Legends of Savvarah: Children of the Sun

Nuelli has seen the shadows her whole life, unsure of their meaning. She is determined to find the answers, along the way finding so much more in Legends of Savvarah: Children of the Sun.

The Story

A game set in the world of the Legends of Savvarah series.

In the story you play as Nuellli, a Lyoka who is born with the gift of magic but very weak magic. Her people are usually powerful sorcerers yet Nuelli alone amongst her people cannot wield magic. She is seen as a joke by her brother Togat, disowned by her Grandfather Zakir and ignored by her mother. Only their servant, a lizard named Nahash, tries to teach her magic.

There are points in the story where pivotal choices are made and the story branches off. Your character has reputation points and there are time delayed effects. So your choices do have consequences but might not show immediately. There is romance possible in this story but not all branches end in romance. It is meant as more of a visual novel as opposed to a dating sim.

Gameplay & Features

Settings & features include; Screen mode, text skip options, text speed, auto read speed, audio controls. There are both in-game achievements and Steam achievements. Lots of save slots to save those important choice moments. The games also have interactive features I find refreshing. Some items and people in the environment require you to click on them to do certain actions like picking a destination or furthering a conversation.

Notes & Spice Level

* You can hide the text box by pressing H to take screen captures (this is nice as currently there is no in-game gallery)
* Click on the Sun icon to reveal information about the game world, characters and quests
* Your choices will have weight and will matter. You have a reputation system so choices you make will affect how others see you.

Spice level is medium if you get the romance routes. It is more suggestive with the major bits not fully shown. So some nice spice but not super graphic.

The Visuals & Audio

I love the music in this game. Mystical, epic and at times magical sounding. The story is not voice acted, for some that is a drawback but I always personally find that a strength as I like to envision how the characters sound for myself.

There are some ambient sounds but not many. In some moments you can hear the wind whistle but the majority of the novel is filled with background music for the most part.

Visually well I love the artwork. Hand-drawn, unique characters that depict different races and species. Vibrant palette and some really beautiful CG arts. I am a huge fan of CG art in visual novels and this one has many. Some of my favourites are below of some possible romances in the game. Steam only lets you put up to 3 screen captures in a review but I took many!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3413304406
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3413302886

Overall Experience

I really love this story and the world and lore of this series. The characters have depth and the story is interesting and well written and is accompanied by gorgeous artwork. A lot of thought has gone into the world crafted by ST Sinovar. I look forward to their future novels in the world of Savvarah. ✨

For those wanting a taste of the world of Savvarah the first novel’s part 1(Gods of Savvarah) is free on Steam!

* At the time of writing this I have half of the achievements and a few endings discovered but there is quite a few to find. I did get the romance I wanted after much trial and error. Akotal is a tricky one to nab. *

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I just finished four endings, and I absolutely LOVE it! The background art, the soundtrack, and the character designs are all stunning. I’m enjoying everything about it! I'm planning to complete all the endings! so wish me luck

It is a good visual novel with remarkable choice freedom and very varied paths. I quite like that different aspects and depth of characters only are revealed on different paths so you're very rewarded for replaying. Most of the choices make sense and their consequences flow quite well. It is fairly obvious that a lot of thought went into this. It takes very little time to go through a storyline, and fortunately there is a dev-provided path guide in the discussions, pinned, that will help you find your way to each ending without really spoiling anything. The art itself is quite distinct as well, and gorgeous, although the non-cg versions of the characters could use a bit of love. It has quite good music, that is mixed well, and fits the tone of each scene. I think it could be tweaked slightly so that a song starts a couple of lines earlier or later, but that's just personal taste I believe. The music is very easy to listen to even on its own, and that feels rare for these novels. The game has a lot of production value behind it.

However, it has a lot of weaknesses too. First and foremost, the translation into english is not great. It's not bad, and it doesn't read like it's a machine translation, and it's quite easy to keep pace with the story and understand what's happening, but it's also clearly done by someone who understands english very well but isn't so experienced in speaking and writing in it. It comes across as stiff and at times completely loses the impact of the scene. This is I think the biggest area for improvement. In terms of the plot itself, it also needs some more setup and to draw things out more and flesh out its world and characters more. There is depth to the characters, yes, but I only noticed that depth after a few playthroughs. The characters aren't allowed enough space in each path to be properly motivated or at least to feel like real people. In these terms, the main character herself is the weakest by far.

There is a bizarre trend in visual novels and interactive fiction of late - the last year or so is when I noticed it - to write the player and point of view character in the third person instead of the second person. With visual novels sometimes, if the writing is particularly clever, first person can work, but third person always gives the worst sense of detachment from the character you are supposed to embody. This is what happens here with Nuelli. She doesn't feel real or like a character, and I don't feel like I'm the protagonist myself because the perspective makes it clear I'm merely witnessing the story. As such, because Nuelli herself is uninteresting, her close relationships become uninteresting to explore, and the game then rests on an albeit good set of plot lines. A quick note on the story itself that I want to add here: it is not a story that will really surprise anyone. It is, again, well done, and rewarding to explore it, but you will see each path conclusion coming a mile away as well.

Finally, there are some issues that definitely need ironing out. There are numerous points where the wrong character is labeled as speaking. In a conversation with Nuelli's brother, there was an exchange where it was clear he was speaking to Nuelli, but the label still said Nuelli. The game also needs to make it visually distinct who is speaking by either moving the name of the speaker to their respective side on the screen where their portrait is, or by changing the color of the name. All names show up in the same font, color, size, and place on the screen. This doesn't sound like much, but when you find a groove to the story, and the translation is amenable, it can become easy to read through several lines and then have to go back and double check that the people you thought said each specific thing did indeed do so. There were more than a few times where that wasn't the case because of that name issue. There also needs to be some sort of fading in and out of the music though at this point I admit this may be a limitation of the game engine itself and not a problem on the dev's end.

I want to reiterate that the game is good, and the art style is gorgeous, along with good, mood-fitting music. For the price point, it's also worth picking up. I know I spent more time talking about the things that didn't work for me, but that's because the potential, in having everything come together into a nigh-perfect visual novel, is absolutely there. There is a lot of passion and competence here, and it is absolutely worth celebrating and sharing that. So yes, this is worth getting. The only thing I would recommend of the developer moving forward is that it's okay to have fewer endings for a longer, more developed core story, and a stronger protagonist. I don't mind taking an extra hour or two, or even longer if it means that the world gets a chance to truly 'be' and for the character to fully be in it.