Fading Hearts

fun visual novel
lot's of choices too!

Pretty darn complex for what it is, but won't be obvious on the first play-through. There is for sure deception going on that isn't obvious from the start, and the multiple playthroughs to start getting the 'real story' could stand to be a touch more obvious, but for sure an interesting story overall.

I originally bought and played this game in April 2015. At that time, I remember liking it fine. I hadn't played many Visual Novels (VNs), and I still haven't played all that many.

Today I decided to return to the game after almost seven years, and I don't know how I feel about it. First off, I just wanted to finish off the achievements that I had left (only 4 more), and it doesn't appear that those are working at all as time of this review. Not sure if people just coming to Fading Hearts will have the Steam achievements work properly, but they weren't for me (although the achievements listed in Fading Hearts itself were listed properly).

Next, the story is okay. Some parts are written well, if not totally cliched, and by just skimming this time around, I could see that there were contradictions between the choices I made during the game and the endings, as other reviews mentioned. So, if that bothers you, then be aware that there isn't much else to do in a VN.

Finally, there is some variety, such as combat and some subplots, but they're nothing noteworthy. In fact, I feel like I wasted a lot of time trying to level Ryou, the protagonist, for no reason as it didn't seem to affect anything when it came to endings or otherwise. My advice: learn some of the more useful magic (Healing, Dispel, and Final Strike), and you'll have all you'll need for any of the endings and story beats.

Overall, my impression of the game at this point is lukewarm. It's not terrible, but there are probably better VNs out there for those interested. For the price of $15 USD (usually around $9 USD on sale), I couldn't recommend this game. If it's much cheaper (a few dollars USD), then it might be worth it.

Don't mind the time, I played it a while ago offline so Steam never tracked my time spent. Its a decent game, I think it was the studios first title and I hope in the future to see more and to see them improve, As its been 11 years though, I doubt we will get any more games from the company.

This game tries to do too much and ends up being a hot mess. There also seems to be a lot of bugs, glitches, and confusion about how to actually complete the damn thing.

They've added stat building elements, magic and combat (all RPG elements) into a game that also tries desperately to be a dating sim and visual novel. Very difficult to micro manage things and get what needs to be done accomplished. It was okay my first time through just focusing on the story and on which girl I'd rather date, but after I tried to go for all the endings and get into the complexity of the game, that's when it got frustrating. Balancing working, reading, training, relaxing, dating, socializing.. it's just too much.

Nobody can seem to agree on how to reach certain endings or get certain achievements. The newer version of the game didn't seem to fix these issues either. You can be on multiple ending tracks at once, and some endings completely contradict one another.. which is insanely frustrating. This game is riddled with all sorts of inconsistances and it makes me just not want to go through the effort of TRYING to finish it.

The front page advertises about one of the unique features being that characters can lie to you and that it's supposed to add some sort of mystique to the game and somehow be game changing. This is not the case at all. It feels nothing like that. I've played several times, picking each dialogue option to see the differences (if any), and really.. there are none.

I've played many a visual novel and this one just doesn't have a lot of characteristics that make a good one. The story is interesting, but nothing special. Your two love interests aren't all that interesting in the slighest. Choices seem to matter very little. Endings do not have a clear cut set of directions to follow in order to achieve them. Music is acceptable. I just can't really justify recommending this game for all of these reasons.

The devs really should have decided whether they wanted this game to be an RPG, a dating sim or a visual novel.. but not a bad combination of all three.

I played this game yesterday from 4pm to 5am, and its the first game I'm writing a review about.
And thats because this game is worth the work.
I buyed this game in a sale for 9€, but its definitly worth the full price.
I'm not an anime or visual novel fanboy/lover, this was my first VN (=Visual Novel) and I wanted to give it a try.
I'm lucky I did.
This game changed my way to think.

First, i will come to the pro's and con's about this game.
Pro's:
- a fantastic plot, wich will suprise you not only once in the game and you can't foresee it.
- you can make decisions
- many different endings
- every decision you make changes the game
- high replayability

Con's:
- bad graphics (actually no graphic settings ingame)
- no real gameplay (its a visual novel, only reading and making decisions)
- short story (as a fast reader 5 hours)
- only english language, so you need english-knowledge
- the sound can be annoying (after 2 hours it was annoying for me, but you can mute the sound)

After looking at this Con's and Pro's you may think that there are more Con's than Pro's, so why should this game be good?
Actually, I can't really answer this.
I dont know how the game made it, but it was one of the best games I have ever played.
The story was so intense and surprising at many parts...

Normally I'm not the player who plays a game more than once, but this game did it to make me play it more then four times.
In the end I'm just happy that I buyed this game, because i think it can't be a fault, even if you're not loving Visual Novels.

Well, this was my quick review about "Fading Hearts". Sorry if there are some mistakes in my english, I'm not english at all. Hopefully, this review helped you with your decision about buying or dont buying this game.

The fact that you can be on multiple tracks at once, and the endings contradict each other is pretty upsetting. So if you're on a track for a good ending with one of the girls, it is entirely possible at the last minute for your girlfriend to not speak to you for 3 weeks while another ending plays out, and for her to totally forget you guys were even going out, and for the game to tell you that you are in love with someone you haven't spoken to since the intro. There are endings where you start a relationship with a girl.....who you have already been in a relationship with since March. There are endings that contradict you discovering someone's "secret identity" and tell you that you have no idea who they are. I swear, the game is great up until the endings but a VN that doesn't give you closure is like a horror game with bloom effects. Completely playable but you constantly ask yourself "why?"

Hmm ... Fading Hearts is a good game, good visual novel, has a lot of interesting things. It could be better, but somehow it doesn't deliver alone. Don't misunderstand me is a good game, very entertaining, and i would recommend it. But if you are very fond of visual novel games (hardcore visual novel gamer?), maybe this game will not meet your expectations, but for the rest I think it can be a nice experience.

Difficult to recommend for anyone other than big fans of the visual novel genre, and I deliberated on whether or not this was worth recommending. Leaning for no. If you're a fan of VNs (like me), this game will be worth your time; otherwise, I would look elsewhere.

The game promises you the ability to change the genre of the story, but the consequence of that is that too many different plot elements all seem to merge together into some kind of overwhelming mass, making the first playthrough very daunting. For all the directions the game can take, they don't see particularly refined. The result is a rather schizophrenic experience that can leave various threads unresolved, even with subsequent playthroughs. This game DOES improve with replays, and there are definitely elements of the story I really like (especially concerning Alex and Rina), but it requires significant investment to dig that up.

The stat-raising element of the game also disrupts the pacing of the game significantly. I found that I was grinding up knowledge or stats quite a bit in anticipation of something, anything to happen. The plot takes a backseat to however you intend to break it, and it doesn't really flow. This makes replays something of a chore, and the UI isn't well suited for that.

This is the first product of Sakura River and it offers a lot of potential for where they're going. I look forward to seeing more of what they produce in the future.

Before Fading Hearts i've played TONS of Visual Novels and Dating Sims. I knew nothing about Fading Hearts before I decided to pick it up not knowing what to expect. From the main store page it seemed interesting enough for the $10 I paid for it. I have to say, I was quite dissapointed to be frank.

First I'm going to go over what I liked about the game. The gameplay was really interesting and fun, definitely felt more closer towards a Dating sim. You get stats you can raise by doing various activities throughout the day and the stats (usually) have some effect on the game, such as how much money you get and beating certain monsters in the forest. There is a combat system, though not very in-depth, was entertaining for the first few times. And the game strongly encourages and is ment to be played with multiple playthroughs for all the endings, even including some cute dialouge at the end of each playthrough that provide hints on what to do on your next one.

One thing that interested me into buying the game was the "Player-Active Storytelling! NPCs tries to manipulate you, the player!" feature on the store page. I seriously did not feel this at all, in any of the playthroughs. I felt fully in control the entire time as with every dialogue option you can easily see what the consequences were and what path you were going to go down. The "Players can actively manipulate story mechanics once they understand how they work." was just a fancy way of saying choose A or B like you do in any other game/VN, nothing intuitive there.

You get stats and other progress bars that you can raise that can influence your money income, and combat stats. It had very good potentional to be very good but in the end it was pointless. You honestly don't need money that much, the only time you really would need to spend money is on things to obtain even more money. You don't need to touch the system at all and can do very well without, theres no real benefit it was a waste of time. You can also choose to do various excercises and train magic spells as well for combat. However, to reach the ending that relied a bit on combat you didn't need to be very strong at all. Once you hit a certain threshold (which isn't very high) it was pointless and a waste of time. It would've been nice if they added something that required or rewarded spending more time on raising those stats.

However, the thing that bothered me the most, is that the story was absolutely terrible. I definitely felt like it was more gameplay oriented storytelling than an actual story. Of course the story changes with your actions (as expected with multiple endings and such) but each time I was never satisfied. The climaxes to each ending felt very bland, and the actual endings were extremely cliche and predictable. The characters are REALLY flat and I'm not talking about their chests. They have little personality and no development whatsoever. Side characters are pretty irrelevant and you only speak to certain ones to obtain endings.

Lastly, the game is super short. I spent about 15 hours on the game but really thats because I left the game on while I fell asleep. Each playthrough is about 30mins-1hour long at most. If it takes longer, thats because you're trying to figure out what to do to get the other endings which won't take long. You can probably get all the endings in one sitting if you wanted.

The game had a lot of potential but I felt like it was released a bit too soon or the writing could've been better. The idea and design was good but it had no depth whatsoever.

This game was endearing and amusing. It's complicated enough to need to replay it a few times, short enough to replay without a major time commitment, and full enough to replay without getting bored. The twists and connections throughout the storylines are interesting, and surprisingly unexpected without being completely random.

Unfortunately the engine is a little broken, certain events aren't tied to flags, and therefore can be unlocked through illogical or unwanted means. The writing is also a little unprofessional at times, but that was easy enough to live with.

As the first project from this group I think is was wonderful and I look forward to seeing them grow through future releases!

It's a Life/Dating sim with an interesting story and cute characters. If you're into games where you have to manage stats and you try to get the girl - then you'll like this game. No, it doesn't have nudity and it doesn't need too. This is more of a tragic romance, where you'll end up learning more about each character and really falling in love with them. This could easily have been spun out into a short novel, that's how good the storytelling is.

It's short, you can probably finish a playthrough in a couple of hours, but it has some replayability. This is an Indie company, so while $14.99 might seem like a lot, it's not if you just think of it like going to a movie. A movie is a few hours, ticket prices are nearly that much and you still enjoy that. At least with this game, you own it and can re-visit it if you like. Definite buy IF you like anime-style characters, tragic/heroic romances and life/dating sims.

Whelp, I've played my share of VNs, good and bad. I had doubts about this one, everyone speaks proper to the point of seeming unrealistic, for example... But then came a fantastic double-sided conversation that explained some of the games mechanics to the player while SIMULTANEOUSLY being hypothetical advice to the main character. Fantastic.

Someone capable of that deserves a chance.

This game instantly captured my heart!

Its cute, interesting and fun, I enjoyed it so much I had to call in sick the next day since I was captured with getting to see all the beautiful endings!

It gets a 9/10 from me, it got alittle repetative (especially work part aka read book, work some, read book, work more, work more, work more etc several days in a row) also the music was nice making the game far more enjoyable especially with the lack of VA.

I'm looking forward to more games from "Sakura River Interactive"

//Duiof

Alright. I played the game, beat it and even enjoyed it, honestly. However:

The art style is pretty dated for what it is and felt pretty simple. It was pretty, but I've played a number of VN's that
were much prettier. 6/10

The story had moments that were touching and was overall very relatable for the most part. It was also rather simplistic and carried almost no twists or surprises. There was *one* thing that I guessed incorrectly about at the very end. Don't mistake this as being impressive, since the game only has 5 4 characters that you, the main character ever interacts with.
So it being easily predictable is pretty much a given. 4/10

Music is alright at first, it's gets rather monotonous since there is very little change or variety. I never reached the point where I hated it, but it didn't exactly add much to the game at all, either. 5/10

The gameplay elements are also pretty simple. Money quickly ceases being a concern with just a little fore-thinking and the right plan. At the end, you are still chided for "not having enough, and maybe needing to work on that" by the game though. Despite the fact that I could have bought every ingame asset with money to spare.

Combat is sort of interesting. There are only something like 5 or 6 monster types though, so you will cycle through them all very quickly. They just get stronger over time as you lvl up etc. With a little work, you are also essentially invincible, so it's just a matter of wearing them down from your overly abundant, easily *re-fueled magic reserves. So, stupidly easy. 4/10

I enjoyed the game for the most part. I beat it with very little effort and it only took as long as it did because I deleted my first play through due to the common black screen problems. Reinstalling fixed nothing. Thankfully they are not widespread and don't harm the game overly much.

Overall, Fading Hearts is a 5/10 for me. I can't in good conscience suggest it to people. If you find a sale where it's $5 or less, consider maybe buying it. Your time would be better spent with the plethora of freely translated VN's you can find elsewhere. Much better spent.

This is a spoiler-free review.

This is a type of game that seems to have people that either really like it or just straight-up hate it. There's also a lot of curious people that want to know if the game is worth getting, so rather than just tell you "Oh yeah, I like this!" I'm going to list all of the various things a person may like or dislike about the game.

First of all, this is NOT a visual novel. This is a simulation game mixed with RPG elements. A visual novel is a game in which you only point and click to get story to continue. This is NOT that kind of game. It becomes a simulation game when there are stats to alter and daily choices to be made. It infuriates me that so many people called this a visual novel, when it's obviously a simulation game. Since you can go into a turn-based battle with HP & MP, level up, use a sword or magic, that's the part that's RPG-like. Although, I definitely wouldn't call this an RPG, since the battling is definitely not the focus of the game. In fact, you don't have to step foot in a battle if you don't want to. You can progress the story without participating in battle.

Is this a dating sim? I believe so. I've seen others argue that it isn't, but I would say *it is* mainly because the only good endings you can get require you to have a good romantic relationship with a girl. There are only two girls to choose from, by the way.

How's the storyline? The best word I'd give the storyline is that it's rather odd. This isn't to say that it's a bad storyline, but in all honesty, I find the plot to be a bit weird. I've only gotten 4 endings out of the possible 10, so the storyline could be explained more if I get more endings, but they don't seem to explain the "weirdness" of the storyline very well. For some people, this isn't a problem though.
Otherwise, the story involves getting to know one of (or both) of the girls that the main character knows. There are also two optional characters one can interact with, but they're strictly platonic.
The main goal of the story is to save Claire. Yes, Claire is one of the two girls you can be romantically involved with, but you must save her regardless of which girl you choose, otherwise you'll get a bad ending. Save her from what? That would be giving away spoilers.

How are the battles? Too easy, honestly. All one has to do is learn enough spells, and a person can very, very easily survive battles without much effort. In fact, you could learn ALL of the spells before even entering into your first battle, and you're pretty much guaranteed to win. As I mentioned earlier, there's HP, MP, basic attack (with a sword), and magic. It is turn-based, like any old-fashioned JRPG. There are times while in battle that certain mechanics of it don't make sense. For instance, if an enemy casts a shield on itself, it also casts a shield on the main character. I think this was a mistake in the game design, not intentional.

How long does one playthrough take? It's really only the first playthrough that should take a while. My first playthrough took about 5 or 6 hours. Of course, I read all of the dialogue. If you were to skip the dialogue, it would probably only take you an hour or two. If you're a fan of story (which I'm not sure why you wouldn't be if you're playing a game that's heavily focused on story), it's only long the first playthrough, because after that, you can skip any *already read* dialogue. There's also the option to skip all dialogue regardless of whether you've read it or not, but that seems like a rather silly thing to do.

Are there walkthroughs for this game? Yes, but the only ones I've ever found were incomplete. I suggest doing a Google search to find various walkthroughs if you really want tips on how to get through the game. Some walkthroughs have given false information though, so be careful about which ones you choose to follow.
It's difficult to write a walkthrough for this game, because of the high randomization of events. Two different people playing the game could make the *exact* same choices, but end up experiencing events on different dates in the game. Basically, the games event mechanics are not set to specific dates. You, the gamer, have to trigger them yourself through either persistence or mere chance.
What do I mean by "persistence"? For example, the forest where your battles can take place has certain events within it. If you want those events to happen more quickly, then you need to keep exploring it over and over again until it triggers. However, if you're a patient person, you could just wait for it to happen by chance by exploring the forest every once in a while or something. Each time you explore the forest, the game randomly generates either a battle, a personal daydream of the main character's, or an event. Battles are the most frequent. Thus, you can have about a dozen battles before ever randomly getting an event or you could simply "luck out" and get an event straight off.

Is there any "ecchi" or nudity? Nope. Not even a little bit.

I think I've covered all the stuff most people ask/wonder about this game. I hope it helps the curious/unsure people about whether or not to get the game.

Let me tell this straight: writing negative articles is not my favourite way of spanding pastime. But the game is bad. Which is really regrettable.
What is actually wrong with FH? Actually, half of it...
1. Visual - this side of the FH is not bad. Not good, not bad eather.
2. Sound - see p.1. There's no masterpieces, but still it's good for background.
(and here's where "not bad" part meet it's end)
3. Gameplay - well, some of you may rofl on this one, but i wanna believe that you're all interested in good VN, since you're viewing "Fading Hearts" steam page and agreed that this ganre have a gameplay... well, sorta... Back to the topic. It's not good: choises are too simple and predictable and RPG elements... sorry, to sad for continue. But you catch the point. Too poor, too monotonous. Like the chess, where you have only four pawns on the board. Still playable, but not much fun.
4. Story - that the worst part. It's just boring. That's all. Maybe the best way to describe the game was to say it from the beginning instead of writing the wall of text. Story is just boring. Lack of characters, lack of originality, lack of playtime. You're not even get used to heroes of this tale, because tale will end faster than you like 'em. And cliche. Cliches everywhere. Main pot, heroes behaviour... just everywhere! Game still could be worth your time if the story being good. VN is all about the story after all. Not this time.
Sincerely, i already made 3 playthroughs. Only because some people really like it and gave a good grades. I thought something wrong with me an' that is i who miss the point or a bunch of interesting routes. My misteke. Game's just bad. Thank you for your time.

This game does a good job of making the player develop feelings towards the characters, and giving you the freedom to choose how you want to build your friendship/relationships with them. Though to get the full experience, you might have to play it multiple times. The choices you make in this game do affect the vast number of events that happen in the game. Though I feel like the writing and directing could've used a bit more work, because towards the end everything happened way too quickly and was very anticlimactic, which left me disappointed and a bit depressed.

If you have patience for lots of reading, drama, and romance, this game is well worth your time.

It starts out OK, but it seems to me like it's very incomplete, like the story just skips a few chapters, picks up again, and leaves whoever's playing the game floundering. Characters don't develop so much as they suddenly jump from spot to spot on their arc, with no progression, they're just suddenly there, and some parts(specifically anything involving receiving a text message) are just broken, and don't display at all. For all that there's supposed to be conversation trees, there is almost no choice when it comes to actual conversations. Also, while the RPG mechanics are interesting, they're also very incomplete, as you are lacking anything to indicate level progression.

RE: Developer response
The storyline goes on with or without the player? I would have visited the characters in question every day if I had the option, but I wasn't given the option. Story arcs just plain vanish literally the next time I see the character in question. Also If you're going to have the story continue with or without the character, you really really REALLY need to reflect that in the in-game writing("What happened to him? Oh right, you weren't there. He got arrested/shot/broke up/won an award for community service/whatever"). Neither you, nor your character should know what happened off screen, so it's annoying when your character knows more about the story than you. I know it's just a game, but what kind of person can go a week without seeing a friend and not ask, "Hey, what's new with you?"

Played this game before it came to Steam and love it through and through!

There are visual novels with longer and deeper storylines, but Fading Heart managed to be more enjoyable than most of them; its characters are downright endearing, and the story is interesting with its share of twists and mysteries.

Among things that makes Fading Hearts favorably stand out among other VNs is that it gives you a lot of actual choice, rather then deciding the route for you based on often- unobvious dialogue choice. For instance, most VNs require the player to focus on pursuing specific girl, often at expense of being cold or downright rude to other girls to avoid getting unwanted “points” with them. Fading Hearts recognizes that being nice to a girl doesn’t mean you are romantically interested in her, and ultimately places decision of who to pursue into your hands. It encourages supporting all your friends regardless of your romantic interest, which I find a refreshing change from many other VNs.

Not to say that the plot can’t force something upon you, it sure can. But even when the choice is taken from you, it is the result of what you choose earlier – choose poorly!

To sum it up, I fully recommend Fading Hearts to everyone who enjoys VNs. And for people not familiar with the genre, I’d say it is a good choice of the first VN if they want to try them out.

Actually quite good. I have played quite a few VN's and they all follow a similar pattern. This one does something different with your personal strength stat and randomization with key plot points. Which means you can play it the same way twice and end up with different endings.

The Characters are better than your stereotypical "ignorant of others feelings" protagonist and the decisions you need to make are pretty tough.

The only bad I noticed was that mid/late game there were hardly any events happening and it felt like one of those repetitive dating sims. It could be that I had just unlocked a lot of events early in the game through sheer luck and ran out of them but it's worth mentioning.

It can be short... but so are the other VN's available on Steam. Replayability is high and that should make up for it a little.