty cool: There are three classes, quickly paralleled and explained:
Volva (rogue-ish): A storyteller and artist. They take more damage in combat, but they have a ton of health, in exchange for quicker stat development. In general, this is the "hard mode" class.
Huntress (tank-type): They specialise in what few "offensive" spells the game gives you. They also have more health than either class combined. Middle-ground
Weaver (cleric, or something like that): The Weaven specialises in nothing in particular. The easy-mode class.
..And you know what else is cool? You learn your skills by gaining points with your levels, then unlocking them from a skill tree, specialising in different "points", such as defensiveness, generosity, intelligence.
..And the skill tree.. is a massive snowflake... you special little snowflake, you!
For example, my character was something of an intelligent young woman rarin' to go and meet people, though those people hurt her, but she walks off chearful nonetheless. So, I learned towards healing spells, and imaginary friends, as I also imagined she's the kind of person to smush up berries, put it on as lipstick in the middle of the night and laugh crazily to herself, disturbing her bunkmates and mentally scarring their children.
The game also advertises itself as a "defensive strategy game". And that it is: In combat, you don't kill your enemies; you survive for a number of turns, or make it to a certain area, or try to collect items and put up shields while being pestered. So, you won't get many offensive attacks. Some stun enemies; some temporarily knock them out, others drain their stats, ect. However, much later in the game, you do gain the ability to kill enemies outright, making the game much easier.
Winter Voices's story starts blunty: After leaving your village, you are hollered back by the death of your ill father. The industrial age is just around the corner, so he'd like his ashes to be taken to the Sapphire Bay, a city ruled by a (atleast what you hear of her) benevolent dictator type queen.
You'll also notice that talking to people gives you XP. That's because you're not getting stronger physically - well, you are - but the main development your character makes is mental. And.. there are a lot of people, who mostly talk about nothing.
Almost immediately, you are talked to by a strange, human-like figure, questioning you on your father, how you hated him, and how little you knew him.
Then you are forced into battle.
You're not fighting people or rabit animals or ghosts. You're really just fighting.. well, dust. Figments of your fevered mind. And "fighting" is a giving word... more like, a tutorial plays as they constantly damage you.
This sequence is rather extended, so it's worth actually paying attention to the tutorial. Many critics complain about games holding you by the hand. In this case, it's like being held by the hand while walking over a thinly-frozen lake with sharks underneath capable or operating guns and water-proof electronic heaters, which they are well-supplied in.
...Hold god, are the battles hard. Especially if you're a Volva (stop snickering) who are designed to take damage a lot, but also well.
If you move in the wrong direction, you get flattened. Waste your healing spell too early, you get flattened. If your party member dies - which you can actually get really early, depending on how well you do on battles - you will get flattened. Flat, boom, crush, splat.
The game has now let go of your hand, and skated off of the frozen lake, leaving you with the sharks.
The game has now, pretty much, left you alone with its ponsy poetry and insanely difficult battles, along with illusions of your father who is telling you "you're a crappy daughter and you never liked me and I'm dead and not real you crazy dumbass" or something like that for an extended period.
The game even has the cheek to tell you how good you did at the battle. The better you did - ie, the better you subdued enemies/how many you killed (not actually possible until.. much, much later), how many companions you kept alive/ had to use, and how much of a nervous breakdown your character is suffering from, all gauge how much experience you get.
Your track is kept for each battle; say you retry it 'cuz you want the glorious xps, but you do worse, you can pick which one you want to use. Which is pretty cool.
This also adds quite a tactical element to an already tactical game, forcing you to push yourself to the limit. Most battles, however, can be skipped if you suck.
...Because they're really really hard.
Combat is also painfully tedious; the animations are much longer than they should be; walking is long, casting is long, leaning on your imaginary friend for mental support is long, jumping over gaps is wrong, and shooting lazer beams out of your forehead is long.
Long long too long. Nice animation. There's a problem though; it completely interupts the flow of gameplay.
The problem here is that it's not one of those "good plot and characters, horrible gameplay" games; it's one of those "good plot and characters, good gameplay" games; it looks nice, but it keeps getting bogged down.
It's not like you can skip them either. In the real world, people talk about fish and say sorry a lot and tell you stuff, and you get XP for socialising. It's in the dream-like, intense (and very well done) nightmare world where the plot stuff happens.
Granted, "plot" is also very giving. It's basically like a pre-industrial, artsy road-trip movie with a lot of drugs and a lot of psychadelic nightmares involving luminescant-shaped pots and cherry-flavoured explosions, sprinkled with a lot of poetry and slowness.
And this is just the first 10 minutes of the first episode, which is at least 5 hours long, and only a fraction of its plot has happened. I've come up with so many things I love straight away and can't stop harping on about, and so many things I fucking hate (which do end up getting improved as the episodes go on, however) that I can fill an entire, full-length review with.
And then the main character, after going around the village and doing her duties, goes to the elder's house and ends up taking magic mushroom tea to help ease the death of her father.
what
So, good points. There are lots.
-Relateable main character. She has that uniform blandness, yet very canvas-like personality that gets painted on and fleshed up as the game goes on that she becomes very enjoyable; she can become a deadpan, "no nonsense but only because I'm psychologically scarred" tomboy to a girl next door type to an emotional, sensitive person, whose father's death only just hit her (seriously. You get an achievment for busting into tears twelve times. You can also dress her up in pretty outfits. Which is a plus. She's also very pretty herself.. which... I guess is a plus?
-Good combat system. The combat system manages perfectly to capture the stress, tention, and helplessness that the developers wants you to be feeling; having no MP left, on half health, and surrounded by enemies makes you literally terrified to press the "end turn" button. So you spend a while, trying to muscle in whatever you can to try to save yourself. But alas; bang bang, you're dead. Dead dead dead dead dead. It's also very strategic, and it's an interesting spin on the single-character strategy system usually seen in games that will interest any strategy-fan or RPG fan alike.
-A mature story. Seriously, the story is basically just "my dad's dead, I want to take him to this country's big capital city to spread his ashes over the lake. Also, I just found out it's his birth place. Also he was a dick. Also I'm going to spend the next 25 hours of your time life trying to figure out mine and learning about the people around me-- OH MY GOD A RIVER IVE NEVER SEEN ONE BEFORE ITS SOOO COOOOOL". Yet it's handled very maturely, and many issues and characters pop up that all have something to say, even if you forget them.
-Good art. Good music. Good atmosphere. All three manage to capture the innate artistic implications that come with a pre-industrial, Norse-country brings along with it, while also building up the stress and emotional tension that the main character - and player - face.
Bad points.. there are lots.
-Slow combat. Oh god is it slow. Animations are at least twice as long as they should be. It's also very hard.
-Hard to get into. Obviously. There's no real comment on this. Not really; it's just... you need to be patient if you want to play this. You will, however, find a masterpiece if you do.
-There's too much dialogue. Dialogue is good. The world and being fleshed out is good. However, as TV Tropes puts it:
"Being flat is not automatically bad. Character depth should be proportional to the character's importance* to the story. The fact that the cocktail waitress is a leukemia survivor who is working two shifts to pay off medical bills, all while trying to polish off her doctoral dissertation on Ming-era Mandarin poetry and squeeze out enough time to decide which of her three suitors will best be able to get along with her aging, beloved Pomeranian-Pug pup all comes under the heading of "too much information." By the time all that is relayed, the customer waiting for his drink has died of thirst. " (copyright TV Tropes, dawg)
This is hard to place in either "good" or "bad". The game is good at atleast making every character interesting, but they just have too much to say. It both ties into the "atmosphere" and "good characters" good points, but it also fits into the "hard to get into" part just as much as it does the other two.
In general, you can interpret this part as you like.
So, is Winter Voices a good game.
It depends.
If you're patient, looking for a story - but also suitable gameplay - and like the colour white (there's lots of it) then this game is for you.
If you don't like being bored to death, look elsewhere.
All in all, if you're going to play at all, you may as well pick the Volva class. There's a lot of dialogue you can miss without their "humour" and "memory" stats.