Full review (with score): https://youtu.be/B2E3EX64xfE
Written review below!
ALPHA-NIGHTHAWK kinda came out of nowhere and I’m surprised it hasn’t received much attention given it's by Liar-soft. Having now played it... Well, let’s just say there is a good reason this one hasn’t got much attention.
Note: Trimmed to fit Steam, check video for full version!Art and Visuals
Starting with the good: the art style. The characters are full of color, have some solid linework, and just generally have great designs all around. I liked the kind of “splatter” color design that you can see in each character’s hair and elements of their clothing - it’s a distinct way of giving the game its own style and this is something that Liar-soft generally does a good job at. The color choices too, they are both vivid, yet match the sort of dark sci-fi setting that the story goes for.
That said, the style comes with one severe flaw: it’s mismatching with other styles. You get these absolutely gorgeous and colorful 2D sprites and then they are slapped next to these mechs that look straight out of another game with a different art style entirely.
Story and Writing
The writing and overall story here is all over the place - starting off with some minor info dumping before rapidly changing scenes and introducing characters without hardly giving the time to really learn about these characters or the world they find themselves in. The pacing in general is probably my main issue. It goes from stupidly fast during scenes that are actually important for the main story and then these scenes are followed up with something incredibly slow and oftentimes straight up unnecessary, like the numerous random cooking and eating scenes just kinda thrown in there.
Not to mention the insane tone shifts. There was literally a scene where a character goes from scraping gore out of a cockpit to another scene where important plot info is being given while a character projectile vomits, followed up with an entirely too lengthy scene where the two main characters enjoy ice cream at a local shop and it’s all fluffy and happy.
Which is a disappointment really. The setting here is actually somewhat interesting - being this near future sci-fi with mechs, weird creatures roaming about, and some absolutely wild societal structure - it just doesn’t utilize it to its full extent. And even then, a lot of the info that you do learn about this setting comes from info dumping scenes instead of naturally learning it like a properly paced visual novel.
Characters
This is one of those shorter VNs that tries to bank a lot of the experience on its characters and the climax, but they are simply not given the time to properly flesh out and allow me to form a connection with them, leading to an unsatisfying climax and an ending that hardly made me feel anything but relief that the experience was finally over. The romance between the two main characters, for example, comes out of nowhere around halfway through and after that point it felt like I was watching a relationship speedrun that existed more out of obligation than actually wanting to tell a proper romance story.
Technical Issues
I don’t know what it is, but I had this constant freezing issue, where I would be reading and then suddenly my inputs would do nothing and all I could hear was the music - forcing a game restart to continue where I left off. At first I thought this was an issue with alt+tabbing out of the game, but it started happening when I was straight up just reading normally. It happened like 20 times throughout the entire reading experience and was just a pain to deal with.
Overall
ALPHA-NIGHTHAWK may have some solid artwork, but the rest of the experience is an absolute slog to get through and a disappointment given the interesting setting it starts off with. The pacing, constant tone shifts, and lackluster character development killed any impact the story was going for and left me feeling practically nothing by the end of it.
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