Bloody Chronicles - New Cycle of Death Visual Novel

A promising VN at its beginning that went south due to developer's shift on other games:

That's the title that I'm giving this review, while it may seem bad, I'm going to talk about the positive aspects that initially drawn me to like this game.

The start of the game opens up to a horrific accident that causes the protagonist of this game to lose their parents, already within the first few minutes, we have some backstory about the main character that we play as. As we progress through the game, we become acquainted with a few other characters, Suzumi, Kaoru, Aki, Akito, and a few others that are quite important to the story, but the enlisted ones are part of the detective team that we work at.

You work alongside the characters, but at times just get to have regular, outside of work conversations that people would have if they were not dealing with a morbid, out of the ordinary crime scene. The ending of the game is the same, regardless of what choices you make throughout the game, though who comes to see the main character on one of the final days can be different depending on the choices you make, Suzumi, Kaoru, Aki, or Akito. Each of the scenes in their own ways are profound, and the interactions that you have had with any of these characters can all culminate into something special (or cracking a cold one open with Akito).

With the positives out of the way, let's discuss the title of this review and why did I give this game a negative review. The developers of this game, Igrasil Studio, have had their work cut out due to development on War of Ashird, including a kickstarter for it, along with another 1 or 2 games (excluding BC) being planned/developed. Feeling like that both the BC visual novel, along with its own kickstarter and their backers has been completely pushed aside and abandoned due to accommodating for a broader range of audiences with an RPG game in War of Ashird in comparison to sticking with just one polished game being (or could of been) Bloody Chronicles. Support for this game is desolate at best, and non-existence at worst.

I use to be an avid fan of this game and the studio behind the development of this game, but because of the abandoned state that this game is in despite the developers promising Aki's IF mode next, Suzumi's IF mode etc in their tweets, there's been no real update from the team regarding Bloody Chronicles since the release of Kaoru's IF mode...over a year ago from the time of this review being written. The team are trying to be too ambitious by having too many projects going on at the same time, meaning that none of the products that they put out will ever be completed. Also as a side note as a content creator, content creators are not allowed to stream/record any of the non-18+ IF modes, but the main game is fine because it has choices. By allowing content creators to stream/record, you are increasing your products's visibility on the internet, not strangulating your products's opportunities of selling, how do you think indie titles get popular suddenly? Because a big name on the internet played it on their channel, meaning many more potential eyes are on the game, with a number of them purchasing your product.

I'm disappointed in the lack of support & love for Bloody Chronicles, because at first I loved this game and the team on the surface at the very least were very transparent, but as time has transpired, less work has gone into this game and more work has gone to other games, too many arms needed, increase the capacity of your studio to allow more work to be done, or not have all of these games you are planning to make, not complete any of them and not land yourself in this position where one could have to write a review like this.

I hope this can be a learning curve for the studio, but unfortunately it feels like any updates (asides any releases) are empty promises. Thank you for reading.

I'll start with 'art was good' because this is the only good thing I can say about this game.
At first it gave off some Kara no Shoujo vibes with gruesome murders and all but it all went down the drain with flat jokes, storyline that leads nowhere and supposedly adult detectives behaving like preschoolers. At the point when lily of the valley was stated as deadly poison I almost stopped reading but it all got way worse when I finally did. All in all what you should be aware of:
- voice acting. It's flat and most actors struggle with Japanese names so much it's painful;
- characters. Their personalities (assuming they had any to begin with) are all over the place, like a bunch of different people wrote lines for the same character at different points in time;
- humour. 'This is a chicken. This is a chicken joke. A chicken joke about chicken. Why aren't you laughing?!'
- detective work. I don't even know where to start, that's how bad it is. Characters struggle with the most obvious clues, come to random conclusions based on 'I have the main character powers!' magic and could make a chair look highly intelligent in comparison.
I'm glad I bought this game on sale and sad I bought it at all.

The overall premise and art seemed nice enough, and I like that it had voice acting. Not the greatest acting, but it's easy background noise. That being said, my favorite feature was the skip button, and how it automatically moves you to the next dialogue choice, rather than make you sit a bit while it forwards. I lost interest in the story during the first chapter, and quickly saw it just wasn't going to get any better than this.

If you must play this, I suggest waiting for it to go on sale.

I really enjoyed playing this game for the first time, because it has an interesting story.
Also the voice actors did a good job, which makes it easy to feel more involved into whats going on.
Another thing I like is the musical support with different soundtracks that make it easy to read but also to feel the atmosphere. What I dislike is the certain amount of spelling mistakes, although the language (I played in english) isn't hard to understand and I learned some more words too.
If you are interested in this game, you should consider that this is only Part 1, so the end overall isn't the end of the whole Bloody Chronicles. If there was a Part 2, I would definitely buy that too, because it really got thrilling at the end of Part 1.

The game is incomplete. This is only Act 1 of 3. They are working on 2 other different RPG games as of September 5,2020. I don't know if I will have to buy the other 2 acts.

The art is nice and the setting is fine, but they keep repeating themselves. Also there is a lot of foreshadowing and because they keep repeating themselves it is very easy to tell what is going to happen.

I understand they are trying to build character development and relationships, but repeating what the character is thinking and then having dialogue that repeats the thoughts of the characters, then having the characters talk about what they talked about the next day isn't interesting.

There are side stories, and sub plots, but they feel so out of place. You are talking about murders one day then the next you are having a lighthearted subplot. People should be much more Sad and much more on edge and much more upset. There is someone killing people, people should be afraid, they all act like they aren't afraid.

Literally spent 7 hours on this and it did not need to take 7 hours to tell the story.

The story has a lot of potential, and I am interested in what happens but there's also a lot of room for improvement. I know that some people like the voice acting, but personally, while I could tell the voice actors were trying, they couldn't make me believe they were the characters and it was too distracting so I ended up putting voices on mute.

The characters felt very flat, and it felt like the they were given troopy personalities with no real depth. While a lot of people praised them on their detective skills, they looked and felt more like a high school students with an in to the police force and that's why they got to interfere. There were also quite a lot of moments, like going to the museum, that felt very forced and ridiculous.

The art was well done, but it was a bit too polished, if that makes sense. The art lacked the thing needed to really get you into the more gruesome and ominous parts of the story, though it worked well with the more slice of life parts.

Overall, while I can't really recommend it to most people, I do think that this has potential and I think that the team can go far if they continue to work on their writing, maybe tighten it up in areas because it did drone on unnecessarily at points, fleshed out the characters more, and also work on the voice actors bit and creating the right atmosphere. They got close a couple of times.

The only other parts are mostly nitpicks. Like I couldn't stand the white haired kids. They were just annoying. And the fact that Kazuki was immediately hostile towards every male character in the story. Like, all he had to do was look at them and he already hated and was annoyed by them, and it got predictable and ridiculous after a while. Also, maybe don't make one of the characters have pants that ride so low at the beginning of the game that it appears she's not wearing pants.

There were some small typos and character voice acting not matching what was said, but otherwise it was a fun game. They were not joking when they said 25+ hours to get through the game. If those issues turn you off then I would recommend waiting for the game to go on sale.

I admit I just completed chapter 1 so far, but I'm really enjoying the game. It has beautiful artwork, excellent soundtrack, and most important likable characters. I have some cons here and there, for one I've seen quite a few translation errors and it hinders the experience, but can be fixed. There is also the fact that it seems that our player character can just come off as a real dick at times with no real reasoning, but that could be explained later on, again I've only just completed chapter one so far. Overall, I really like the game and can't wait for the continued story parts supposedly to be released.

Came back to write a short review because the overall review of this game has surprised me.

I was looking forward to this game before its release, being quite a fan of VNs in general. The game was a disappointment. I have to admit I didn't play through it. The writing is really bad. The language is rather... amateur and the structure isn't great. The game just drags and drags and can't get to the point. I started skipping a few hours in, hoping it will get better, but it didn't. So I stopped playing.

Can't remember much of the plot but I don't recall it being anything stunning. Certainly not enough to make this game playable despite the writing. Can't recommend.

If you like awesome characters with unique
characteristics and love breathtaking Detective/Mystery stories, then this is the right game for you.

But like every game there are some cons. But first to the
positive points:

Pros

+ interesting story
+ well designed backgrounds
+ awesome and good looking characters
+ amazing design
+ choices that have an impact on the scenes you see
+ romance
+ great soundtracks
+ wonderful voice acting
+ side stories

Cons

- some minor bugs are present
- Aktio showed too little reaction at the end


To sum up I think it's an awesome game that is worth it's money for everyone who likes exciting Detective/Mystery stories.
However you shouldn't expect too much action in this VN.

Painfully Childish, if you expected something a little more dark, intense, serious, interesting.

You'll be disappointed.

If you expected a cookie cutter anime like setting, with 4 kids playing detective. You've got exactly what you are looking for.

PROS:

+ Interesting and well paced story with nice mixture from Detective and murder-mystery, to comedy and slice of life;
+ Characters you'll love to interact and have a fun time with;
+ Choice making:
. You will see different cutscenes and learn information you wouldn't get from other option;
. You raise affection with characters, later in the game you get a bonding event (safe content don't worry) with the character with highest affection (i got Akito on my 1st playthrough, not even mad) ;
. All decisions and affections carry in next games (ACT 2 and 3).
+ Good voice acting (my personal favorite is Akito bro);
+ Good art style and cute chibis;
+ Nice Soundtrack fitting the current cutscene;
+ Backlog to re-read dialogues;
+ Rollback button, i really like this one because having an option to go back to previous dialogue, if i happen to skip it by accident, is more convenient than loading a save file.

CONS (The game is in Early Access so it's mostly bugs than issues):

- Minor wording;
- Most lines from 3 side characters aren't voiced later in the game;
- The OST goes silent for a bit in the last crime scene in the story, it returns after a while though.

First playthrough of the game goes between 25H to 30H if you're curious. However i suggest you do a 2nd playthrough (you can skip dialogue towards next choice making) and check out the other choices you didn't make. It's interesting discovering information, which i did not get to know on my 1st playthrough.

Another note there is upcoming content on the way including Adult Content oh my how lewd , and DLC that will come out when it's ready.

Overall i really enjoyed Bloody Chronicles and i'm looking forward to how the story continues, and i definitely recommend it if you're looking for a great visual novel.

This game has some minor issues. However, I still give it a solid 9/10 for it's good story, lovable characters, good art style and soundtrack.

Okay, I don't really write reviews but this one is an exception.

I am a fan of visual novels in general and this game is not exactly the "best". There are some bugs here and there but I was expecting that as it is still in early access. This game combines mysteries and thriller with slice of life and romance together, this combination is not really famous as it is hard to pull off. Why? Because it requires good balance between all the genre, a little bit too much of that and the game is ruined.

This game is not exactly "unique" per se but it's execution in the story and how you can choose what you want to do is really satisfying in some way, cause you could literally choose to "Go home" every time. I recommend this for those who plays visual novel regularly but not for those who expects seriousness every second within the game.

Overall, I give this game a rating of 6.5/10. Mind you this rating is still in early access, who knows after the game is fully released it might changed as it brings more content to the game overall. XD

Bloody Chronicle - New Cycle of Death is the first episode of a three part interactive story.

The first thing is that graphic work is on point ! Characters are beautiful, so are backgrounds. This is excellent work of prime importance for an interactive story.
In addition, Igrasil has some talent for writting good characters and bringing them to life ! I spent 18h on the game and felt really attached to them. Their psychology and dialogues are excellent making me really tried to learn more about each of them.
Everything is not perfect, of course. Some moments are quite unexpected for a story taking part in a realistic world, and the fact that the protagonist already has a decided personality prevent the player to have as much influence as you could wish.
But the more we progress, the more the story intrigue... In the end, I was really hooked by the plot ! And if the dialogue choices are not as numerous as one could wish, the actions we choose have a real impact on the story and uncover entire new chapter from romance options (well written again !) to entire new scenes.

To sum up : this game has great graphics, intriguing story, various content and very well written character bourght to life with an excellent voice acting ! For a first work, Igrasil show real promises and I am eager to discover more about this game and their future work !

So yes, overall, I recommend it ! good job here ! =)

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A little update of my review since I did a second playthrough of the game with the update 1.3.1

The improvements brought by the v 1.3.1

Overall i really enjoy playing this game, let's list the positives and negatives

Positives

Negatives

have been following this game for about two years now.bought it day 1 and i gotta say i was quite impressed by it.the story is pretty good and you had alot of choices to make which impacted and will impact the story.

Positives:
Good story
Likeable characters
Best girl kaoru
Multiple choices that will impact later games
Sountrack is really impressive and you can actually buy it as DLC

Negatives
When the game first came out there were some spelling errors and no backlog.However i was told by developers that it would be fixed in a later patch so thats not really a problem anymore.
Romance being picked by how many points you get with a character.Normally that works quite well but if you play as someone who tries to get points with everyone the game kinda picks a character at random.Would have been nice if depending on how many points you got you could pick the romance option yourself.

Overall i really enjoyed the game and it was well worth the money i spend on it+ OST.
Definitely am looking forward to continuation of the story.

First, I will say this game has its good points. The music is decent and the UI is well-designed. The background and main character art is nicely done. It's clear that a lot less effort was put into secondary character art but since we don't see it much it's not a big deal.

However I think that it really suffers from poor writing, and I'm not talking about the grammar and spelling problems because I know that they're being fixed. The plot has potential but the writing just seems really amateur to me. The dialogue doesn't feel realistic but I didn't find it interesting or entertaining either. A lot of it is corny and many of the emotional scenes feel shallow or contrived.

I also feel that the writer really underestimates the reader at times. There are things that are evident but that are explained in detail. For example there is a "secret message" found at a murder scene that I think almost anyone would understand at first glance, but one of the characters explains how she figured it out as if it was a super complex and clever puzzle. There's another part where a character has to explain to the main characters, who are detectives, the difference between knowledge and wisdom. And like other reviews on here mention, the twist is heavily hinted at even from pretty early on. I think that they drop far too many hints, some of them really obvious. Maybe it's intentional but it takes away the best part of a murder mystery. And overall I think that the writing and presentation in general is lacking in style.

Being that this is a text-heavy game, all of this really ruins it for me. It's not a terrible game but I don't think it's a good one either. If you want a great serial murder mystery VN just play Chaos;Child.

Bloody Chronicles is a muder-mystery/thriller visual novel and certainly delivers on that part. The mystery is well written and the religious influence and symbolism well researched. The big twist towards the end however was forshadowed a lot, so that if you aren't completely new to mysteries, you're gonna see it coming a mile away. That said, this game is only the first of a trilogy, so the kinda obvious twist might not be what it seems to be, since the story can change in the following 2 games.
The characters are all well written with their own personalities and quriks, so that the slice of life and comedy part of the novel is also very entertaining.
The soundtrack is also really good and fitting for every situation.

The only complaints i have are, that the novel does not have a backlog (or i was too stupid to find how to open it...), meaning that if you click too fast or want to re-read a line, you have to either reload a prior savegame or just continue without it.
Also it does not give a notebook. This can sometimes lead to confusion, since you investigate a serial killer and obviously a serial killer has multiple victims. So when the cast talks about one of the victims you may sometimes find yourself wondering wich of the victims they are exactly talking about. A notebook with some notes to the cases/victims and maybe other characters you have met could've prevented that. HOWEVER i will also say that this was only an issue at the beginning for me and the more the story went on the more you got used to the names and everything.
The third and last complaint i have is, that the game ends on a cliffhanger. I know it's a shiity complaint to have and yes i knew beforehand that this is the first game of a trilogy, so it's also kinda unfair to complain about but still... It does end kind of sudden in the middle of the climax and there is no release date for the second act yet so only buy this novel if you don't mind playing the waiting game.

All the complaints are just minor though. Overall the game is really good. If you are looking for an engaging mystery with well written characters that keeps you entertained all the way through, you found it.

I will also say that i played a lot of time in offline mode so steam didn't count the correct time, it takes longer than 18 hours to finish, probably more between 25-30.

you guys made great story love deep in my heart hope you guys keep on doing what you love XD