Salvus: Aries

I wish "mixed" reviews were an option. I want to recommend this game for romance enjoyers, but its history of development and the current writing gives me pause.

The Good:

• Banter between the love interest cast is cute and nicely done, including the drinking sessions, though some jokes felt a little forced. But if you enjoy seeing camaraderie between love interests, you'll like this game.
• The CG artwork is gorgeous.
• Valefar's emotional turmoil is relatable and sympathetic. Emotionally weighty game, using the past lives of the MC and each LI as points of interest to make you want to learn more about them.
• The information drip-feed about each LI is paced well and hints at their full story; it makes readers want to find out more about them in the full game.
• Daniel.

The 'Ehh'

• The backgrounds are mostly stock assets which other indie visual novels also use. As a result, there's not much uniqueness to the game's worldbuilding, which feels like a mix-and-match amusement park of attractions.
• The writing style tends to drag. MC and LIs banter about almost everything, which can make the pacing feel slow, though some players may prefer that.
• The game crashed a couple times in the common route due to missing voice lines. I assume the hotfixes were for those, though. There were no further issues in Valefar's route.
• There were editing issues such as missing periods, and MC's narration being written out as dialogue instead.
• The programming of the game is stock, with no animations or attention to character movement and scene direction. This game seems to only use the Ren'py engine's default support for putting characters onscreen and talking at the right times, which makes it feel factory-assembled instead of carefully scripted.

The Bad:

• The main character Aina is inconsistently written and difficult to like. She quips and pouts about everything, and due to naivete and lacking common sense, spends a significant chunk of the game having the love interests take care of her. This jars heavily with her backstory as a peasant girl born into oppression, who'd helped lead a rebellion and even killed nobles before martyring herself for the cause. It's hard to believe a character like that would be so naive and clueless.
• The voice acting is inconsistently directed and over-acted, even for basic lines. I turned it off for Valefar's route.
• There's not enough unique assets for backgrounds or things like the Malevolents (monsters), meaning the more dramatic events of the game are hard to visualize. CGs are beautiful but are placed at odd locations, not necessarily the most emotional ones.
• As other reviews have mentioned, the game has been in development since roughly 2022, after having raised 80k in KS and more funds from patreon. However, only one love interest's route (out of 5? More?) has been completed. Given the use of stock assets for backgrounds, and the clear limitations from not having monster assets and other bespoke designs, I'm doubtful that this game will release in full any time soon. This is one of the main reasons I don't want to recommend it at this time.

Foreword

I wasn't going to make a review until the game fully released but after seeing a call to action to leave reviews in the advent of ONE negative review (that was actually constructive and quite positive despite the issues) I decided to say my piece since I've been following development since Kickstarter. I'm using a different Steam account to my usual because I am concerned about retribution from this developer.

I am reviewing based on the product we are asked to buy now, and not the product we are going to buy later so the review is solely for Common route/Valefar and not anything else.

The Game

During my gameplay I noted down things I liked and didn't like. +- are features that are bugs or depend on reader taste.

+ beautiful music, shared instruments and soothing tone, generally used appropriately in scenes.
+ pretty sprites, the main thing that drew me to the game.
+ pretty CGs, different to the sprites, but still beautiful with a painterly vibe and nice composition.
+ great stylised ui, consistent and adds a unique visual style. Usually overlooked! but really glad attention to detail was paid here.
+ great opening, Doesn't spoil anything and sets the tone.
+ backgrounds are lovely and environments are memorable,.
+ optional features like the phone are smooth and well implemented
+ I generally don't like EN VA due to bad direction, but the majority performances here were done well.
+ the romance focused sections are nice and everything comes together well.


+- some embarrassing turns of phrase like "our girl" that kind of put me off especially with the anachronistic and unfamiliar dynamic, entirely down to reader preference. note:i just read "bros before hoes"
+- abrupt transitions, easily remediated with timing.
+- skip in ui is skip to next choice, but text skipping is not labelled anywhere. While a lot of games share the same shortcuts for stuff, it's still nice to have one list in settings for what the keybinds are and what they do.
+- I think the characters tend to forget the protagonist is being punished and has indirectly killed people. By all rights the MC should be bound for hell but she is not scrutinised. A very passive approach is being taken where she is guilty of something but the phrasing diminishes involvement, and thus the characters don't need to feel conflicted about it.
+- Common route/prologue is very long (took me around 4 hours, YMMV) which is basically a huge loredump. down to reader preference.
+- Options to toggle voices but no option to toggle protagonist portrait off. Standard for most visual novels for this to be optional.
+- nothingburger options, I believe the creator mentioned the options wouldn't affect much and the steam page doesn't advertise them, but still something some readers may care about.
+- comedy is 50/50, entirely down to reader preference. Ranges from 'witty' to cartoonish.
+- steam page advertises a 'meter' for tracking endings, but currently is not implemented or not easy to find. Note: someone on the development team has added a walkthrough with point tracker in lieu of an ingame meter. Check the guides in steam overlay.
+- the game keeps telling me how old valefar is (supposed to look in his 40s) but visually looks no older than anyone else. Some people may prefer that but not me.
+- some text escapes the textbox. (Valefar route)

- personalities are just really lacking. there's attempt at differences between them, but they all come off as affable and accommodating just with different deliveries.
-like others have mentioned, jumpscare voice acting, with weird mixing. Some music is louder than voiced lines.
- visual dissonance, Things will happen in text that aren't reflected onscreen/through audio. Things like MC in pain, MC wandering off in full view of characters etc.
- A shocking amount of show don't tell violations. The MC will say what another character feels/thinks or will confirm it. It's appropriate for some expository information but not on the immediate scene level. This is done from the LI perspective as well; it reads as little trust for the reader's interpretation.
- chapter 2 is a little contrived, protag ignores a recently established rule and hijinks ensue. This would be fine if it establishes MC as a a bit naïve/all 5 male leads as a little incompetent but that remains to be seen. note: after reading on these people straight up harm living people and handwave it away, I would count this as "meddling in peoples affairs" and the story breaking its own established rules for conflict but no real repercussions for it
- very little sound design outside of music and voice over.
- some voiced lines have the default MC name, breaks immersion. Same thing in text for the available route. Some audio also does not match text.
- funny hypocrisy- MC criticises the nobility but wears finely tailored clothes, jewellery and a jabot, and the characters get incredibly vindictive on impulse? The dissonance was so sudden it actually shocked me. This could be considered a character flaw but nothing comes of it.
- the larger overarching plot is just not interesting or memorable, the fatigue of inconsequential scenelets don't build anticipation and the tone skews too much to keep my interest.
- the romantic progression is kinda contrived and unbelievable. Ties into the issue of everyone being so affable from the get-go.

TL;DR: Game is visually pretty, sound is good and romance elements are nice but story + characters aren't interesting.

The Development

According to VNDB this game has been in development since 2022 with the release of their Kickstarter with a goal of $50,000 and successfully raising $80,000. If this sounds low for a game, it sort of is, and hence a Kofi and Patreon had to be opened up to raise more capital.

I can't help but feel time and money has been mismanaged this whole time and thus we are here 3 and a half years later with a game being given piecemeal. The game boasts 450k words (which i fully believe) but in the Kickstarter, the sound (specifically including voice acting is) budgeted at 5%, or in their original ask, would be a budget of $2500 which is unreasonable based on volume of stuff to voice. EDIT: I forgot to mention voice talent is by SAG-AFTRA; it's nice to go union, but very expensive!

More money has been raised in the meanwhile and this early access just feels like another last ditch attempt to get funds to deliver a product that is long overdue (Early access is not mentioned on Kickstarter anywhere and the delivery date was estimated Mar 2025). This just indicates to me the priorities are all wrong. A visual novel in its bare essentials needs a story, visuals and programming, everything else is secondary and Ren'py does a lot of heavy lifting for that. Voice acting is absolutely an optional for these things but instead it is implemented before the other routes. This team is small and things absolutely do not have to work sequentially, but this feels like a severe mismanagement of resources, both time and money. On their social media I have also seen some sprite work and casting calls for their next game and the steam page hints at DLC. How can you think of doing this when you haven't even got one game done?

Lastly I have to discuss the developers themselves. They state that this Early access is for upgrading the game with the backing of the community, but when the 'community' speaks out and doesn't recommend the game, the developer sends a call to action on the social media to leave good reviews. I'd like to reiterate at the time of writing there was only 1 negative review and it was praising the game, they were just upset by inconsistent voice acting.

I do believe this game will be finished, and more otome games are better than not. However, the way the game has been managed and the developer's aversion of criticism has soured my perception of this game entirely.

I don't want to be too harsh in my review as I know this is still Early Access and the devs are working hard on polishing it, however in its current state, I don't recommend this (at the moment) for people who struggle to get through a lot of text with minimal voice acting. I know this is a visual novel so text is a given, but it definitely needs to be accompanied by captivating audio. The choice of voice actors are great (sadly I haven't gotten up to Jimmie Yamaguchi yet, which is how I found out about this game) but the spoken dialogue is patchy; the characters will deliver one line and the next will be unvoiced. And then voiced. Then unvoiced. It's jarring and unfortunately frustrating after awhile, as it would be so much more enjoyable for the VAs to speak all of their character's lines and more engaging by breaking up the text fatigue. There are also gaps in the background music so you'll be left in complete silence sporadically. The premise is awesome, the art style is lovely and the VAs are talented. It just needs to go back in the oven for a bit longer.