The Grand Ball

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6.5/10. Respectibly interesting premise and portrayal, with choices that feel meaningful but ultimately never difficult. This VN is too short to do very much, and suffers from some technical awkwardness.

Technical details: Quite barebones, and of somewhat poor quality at that. Convenience features like text speed are included, but don't actually seem to do anything (I changed it to as fast as possible, but the text didn't change speed at all). The grammar isn't particularly good. The art is ever-so-slightly good, but again very barebones (no expressions or poses, just a single sprite on the background).

Gameplay: It's a VN. You make choices. The choices here do direct the story pretty obviously which is good, but for the most part there's no difficulty - you say to yourself "I want to go for that girl" and you pick her choices and get her ending. Ironically there is one choice where I felt the opposite (light spoilers): you're placed in a difficult situation, and one of the dialog options is to aid the person holding you under duress. My immediate inclination was to choose this and treat it as a lie, to get myself out of the difficult situation, but the game plays it straight. Ultimately it's up to the creators to decide what a choice does, but this felt like a moment where there was another reasonable option.

Story: You're the son of an about-to-be-disgraced noble family, making a last-ditch effort to win a lady's hand and purse. It's a slightly interesting twist, in that you're the inferior of each individual you encounter (including the women) based on nobility and wealth. The story is set in the 1800s, and a screen shown before the story makes it clear that the writers emphasized an accurate portrayal over modern sensibilities. This is made obvious in one ending, for which I commend the writers highly. The story also includes some light intrigue that plays out in amusing ways.

Very short, very light, but pretty interesting.

The Grand Ball is a delightful visual novel set in Victorian England. You play as an heir of a noble but almost bankrupt house. Receiving an invitation to the grand ball you get so many opportunities to improve your fortune.

The first thing that caught my attention was gorgeous art. I love those backgrounds. They set the right mood immediately. Quite soon I was drawn into that atmosphere of refined, exquisite conversations but often hiding deadly intrigues and plots... There's no real action here, just lots of noble interactions. It felt unique and quite enjoyable. It was especially pleasant to read that slightly formal, overly polite English. Something you don't usually hear every day in our ordinary peasant life (there're some typos typically, though).
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1761552274
The game is short. It takes approximately 2 hours to reach all endings. But as the story is about one visit to a ball, it seems quite natural to have this short length. Anyway we encounter more than enough fascinating characters with interesting personalities. That butler, oh my <3. Just the type I like. So shrewd, impeccable, satisfied with his modest role but still so influential. I even wish the game was longer with traditional love routes. And with a butler route at all cost! Mmm I like how it sounds.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1761552210 
It's historically authentic novel. So be prepared to quite harsh treatment of homosexual relations Luckily, the developers don't support this attitude. It was especially sad to read about similar fate Oscar Wilde had to suffer. He is one of my favorite foreign writers. So adding that reference, that real-life example made the novel closer, though way gloomier.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1761552489
Unfortunately, many reviews are negative. They even delayed my playthrough. But I really enjoyed the game. The only complaint, however significant and annoying it was couldn't totally ruin my positive impression. And again that issue was inconvenient settings:
--There's no save when choices appear. And there're lots of choices for such a short game with lots of endings and you can't save your progress and have to start from the very beginning or save somewhere in between choices because you don't know when the next choice will appear. So frustrating.
--Then there's only all text skip. So you have to either click through the text you've already read or use a log to read the text you missed while skipping:( urgh Annoying. My first excitement faded slightly after my first playthrough. It's upsetting to see a nice game with an interesting idea but with the lack of some basic settings.

Overall, this visual novel was an emotional experience. Despite some flaws I'd still recommend to try it.

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I honestly think that this game is not worth buying and should be for free. I have played many other VN games for free that are much more worthy to be sold online.

The soundtrack is okay. The art is okay. The writing is usually okay, although the romance aspects are often rushed and corny. There are plenty of choices throughout the novel, although some have no meaning and others are typically misleading. A single playthrough without a premature game over will typically take about 35-60 minutes, depending on how fast you read.

For a $5 game that isn't a particularly good value. That said, it was interesting enough to play through more than once to see other aspects of your choices. Sadly, many of those choices are irrelevant. Overall, not a completely terrible experience, but not a particularly memorable one either. Not a great value, even for $5. Pass.

Hello Steam user who is wondering if this little visual novel is worth their time. I'm going to tell you right now that the short answer is yes. This is the second review I've ever written so if it sounds a little awkward and cluttered that's why.

Pros
– it's cheap
– the three love interests are memorable and have widely different opinions and views
– this game was well researched and it enhances the emerging ability to where you really feel like you're reading a novel written during the time
– variety of good and bad endings some of which were completely unexpected while others where heartwarmingly sweet

Cons
– limited art. While I found the character designs pleasing, the lack of expression change when they talk really bothers me since I've seen other visual novels (including free ones) where you can tell the expressions on the character's faces change to fit the mood. The backgrounds are very beautiful but don't match well with the characters and look distracting. There are also no CGs which is such a shame.
– The interface. It's generic, clunky, and doesn't fit with the tone.

Neutral
– it's short. Like I said in my last review, I put it under neutral because some people like their game shorter while others prefer longer one. In this case I would've preferred it longer but I understand why it was short because the whole point of the story was the setting and it would've been very hard to make the ball longer while having it still feel authentic.
– The music. The music definitely fit with the atmosphere and certainly helped with its tone but I personally didn't care for it.

All in all I'll recommend this one. If you are interested in English history or just want a taste of historical fiction, this is the visual novel for you. If you're not interested in either then this is probably not to your taste.

The Grand Ball is a visual novel set in a Victorian setting. You play as the son of a Viscount going to a ball to court a rich heiress to save your declining house fortunes. How is it? Let's start with the good points: Firstly, the writing was witty, especially the butler. In addition, the Victorian setting was well researched. Meanwhile, as for the music and the art, it was rather generic and passable.

However, this visual novel suffers from some serious weakness in terms of its narrative structure. There was no development for any of its endings, most of them came rather abruptly. There was no overall message, or point to the story. (Which is worse than a story making a cliche/uninteresting point) That is, the whole visual novel felt like "a description of some random happenings in a ball during Victorian times."

Overall, I wouldn't recommend it, because this did not felt like a story at all. (which is what I think a visual novel should be) Even an cliche story would be better than a non-story.

Ugh so close. I would say my percent for giving this a thumbs down is 49/51% I may revisit it at a later date and change it to a thumbs up but for today I was too disappointed in the things I wanted in this game.

Art:
Even before I bought the game I had a problem with the art style. The colors look too faded and the character designs felt a bit either plain or pale. Look at the chests of each character and point out a design that you like that differentiates themselves from what you would picture a generic version of this game to be.

Choices:
So what I will say is probably my favorite part of visual novels is the choices, but what I will criticize about the genre as a whole is that when you are presented the choices you are rarely given the context if you auto skipped the text up to this point. I know that these games try to drag out the length by writing longer text boxes but I feel it's to the detriment of the genre instead of the benefit. I'm a 'brevity is the soul of wit' kind of guy. It's fine if one character is very verbose and goes on great diatribes of explanation but when ever character does it, then it begins to feel like bad writing. And that's a problem because I know the people who write these games aren't bad writers, it's just that the shorter the exposition, the shorter the game, or they could try to add in more choices but then that either forces them to add in false choices or program for more choices. I sympathize with the developers on this issue but when characters drag on, my score drags down.

Conclusion:
If you buy this game, I don't think you will be disappointed it but if you are a clone of me, you will be disappointed. What was I hoping for from this game? I was hoping for a visual novel version of Crusader Kings 2 set in Imperial England, this is more average visual novel with meaningful choices.

This visual novel is a period piece in the Victorian Era. You place as the heir to the Blakely noble house... which has fallen on hard times. As your father had not expected to become Viscount before the death of his brother, you have... limited training in the art of being a noble. And now you have been thrust to a grand ball for a chance to perhaps change that fortune.

There are two main love interests, and another that you could pursue (as basically, you become the "mistress" of a Duchess). Amid these there are a bunch of bad endings. Still, the story is sweet enough. That said, do try and get this on discount. The background style might leave a bit to be desired...

3 out of 5 stars

EDIT : [2017DEC07] I finally completed the game! With the help of a walkthrough because I kept dying in the Manhunt achievement for some reason :/ it was cute how the girls had a fairytale dream of relationships.

EDIT : [2017DEC01] Ohkay my mistake, the game itself wasn't horrible, but I'm not really good with my history of the Victorian era. That's why I had difficulty choosing between choices.

I couldn't be anymore interested in this particular kind of visual novel.

(´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡ -- What I Loved Best

٩(｡•́‿•̀｡)۶ -- What Was Ohkay

(⇀‸↼‶) -- What Could've Been Better

This review won't be very long as the visual novel isn't long or deep enough to really warrant it, but I wanted to bring this gem to your attention. The Grand Ball is a splendid little novel that takes place at the Victorian Ball of Lady Amelia Camberwell. You play as Edgar Blakeley, a viscount's son who's family has come onto hard times, and who must now court a wealthy wife to help save his family's house. Although completely fictional, the writers put a lot of love and care into crafting the story to be as historically accurate as possible, and it's an absolute joy to read. Navigating the intricacies of British nobility, courting lovely ladies, uncovering political intrigue, with plenty of scandalous gossip tossed in; the 5 hours I spent completing all endings was well worth the $5 I spent on this gem. It may not be for everyone, but it's definitely worth a look if you enjoy stories set in the time period.

Curated by: Chudah's Corner

The Grand Ball is a period Visual Novel set in Victorian Britain. You play as Edgar Blakely, a son of a poor noble that is looking to go to a Grand Ball to somehow make a connection that can save his family from their financial problems. I don’t want to add too much more as I don’t want to spoil the story for you guys.

Writing/Story

The writing is top notch, really greatly captures the whole “period” feel. Clearly the writer has a lot of experience with this old style of talking. It felt like I was in a Jane Austen novel! The story itself is really good and I enjoyed both one of the main romantic arcs and a few of the other “funny” endings. It’s hard to classify a genre for this as it had both really serious mysterious moments and also really funny moments in the dialogue (Jameson, the butler is my favourite character! He definitely had the funniest lines).

Music/Audio

Absolutely loved the music! The score was made up of orchestral waltzes and chamber music; some of it composed specifically for the game and other tracks rearrangements of classical compositions. It really made me feel like I was in another time period. Good use of SFX too, something I see ignored in a lot of VN’s but in this case used often enough!

Art/Style

The sprites were generally quite nice, especially the ladies with their dresses. Some of the male sprites like Jameson and The Viscount felt a bit simplistic and rushed. The backgrounds were nice too, nothing out of the world but definitely doing a good job setting the scene.

Gameplay

A lot of endings (eight I believe, I’ve only unlocked about half of them) and some of them were pretty damn funny. I did get two of the romantic endings, one was really sweet and the other felt just a little rushed. The “funny” endings were great; I like how in this game if you aren’t careful you end up in a really mad situation. The buttons were super basic, I kind of wished that they had done Victorian style buttons, the rest of the UI was Victorian so at least that. A reasonable amount of choices, it would be nice to have it a little more interactive but at least it feels like every choice is important and definitely affects which ending you get!

Overall

A pretty nice VN. I unlocked a bit more than half of the endings in 2 and a half hours so I expect to unlock all of them in 4-5 a hours assuming that they are all reasonably easy to unlock. Recommended. 7/10.