The Letter - Horror Visual Novel

The Letter is an incredibly large visual novel—my first playthrough alone took around 19 hours to complete. While there certainly is a lot of reading, the whole thing is fully voice-acted (with great actors), which helps a lot. It wasn't until my second playthrough, however, that I truly realized just how much this story could drastically change. A character I assumed to be essential to the plot the first time around was written out in my second playthrough with just a couple of bad choices, and the game didn't abruptly end with a non-standard game over (or gloss over their ensuing absence). Instead, it continued, with their loss factoring into the continuing story in a way that almost felt as if it was meant to happen. I was also convinced at the time that characters I lost the first time around were meant to go with how naturally the story played out without them—only to find out in subsequent playthroughs that their loss was not necessary at all.

Achievement hunters will love finding all the ways they can shape the story, with dozens of achievements to earn for doing so. Completionists, however, will likely find exploring every possible path in the final two chapters to be quite difficult. Fortunately, the developers have included plenty of quality-of-life features to help with doing all of this. An option to instantly skip all previously-seen text up until the next choice (allowing playthroughs to potentially be completed in mere minutes!), a branching tree to track what choices have been made while showing what choices remain to be made, and a gallery of all that you've seen thus far are all very helpful.

ashton frey my beloved

So far, it's good. I've been playing on Deck. I had read the game's QTEs require a full keyboard, so I disabled QTEs in the options. On Deck it defaults to trackpad as mouse and using A to proceed text, so it's easy to play this as a purely reading visual novel and use the trackpad to save and exit.

This visual novel is great because it's long, the dialogues are fully voice acted in English, you play as different characters so you can understand the story in different perspectives (but that also leads to repetition), and it have different endings to offer which depends on the choices you made. There are mini animations and mini-games where you fought against the ghost, which makes the story more immersive.

Decent VN, there's some jumpscares, however it's just that, not too spooky, but as i said decent overall. Luke best worst character.

having high expectation on this one , complete the game and feel this game is overrate , the story is kinda generic and have so many dairy activity dialog that is no much important , seem just to drag the gameplay ... collecting branch and story also take too much effort , I couldn't bother to 100 percent this game which is a shame ... even story seem lacking , the art and the voice acting is much appreciate , i can see this is a project with passion but lacking unique story and have a lot of dragging content

Okay, first of all, yes, this game is long, but it took me 300 hours because I mostly played it in Chinese, and I'm not very good at Chinese. Well, I'm a lot better now thanks to this game, but anyway, your playtime should be much lower.

Anyway... is it a well-written, well-developed story with halfway relatable characters? Not really. Is it a fun, campy horror visual novel with good production value and A TON of choice? Yes. It's a (mostly) well-designed game with high production value, good art, and a sufficiently interesting plot with more branches than you can imagine brought down by unlikeable characters, poor writing, bad grammar, and the worst voice acting direction I've ever seen. If you're looking for a campy horror story with tons of choice and don't mind unreasonably long monologues, this is your game.

GOOD:

・The art. There are different art styles for the characters in different contexts (e.g., other characters you're talking to, your character's icon when they're talking, epilogue art), but they're all good. It's a very polished, nice-looking game overall. Luke has an annoying little line on his face when you're talking to him, but otherwise, the art is great.

・The choice. There are TONS of branches. Pretty much every choice matters, either giving you a different ending or changing the characters' relationships. Sometimes the relationship questions are ridiculously obvious and sometimes it seems completely arbitrary which option is the "good" one, but choices certainly matter.

・The branch tree. You get a nice visual for each chapter of all the choices and branches, which is such a great idea. It was quite poorly implemented, but I love the idea.

・The story. Well, there are a lot of problems with the story, and the writing is quite bad, but it's fun as a game. It would not be a good book, but it's good as a game. The characters (might?) grow on you.

・The soul. It's a labor of love, and you can tell. I have a lot of qualms with the game, but I can appreciate that the devs poured their hearts into it, and I did have a great time with it.


BAD:

・The repetition. Chapters 1, 2, and 4 are basically fine. Chapters 3 and 5 have some annoying repetition. Chapter 6 has a ton of repetition, and Chapter 7 is MOSTLY repetition. My guess is the visual branch tree design caused this because there's limited space to visually represent all the possible nodes, but the game won't recognize identical text on a different node as read, so you'll find yourself having to manually skip text ALL THE TIME once you're far enough in.

・The grammar. Forget a professional proofreader, this game didn't even get checked by a halfway competent native English speaker. You'll hardly go two lines without encountering some sort of mistake. I played most of the game in Chinese, but I did switch to English at the end, so I could still get a good picture of the English quality.

・The voice acting direction. Johannes and Ashton are the only characters with consistently good voice acting. Rebecca, Marianne, and Zach are consistently awful. Other than Kylie, who sounds like an adult exaggerating the squeakiest, most annoying kid voice in the world, I don't think the voice actors themselves are necessarily bad. I think it's just godawful direction, because the tone always seems at least 10 times more intense than the context. Rebecca and Marianne sound like they overreact with blind fury to literally everything and Zach sounds so annoyingly dense most of the time.

・The characters. I'm not sure what the devs were going for, but I don't think the characters are that likable. Ashton was the only one I consistently liked, but it seems like a lot of people don't like him, and the writers certainly villianize him every chance they get. The game gaslit me for 300 hours about Rebecca being "patient," even though she routinely starts yelling at her friends for no reason at all. Zach is really annoying because the writers won't stop doting on him. Even a character who hates him still says about him, in his first-person narration, "What little anger he is capable of feeling is clear on his face, lining his soft and kind features." Come oooon, is that how you would think about someone you hate? Really?

・The writing. It has all the typical trappings of amateurish writing, including unnecessarily pretentious vocabulary, semicolon misuse, overuse of italics, and inappropriate use of epithets (i.e., random descriptors for familiar people -- e.g., a guy in a first-person narration randomly referring to his wife as "the woman" instead of "she" or her name. Excuse me, do you have amnesia...?). Also, even though the characters have distinct voices in their dialogue, their first-person narration all sounds exactly the same. And the pacing, good god. I'm absolutely here for a slow psychological horror, but the monologues ramble on and on and oooon, bludgeoning you with boring and unnecessary details as you patiently or impatiently wait for something to finally happen. The dialogue is often similarly clunky, especially from Zach and somewhat Luke.


But for all my grievances in 300 hours of this game, I really enjoyed it. It was a good experience and a very promising start for this studio. So, yes, I can recommend it. Thank you, devs, for all the hard work and love you poured into this game and for the grade-A Chinese lesson.

What a great game.

This game is easily one of the scariest games I've ever played... and I'm quite used to horror games. I don't know if it's a mix of the voice acting and the scenarios and timing but I've never jumped so many times.

Speaking of voice acting and writing, the game is fantastic on those counts.

It's a slow burn. It really feels like you are just jumping into a fairly complex group of people's lives as they get mixed up with this horrifying scenario.

I fully admit I did not do super well on my first play through with people surviving and just had to set it down for a long while after that.

I like how many different choices there are and the different butterfly effects these choices can lead to. The art style is really good and the story really well thought out. Some of the dialogue and voice acting could be better but it doesn't take away from the gameplay or story. The QTEs are annoying, especially the one in the lift (if you know, you know). Overall would highly recommend this. It's more of a romance with slight horror story elements but very good.

just finished the game after 5 years, the voice acting holy shit

This is a really solid visual novel, all things considered. The characters come from diverse backgrounds, the voice acting is good, the art style is pleasant, and the choices have true consequences. It's scary too! Although, there are quite a few errors in the writing that can be a little distracting at times. I love that the characters have relationships which you as the player can make or break. That's an awesome aspect to add into a visual novel. I've played for 18 hours already, over the span of a year or two, since I'm not a quick gamer, so take that into account, but it feels like a really long game. There's a ton of achievements I have yet to get. I definitely recommend this game. It's a high-quality, cartoonish (although not too much so), horror VN. The cartoonish aspect almost adds to the horror, making the heavy content all the more startling. Or, at times, it softens the blow. Play this game, for sure!

Great VN with probably the most branching path and best dynamic relationship system I've ever seen in an indie game.
Strong cast of VA and OST really elevated this VN
Unfortunately not for me tho. I find the plot is a little to basic and predictable for my liking but you'll find plenty to love about this VN

8/10

A super interesting VN. I still play it sometimes, trying to unlock all the different endings.

A nice visual novel that's fun to play but incredibly painful to complete lmao. It has an interesting story and plenty of interaction, which is great but horrible at the same time if you want to complete the flowchart/get all achievements (I was actually crying when I had to repeatedly skip through the entire story from the very beginning til the last chapter only to complete every story branch that was often just a tiny difference in the dialogue).
I guess it's important to mention that despite being a horror game, the VN still has lots of emphasis on the characters and their relationships (which I occasionally found boring tbh) but I think that it's actually refreshing how the game makes all characters have some sort of unlikable flaws that make them realistic, plus many of the characters are really dramatic which makes it entertaining (the voice actors truly gave their best there lol). The art is flawless and while I agree with the popular opinion that the character sprites seem somewhat odd at first and need to get used to, the CGs are still very beautiful and easily have some of the best detailed gore I've seen in VNs/games so far.
The main antagonist is overall a quite stereotypical/cliche ghost that is often seen in classic horror movies (based on her design and "performance") which I honestly enjoyed for that nostalgic feeling, yet I also liked how there is still a decent (implied) explanation for the ghost's actions. However I wish that the story had more flashbacks/detailed background information, especially for the ghost (since it's the most important plot part which I wanted to find out more about) but also all characters in general, since the reader often only gets a vague idea of what their past was like.
Overall I loved playing this, especially since you could experience the plot through different perspectives and also freely impact the story (it's fun to just, be able to murder the entire cast if you want to lol). I just believe it would've been better if that major effort rather went into going deeper in the lore, instead of creating that huge amount of story branches that often don't change the plot at all XD.

Virtually zero horror this game is actually a romance sim where you can play as cupid for a group of people. Every once in a few hours something spooky will happen and by spooky I mean a .jpg will pop up and the character will get scared but never mention it again, which is how you should react to this game

Great game! Really liked the story. I wish there was a bit more detailes about some characters backstories to understand a bit better what happened to them. But overall had a great experience while playing this game:)

It can get a little boring. The story spends a lot of time establishing all the characters' bonds. I wanted Scary Movie, not Friends. But the scary moments are fun. It's a great horror visual novel if you don't mind all the build-up.

This game is fucking EVIL. AND ITS A VISUAL NOVEL. Guhhhh I've been reeling after this. Always finding one more way to give you the finger

I love these characters. I bonded with them. And seeing anything happen to them was soul crushing. Even though they had plenty of solace, I still feel dread the MOMENT the THING shows up. Oh lord

This game isn't full pedal to the metal with the horror, if that is what you are looking for. There is more than enough time to breath, with moments in between to only strength the horror further. Lots of mystery busting and bonding, and it was nice having a visual novel be FULLY voice acted. I was super shocked and enjoyed it

I can't sing enough praises about this, Yangyang Mobile. You guys did great and I'll be here crying inside for a while :(

This a very specific visual novel, a person will either love it or not like it. Personally, I was in the camp of not liking it too much.

The biggest factor being, it is hardly a horror visual novel. There are scary moments and jump scares, but I would not classify this as a horror visual novel. This is more a slice of life/drama VN with a splash of a haunting and murder mystery. If that is what you're looking for, you'll love this game! Unfortunately, I wanted something more on the scarier or gothic side (I loved the House in Fata Morgana, for example).

Pros:

• It's long
  
• Branching choices/multiple endings
  
• A variety of characters and personalities
  
• Nice art and BGs
  
• Some of the jumpscares get you good!
  

• It's long
  
• "Horror" sections are few and far between
  
[*] You have to REPLAY the same story seven different times through the POV of different characters (this is for a single playthrough, not multiple). There are obviously some changes in the POVs, but some sections are just the same/similar.

Super good with setting the ambiance its insane and the characters are so lovable. Beautiful art work and great story!

GOTY tier visual novel, it's still one of my favorites years later after playing it

The idea is interesting, but realisation is rather meh. Game looks like generic mobile game #42, sounds even worse, and voice acting made me turn it off in first 15 minutes or so. Oh, and how can we make a game without obliged "white ppl le bad" in this day and age.

Overall not a bad game. The lines are way too YA for my taste, but there are good stuff if you can overlook the cringe and cheesiness.

Good VN with great voice acting

Boring game. I get that it is a novel, but in 3h of gameplay barely nothing happened. I dont want to wait for another 5h to get a scary part...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH i fucking love this game its ososssosososososososoososossoooooooooooooooo good
One of, if not the, best horror visual novels i've played