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[budgie2budgie]

mary-rose & rimo (long time, no smut lol)

[one night/all night - justice feat tame impala]

[justasmolliv]

L3: Black Heaven: A Necromantic Dating Sim

An ambitious visual novel which takes advantage of the medium, but cannot escape equivalent exchange.

I always appreciate a visual novel which understands that you'll play it multiple times, and makes your choices have a lasting impact across its narrative. While usually this manifests as a number of different endings which have to be navigated to reach a "true" final ending, Black Heaven: A Necromantic Dating Sim takes this a step further with its Fractal Madness mechanic to a mostly brilliant effect.

In Black Heaven you play as Uzo, a former scholar at Itzon Academy, a magic school dedicated to research on attaining immortality. Unfortunately, Uzo and his mentor Ru accidentally created a plague which caused uncontrollable growth and eventually destroyed most of the world. After the outbreak, Uzo fled underground and attempted to continue to find a cure, and it's here where the game begins.

As Uzo continues his own research, he is approached by a masked man who calls himself No-Eyes. No-Eyes offers Uzo a deal - if Uzo brings him the ghosts of Ru and his classmates Izagi and Lyse, he'll create a time loop for Uzo to relive his happiest memories of Itzon forever. No-Eyes will use the three ghosts to pursue his goal of chronomancy, a taboo area of necromancy research within the academia circle, and promises Uzo the luxury of forgetting about the death he helped to cause.

As Uzo travels back overground and towards Itzon, you play through his memories of his time there. You go to class, try to socialise with the other students, and attempt to woo Ru, Isagi, and Lyse. Despite my choices heavily leaning towards Izagi, I ended up romancing Ru. This was confusing to me, and I was disappointed by the lack of impact my choices seemed to have within this first third or so. 

I'm putting the fewest number of spoilers I can get away with in this review as Black Heaven is certainly a visual novel I think should be experienced. As Uzo explored the ruins of Itzon, it became clear why my choices couldn't have much impact. The true deplorability of his past actions is revealed as Uzo revisits the memories of his friends. This plot twist was one I hadn't seen coming, and it had me genuinely shaking my head at how cleverly I'd been duped as Uzo sat in front of a panel and was confronted by what he'd done.

Once you learn the truth about what happened, it's up to you how to deal with Ru, Izagi, Lyse and No-Face. Do you hand them over as he asked, or set them free and return empty-handed? There's definitely bad endings, and even worse ones, but there's an obvious good path which the game encourages you towards.

This is where I feel the Fractal Madness mechanic lets Black Heaven down while still enhancing a playthrough. Fractal Madness accrues as you reload the game to revisit choices, something I'd been doing a lot to attempt to get myself onto Izagi's romance route. I'd try out all available options to see what the characters' reactions would be, before reloading once again and choosing the one I liked the most. The more you revisit decisions, the more things become distorted. As Uzo was sneaking around the burnt husks of the lavish buildings I'd once seen, the music started to stutter upon itself. Memories would start to become distorted and gruesome, before Uzo reminded himself those events didn't really happen. I really enjoyed this effect, as I never knew when it could kick in and start to make me question whether what Uzo was really experiencing and remembering was the truth.

But the caveat is that all the reloads and choices happen in a single playthrough. As I explored the knock-on effects of earlier choices, I ended up with a lot of manual saves which I had to remember the order of, whereas other visual novels might handle this with a branching map you can dive back into. Overall, I was quite nice to Ru, Izagi, Lyse and No-Face, and I could explore their endings without really needing to change the choices I had made during the game. Replayability is tied into a single playthrough, where you're encouraged to reload and try different options, rather than a branching narrative which acts like a reiteration of events.

I'd have loved to see Fractal Madness go even more unhinged and bring in more horror and uncertainty, but in general I think Black Heaven is a well-written, engrossing story which uses the medium of visual novels and the habits of its players to great effect. Its own mechanic somewhat becomes its own limit, and one plot twist in particular is quite easy to figure out early in the game, but I have to commend Black Heaven for attempting something new with the meta of visual novels.

As I said before, I think Black Heaven is a visual novel which should be experienced. Its characters are well-written and relatable, the music is haunting, and the way it tries to tell its story is ambitious. If you're also looking for a good old musing on metaphysics and philosophy then Black Heaven is one I'd recommend.

[A copy of the Steam version of Black Heaven: A Necromantic Dating Sim was provided by developer and publisher Occult Triangle Lab.]

[farvn]

"Are you inside Itzon yet?" Part 15 of Black Heaven: A Necromantic Dating Sim has been uploaded!

[saddammaalik]

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[hilohi]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Itzon Leggings.

[ilovgs]

• Chaewon (ex It*zone) lockscreens

• Psd by: @noirpsds

• Don't repost

[itzonesblog-blog]

Hosting Website in Windows Server 2012 R2  | IT Zone

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[budgie2budgie]

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[hilohi]

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[itzonesblog-blog]

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