"Time of Pariah" is an interactive story. The game is primarily text-based, but with lots of illustrations (essentially a visual novel in a non-standardised setting).
On the continent of Erteon, the endless war rages between Kradzhan – an alliance of three beastly kingdoms – and Dominion of the Horned Ones.
Seihal is a port city of Kradzhan, steeped in corruption and crime. Wealthy aristocrats, commanding squads of well-armed mercenaries, wield the ultimate power here.
Hidu is a mercenary. He once deserted the army, escaping death. He managed to blend into this colorful cauldron of the criminal world, where a precarious balance between different factions has somehow been maintained in recent years.
But now, this delicate balance is under threat: one by one, the enforcers of the Black Horn – a criminal authority for whom Hidu works – are disappearing.
Hidu must get to the bottom of these events. And perhaps even play a pivotal role in them, for a great storm is brewing...
THIS IS NOT A SEX GAME It's not a romance VN either. It's a Choose Your Own Adventure where sex can happen. And it's pretty good. I played the full version on Steam and it's a fully complete game with multiple routes, choices, and endings. And the routes are very divergent where you can deviate as early as the first choice with ending paths varying depending on who you choose to work with. The longer routes can take around 2 hours, assuming you follow the plot of the game and see it through completion. There are shorter routes as well, but that's if you actively avoid interacting with the plot points. All the art is wonderful and there is a good variety of it throughout the game. The reason I'm only giving it a 4/5 is that the English translation is rough. It's 90% readable, you'll never lose the plot, and the character's personalities still shine through. But that 10% of typos, grammatical errors, and the occasional awkward expression/word choice takes away from the moment. Overall, pretty good. It's a complete game with beautiful art, an interesting premise, and decent English translation. Worth it for a cost of a day's lunch.
Orlox2024-08-10★★★★★
Nice art and interesting premise, but unfortunately the translation can get pretty awkward at times making it harder to enjoy the written part of the game. Also, I understand it's not the game's main focus, but the sex scenes are very underwhelming. They're very short, they barely have any descriptions of what's happening and they only have 1 position with 1 image with some variations to show how the scene is progressing. This all combines to not even being sure what's exactly happening during the sex scenes unless it's actually shown (When did he put it in? Vaginal? Anal? Did he cum inside?) and then it's all over so quickly that it's hard not to be left disappointed. I'm curious about the story but with the state of the translation and the sex scenes, probably not enough to buy the full version.
LS472024-08-10★★★★★
The premice of this VN is interesting. You're the member of a gang investigating on the death of a fellow gang member, there are multiple gangs and factions in conflict with one another, there are many characters with different motivations and personalities, the kind of stuff you'd expect in that kind of politics-heavy VN; although this one is a very short demo, with very little to sink your teeth into, it does enough to make the plot at least interesting enough to make you want to know more. The presentation is pretty well done, the character designs are all very detailed and alluring. Most panels are done with a book sketching-like artstyle, but some scenes and illustrations are fully colored and very appealing. Unfortunately, the presentation is harmed by the very dodging translation from russian to english, and a writing that wants to look smart, but really isn't most of the time. Fight scenes are over in a couple of sentences with no illustrations, and the characters have very confusing names and titles, making it harder to remember who is who and what role do they serve in the plot. Thankfully, most of the lore dump is contained within the codex, but it's a problem that doesn't need to be there. I'd be interested to see where this goes, but this being a very early release, I'd hold my breath until the meat of the story actually starts.
★★★★★(3)
