VOID

Void is an interesting one. The easiest way to explain is to break down the good and the bad.

Good:
- Long enough to explore the story it wants to tell, not so long as to overstay its welcome.
- A genuinely interesting and engaging story.
- A few different paths.

Bad:
- Mistakes in the text. There's not a ton, but there's enough to be noticeable. (Several lines have the leading letter repeated).
- Obviously made in renpy, but for some reason doesn't allow you to skip with the same precision renpy does. Probably due to being coded inefficiently. There's multiple passages with just one line different, which are treated as entirely different passages.
- Bad endings are obvious and extremely short. Some time to explore these instead of Arthur immediately going psycho and trying to kill himself/the others would have been good.

Overall, worth your time. Took me about 4h to complete. Maybe wait for a sale?

This short visual novel has a couple of decent character designs but the cliched and insubstantial plot of a poor Hollywood thriller. It doesn't even work as a thriller when a VN doesn't animate action scenes and this VN only has sprites for a few of its characters - reading about equally mindless action, love or angst while looking at a blank background for half the game doesn't even give cheap thrills. Reader choices, the real strength of VNs, couldn't be much more basic. I'm afraid I wouldn't even recommend getting this game in a sale.

Reading VOID is frustrating. I keep looking for VNs that are well written and tell good stories involving characters I care about, and I still have yet to find more than a handful that fit that description.

You can evaluate good writing on several levels: 1) technical command of the language, as in grammar, punctuation, and avoiding typos; 2) wordsmithing, as in using the language's flexibility to its fullest when building a narrative; and 3) storytelling, as in tone, pacing, logic, character development, plot, and flow.

This is an action thriller that is neither action-filled nor thrilling because it falls short on all three counts, though admittedly to varying degrees. Other reviewers have commented on the occasional problems in category 1 and the more noticeable problems in category 3.

Considering that most of the action scenes I've encountered so far (I've gotten through Julie's route at this writing) involve only text in front of a static, plain background (sometimes just the cloudy sky) with no characters in sight, the writing--the wordsmithing--must be up to par to create and carry the action, and in VOID it is definitely not doing that. The writing is so dry, so pedestrian, so unvaried in its descriptions of events that it does not adequately convey action, urgency, danger, or intensity. It does not use the rhythm of writing to paint a picture, to communicate emotion, to build tension and then shatter it, to draw the reader in and make them eager to wear the MC's shoes.

I also have a hard time suspending my disbelief when it comes to these characters' appearance versus who they're supposed to be and how they got to this stage in their lives. Yes, the CGs are well done. The design for the sprites, however, makes these characters look like they're just teenagers play-acting at being assassins and secret agents. That, combined with the dull writing and the gratuitous profanity (swearing is fine if it's used wisely, for maximum impact and in appropriate situations) results in a story that fails to be compelling.

I will finish the other routes because I do still want to know how the canon story ends. But I am disappointed to see that this is yet another VN story that I am not actually enjoying.

VOID is a controversial story that starts with revenge and grows into a conspiracy theory in which the main character Arthur gets involved, and it all starts with the murder of Arthur's girlfriend Hana, which drives Arthur to find her killer.
The story is not quite so simple, so an apparently involuntary murder turns into a hunt for secret organization and rulers from the shadows.

The entire focus of the game is on the story, there is very little description of emotions and relationships between characters, everything is thrown on the action.
While playing, I had the feeling that the story was rushing, mission after mission and so on until the very end.
I wanted to get to know more of the agents that Artur was with, so maybe some emotion would happen, but there was no time for that, just some small dialogue with dinner or lunch, and then the briefing for the new mission.

The missions are short, described in detail with a lot of details about the weapons themselves, models, capacities, calibers of ammunition, which I was not too interested in considering that I have little understanding of it, but a good description of the action always kept me reading.

All in all, a solid visual novel. It's not one of those that you'll stop and think about, nor one that will stay in your memory for a long time, but a pretty solid story concept.

Although it is relatively short, it took me 6 hours to finish both ends, I liked it.
Solid visual novel, especially if action is something you like in books or movies.

I like VN, I like action/thrillers. I was hoping the plot would be decent or, at least entertaining.
VOID reads like Tom Clancy, without the things that make Tom Clancy worth reading. It feels like the sort of story someone with no knowledge of spy literature or thrillers would write.

The plot is nonsensical, and that'd be fine if it wasn't trying to be serious and edgy. Plus, the characters are tired clichés.
Definitely wouldn't recommend if you are after a good read.

Pretty fun. Sometimes pace feels fast but i leave the inbetweens to my imagination and all is cool.

A pretty good visual novel with a compelling storyline and amazing artworks!!! 10/10

The writing and dialogue felt like a fanfic and amateurish, the story felt very plain and the way people talked was too forced. The art was decent, but didn't really go well with the 'action' oriented nature of the story - most of the action scenes were just an image of a location with descriptions of things happening. The pacing suffered too, there'd be a tense scene followed by a lighthearted one. Overall the quality didn't feel very good.

4-5 hours reading for 100% completion. Writing is good, art is good, sound effects are good. Overall, not bad, not spectacular, all around normal decent visual novel, bad things include being a short visual novel, which meant that the pacing, in which story progresses and events happen, are all over the place. Some times events happen too fast and then it's slow/normal again.

It didn't feel disappointing, but didn't feel exhilarating either. I think this visual novel is perfect analogy for: negative + positive equals zero. It wasn't a great game, but it wasn't a bad game either? Shouldn't that be a 1 instead of 0 then? Positive zero? How does math work again? What am I even talking about.

Anyway, if you buy it from sale, I can pretty much guarantee, you won't regret it. But for the whole 11 euros price? Eeeeh.... think of it as supporting the developers. They have potential based on this game.

And fix your fricking typos and wrong names on some of the lines! Be professional!

Oh and big + for not including meaningless depravity. Respect!

This was a nice change of pace from most VN's. Based in (a fictional) reality with just some light sci-fi elements. Story is engrossing and since all the characters goals are predetermined, it doesn't drag on and on like some others. Kind of plays out more like a movie where many VN's try to do a seasonal TV show. Only a handful of choices but they do drastically affect how the story plays out. While there is a romance element to the game it takes a it takes a backseat to the main plot. May be the first Ren'Py game I've come across that has actual action sequences. Like the artwork, music is good and fitting though not necessarily memorable.

Reading casually and mostly just left on auto, all ending took ~10 hours; skipping where possible. Very few games do I even try for 100% achievements but I found it was worth (the minimal) investment in this case. And it is one of those games where the true ending is locked behind the others. Retail $ isn't bad given it's length but on sale this is a definite good buy.

The graphics are nice, but that's almost the only good thing to tell.

The story doesn't seem to know what to focus on. You can have an infiltration scene start at near the end of it, followed by a romance scene because why not.
The text is a bit too direct. It lacks building up and transitions.
If you read Ciel's route first, a spoiler for Julie's route gets in your face with no warning, since the writer supposed you read Julie's first. Well, I didn't, too bad.
There are occasionaly a few mislabeled name tags, when a line is supposedly said by person A instead of B, which can be confusing.
And there are a lot of "f*ck" words in the dialogues. If you're a competent writer, you don't need to use profanity. At least, not that much.

The sound part is in dire need of fixing.

Music tracks stop abruptly, no fade out.
Sound effects, on the other hand, overstay their welcome. You can hear the phone still ringing *after* it has been picked up and the conversation started.
Worst of it are the background sounds. They don't have a OFF function after their intended scene, so you can still hear it playing when the game has jumped to a totally unrelated scene.

If the technical part were fixed, and the story checked again, it could become a good Visual Novel.
But in its current state, most likely final, it's not worth buying at full price.

Good visual novel with a unique setting/theme for a visual novel.
The story is quite interesting and it comes with many very decent CGs/Art.
There are a few routes to choose from, the Canon route having the longest story however all the other routes are well worth going through too.
Its a great visual novel that just seemed to have passed under most people's radars.
And some slack can be cut for it being such a cheap VN.
Well worth the price!

VOID is an action/thriller visual novel created by Vifth Floor: their second project (first being Just Deserts). VOID has been one I have wanted to check out for a while now, and I finally was able to over the last few days. I'm a big fan of traditional action and thriller media so seeing it in visual novel form was something I came into it excited for. Straight up, I can say it delivers on the action side of things.

Easily the strongest points of VOID is the audio-visual experience. Thie art is lead by Kareidon, known for Fate Grand/Order amongst others and is consistently impressive, high quality and gorgeous. When there are CGs, they are fantastic. The use of animation also helps add to the experience in a similar way to Fault during some of the CGs. The only problem with the art is that there is not enough variety. It starts off good, but quickly encounters scenes which simply do not match what is being shown.

The music is consistently used well. The action scenes and intro cinematic in particular are incredibly well produced and done excellently well. Almost all the tracks really flow well and match the scenes and tone the novel is going for. However, there is a lot of whiplash with some of the songs as the happier tunes do not compliment the darker more mysterious vibe the novel has at times.

The story is what the VN tries to sell you on. Whilst cliche, it definitely has the capacity to be fantastically executed. But it falls into a few traps. Pacing being the big one. At times it is very difficult to follow, and time jumps do not help this. You also need to play through all three routes in order to get a sense for what is happening. I did Ciel's route first, and it was very clear that the writers did not have an idea for how this individual route would be unique. Her story (and even Julie's to an extent) just do not blend with the major plot line particularly well and the pacing of the romance is not dealt with well at all.

However, there are a lot of good elements of the story. Most notably, the main character, Arthur. His character arc is actually intermingled very well with the story and helped to make the canon route quite an enjoyable experience. The twists and turns are very compelling, and I definitely feel that if the developers had a higher budget they could definitely have extended the novel out a few more hours and fixed most of the pacing issues.

Characters are the visual novels weakest point. They are not really explored much, and they are easily defined by one sentence. Most are cliche, and there is not really a reason to hate the antagonist(s) except that they are "bad". Main character is done well, but again, still cliche.

Overall, it is definitely an enjoyable visual novel, with both good and bad elements. The art and soundtrack alongside the action scenes definitely make this a visual novel to pick up if any of you are keen on that genre.

My breakdown:

PROS:
+ CGs. Gorgeous.
+ Music. Almost always good, and adds to the experience.
+ Action scenes. Some really good ones, and definitely done well.
+ Setting. I'm a big fan of the not-quite-real-life version of the USA, and it's dealt with really well.
+ Intro Cinematic. Love the song, love the art, love the animation. Love it all.

CONS:
- Pacing. Badly done.
- Choice. Three choices in the entire game, barely make an impact except to choose which route (and the bad ends).
- Ending. You need to complete all the rooutes to understand what is going on, and it left me completely confused as it sort of just... ends in Julie/Ciel's routes. Only the canon one is done well in my opinion.
- Price. Completed in just under 6.5 hours for $11. Not the worst deal out there, but definitely worth waiting for a sale.

-Scores-
Story: 7
Characters: 5
Art: 8
Music: 8
Enjoyment: 7

Overall: 7/10

tl;dr, worth picking up if you like action and good soundtracks. If you're looking for good characters, look elsewhere.

_____
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Void is a detective thriller type of visual novel game. It reminded me somewhat of Sickness only I found that game to be more interesting and fun to play. The game does feature branching pathways but there are very few choices to be had and the ending I experienced was so abrupt and lackluster I felt no desire to slog through it again. At first I thought the game had crashed or that I had encountered a bug, but nope it just suddenly ends. On the positive side the visuals were very well done even if I found the rest of the game to be disappointing.

7.5/10. Genuinely sharp writing in a medium that so often lacks it and good use of the medium's choice based nature elevate a polished, entertaining experience that ultimately lacks any greater themes.

Void is a thriller VN. I don't know that I've played any other VNs quite like it, but if you've ever read a Robert Ludlum novel, this slots pretty easily into that category. Morally dubious characters running around murdering people while taking time off and having fun.

The story structure is good; the VN uses choices to good effect. And the writing is very slick. Unfortunately it also carries some of the flaws of its genre, like unrealistic ability - the "heroes" are almost never in any real danger. At one point the MC says "I could hear 5, no 8 people coming my way." He's apparently a bat with sonar capabilities.

Really the biggest "issue" I see with this is that there's no real theme behind the story here. CyberRebeat, Enigma, The Silver Case, and many others--they're all saying something. And even in cases where a VN isn't necessarily saying something, it usually has some clear themes (like G-Senjou for example). This one doesn't. It's just...stuff happening.

And that's okay. Not every story needs to have a moral. It simply means there's not much to get out of it but pure entertainment. I had popcorn before writing this review. It's not filling, but sometimes it's just nice to have.

I'm just doing a quick pros/cons for this one. I end up not recommending this one because of lack of choices, unsatisfying romance, and not feeling invested in the story outside of action scenes.

+ Lovely art
+ Action scenes are well written
+ The three main characters have some depth

+/- About 5 hours to complete all paths

- Romance paths are underdeveloped and literally end with a black screen (because reasons)
- Tech babble
- 5 choices in the entire game (2 of which lead to instant bad ends)
- Duplicate scenes in the canon route (from the romance routes) cannot be skipped
- Side characters are flat and uninteresting, and only some of them have art to go with them

VOID is a story-rich visual novel centered around revenge and espionage developed by Vifth Floor and published by Sekai Project. BANG!!! One shot is all that it took to completely change the course of Arthur Woods life. After witnessing his loved one brutally die in his arms, he immediately sets off on a mission to get justice for her only to be denied of it from the judicial system at all turns. Some time later after receiving a cryptic clue in the mail from an anonymous sender, Arthur manages to track down the actual assassin who killed his girlfriend only to learn from the man that he himself is only a tool following the orders of much dangerous and shadowy individuals. He also makes Arthur a deal...train him to be an expert assassin in exchange for all the profits from his future assassination jobs. This would not only get Arthur a chance to get in good with the organization who actually ordered the hit on his beloved but also give him the unique set of skills that he would need to take them down. As our protagonist travels down this path of revenge he haphazardly stumbles into two potential allies, Julie Ross and Ciel Blanchette, who also have a "bone to pick" with the very same shadowy organization known only as "The Syndicate". Welcome to King's Port!

As far as presentation goes, the artwork in this visual novel looks fantastic. The manga-inspired artstyle as always is beautiful and full of gorgeous colors but alot of darker tones are used which really compliment the bleak narrative of the rather intense storyline. Also, as the story progresses you get to visit alot of different locations throughout King's Port from the dilapidated slums, bustling docks, mundane suburbs, to the more refined parts of the city as you take various assassin jobs and continue down your path of revenge against The Syndicate. One glaring fault that I must mention though is the HUGE amount of typos present throughout the dialogue which doesn't really bother me much but it can be very immersion breaking and probably quite annoying to other more obsessive compulsive readers perhaps so fair warning to those! With that said, the aural quality is just as excellent as the graphical as there are alot of ambient sound effects included such as door knocks, phone ringing and combat sounds just to name a few. Oh and let's not forget your pet hamster, Hammond...very cute indeed..."squeak"! The soundtrack by Vesuvia [Ecky] is also terrific and really flows with the darkly themed subject matter. In summation, the wonderful artwork and impressive O.S.T. as well as crisp sound effects come together to form a great visual novel experience presentation-wise despite some minor hiccups with dialogue spelling.

NOTE: As I was about three quarters through the visual novel a typo and grammar error fix was released by the developers. And while I didn't notice any more typos from that point in the story to the end I will have to go back and read from the beginning again to see if the huge amount of errors that I noticed before still linger but good job to the developers for getting on top of this problem and attempting to correct it.

I must admit that the story started off a little slow for me but once you get past the prologue the narrative quickly hooks you and really begins to shine story-wise. After experiencing different flashbacks over the course of the novel to Arthur's life with Hana(the woman that was killed), I really felt bad for him and very much looked forward to seeing if he could complete his quest for vengeance. This visual novel is like watching an action movie only in visual novel format which was a very fun experience for me. As far as options go there are the basics for music/sound volume and text speed as well as an unlockable CG gallery. There are also Steam Achievements to hunt down, Steam Trading Cards to collect and you can find the novels excellent soundtrack in the game files so it is essentially free of charge which is always great especially for fans of video game music like myself. In conclusion, VOID is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED to visual novel fans as well as anyone who likes a good revenge story with thrilling action.

Really loving the game so far, has great dialogue, interesting characters, a really damn amazing soundtrack (seriously hats of to these guys), and some quality waifus.

This was the second game I played from Vifth (not sure if it is only their second game but whatever) and even though Just Deserts had plenty of flaws it was still a lovable game. This just took the best bits of that and ran with them.


I just hope they can get full voice in the game soon, and not just in English. There last game at the very least had full speech English but english voice acting is notoriously bland and to be honest I feel more emotionally invested in a conversation with my body p.... normal pillow then I do with some of the characters.

Edit: A lot of the grammar is still messed up but considering how poorly I write it didn't really bother me (everything is still understandable though).

The good:
--Story
--Art (It's very good, especially the CGs and heroine spirites)
--Menu (Great design, even has a music player)
--Heroines (Both are very beautiful and with their own charms and personality. One is more girly, but still a badass agent while the other is tomboyish.)

The okay:
--Romance (Each heroine has a respective route, but both of them end rather abruptly and don't make sense until you play Canon route, in which it's revealed that both heroine routes end with you being mind-controlled and possibly killing your loved one after fade to black. On the other hand, the Canon route ends without you explicitly being with anyone and rather has ambigiously haremey feel to it, with both girls saying they enjoy living together with you and wouldn't mind continuing to do so and at the very end one of them says they'll take care of you and you'll take care of them.)
--Choices (There are very few of them and they're only there to branch into another big route.)
--Music (Opening theme and rock BGM was very good, the rest was just okay.)

The bad:
--Length (I finished all routes in less than five hours. Granted, I'm a very fast reader, but it's a far cry from the promised 20+ and I doubt my reading skills alone reduced the playtime so much.)
--Typos (Quite a lot of them - from missing suffixes, through wrong person labels, wrong tenses, repeating words, to grammar problems. All of them are very noticeable even to a non-native speaker like me. The game would benefit greatly from a proofread and edit. The plus is the mistakes are never bad enough to make you reread the sentence or wonder what it was supposed to mean.)

Overall, it was a very enjoyable read. If you're very tight on money, then it's probably better for you to buy some older and cheaper VN with more content on sale (like ACE Academy), but if you've got money to spare and are looking for fairly short but enjoyable VN and want to support indie devs, you probably won't be dissapointed with this game.

A pretty good visual novel with a compelling storyline and amazing artworks in which you seek revenge after your lover was killed. If you love the theme of espionage and revenge (in which not so many VNs themed on), you will like it.

Pros:
+++ Nice artwork, the CGs and character sprites are amazing
++ Compelling storyline that kept you reading, like how the story is unfolded layer by layer
++ Like how the story is connected through different routes
+ BGMs are memorable
+ Ciel best girl

Neutral:
= Both girls are specially designed with their own difficulties to carry on, but hearing more from them would be better
= Final route is extraordinary in terms of the story , but the romance... :(
= Fair price for a short visual novel

Cons:
-- Story is too short (Took me only under 2 hours to achieve the first ending)
-- (Final) Ending could be better (Feel like rushed)
- Few Choices (Not appealing to those who prefer a game)
- Mistakes found in sentences (should have proofread, some sentences are said by a clearly wrong person)

Overall: 7.5/10