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Visual Novel, DRAMAtical: Murder
Dec. 9th, 2016 10:31 pmOkay, I'm going to actual put the review up that I kept going on about. Yes, DRAMAtical: Murder.
And I'm surprised that there's people who rank this game lower than Lamento and Togainu no Chi. Like wtf? Is it because the game has a more 'ligher' plot???? Or am I missing something???
Like, look, I get it, TnC had a dark plot. A lot of Nitro games in general lean more to dark plots. Chaos; Head was my first official Nitro game and I was not disappointed. I read summaries of Sweet Pool, and I will read it when it comes out (Though the meat monster thing is.. um, barf?). I also played Saya no Uta as well (I do NOT recommend it at all though, I can see some people liking it, it was not up my alley of dark stories). I love dark plots in my fiction, I mean fuck, I was part of Yami no Matsuei fandom for a long time. But the problem with TnC is that the routes themselves were terribly done and full of rape. Rape =! good dark story.
Anyways, enough with ranting and on to the review! Sadly, this review is full of damn spoilers. I tried hard to avoid spoilers for the main plotline, but I do somewhat spoil the other routes, so be warned.
Title: DRAMAtical: Murder
Company: Nitro+Chiral
Translation done by: Kick ass people from Aarinfantasy
Rating: E
Genre: Future Earth/Cyberpunk/Yaoi
Warnings: Violence, angst, dark themes, drug use, rape, gore, physical abuse, incest?, cannibalism, Amputation, beastility, sadism (Quite a few of these warnings only apply to the bad ends and a certain bad end)
Graphics: 10/10 - I absolutely love the artwork in this game. It's colorful and bright when it needs to be. And it can be dark and edgy too. I love all the character's art design. Aoba himself is cute to look at. All the love interests I liked their character design. I love the different expressions that Aoba makes and the other characters as well. And I love Ren to mother fucking pieces, that cute little puppy!
When you first start the game too, you'll notice a little 8 bit Aoba sprite walking across the game. As you finish people's paths, the sprites that come on the screen are 8 bit characters of the pathes you finished. I thought that was a small but really nice touch.
Also, don't rush the text. Because sometimes, the characters change their expressions while they're talking! Yeah, sometimes while you're reading, the face changes depending on the text. It's not totally important or mind blowing, but it does add some flavor to the story, like the characters are reacting to what they say.
Plot: 7.5/10 - Ho boy, I'm going to try my hardest to avoid major spoilers. And like the last VN, I'm going to cover the routes because the routes are so different from each other and one of them is VERY story heavy to the main overall plot. All together, there are 5 routes. Including a 'bad end', there's 6.
Basically, the game takes place WAY in the future. Our main protag, Aoba, lives on the island of Midorijima with his Grandmother and his cute All-Mate, Ren (machines that people own that act like a cellphone/laptop/GPS/anything you want. They come in many different shapes and models). He works in a 'Junk shop', just living his life the best he can. He seems to show no interest in 'Rib' (Basically street gangs) or 'Rhyme' (A virtual fighting game). It's more along the lines of pokemon since people use their All-Mates to do battle.
I just realized there's a ton of fucking jargon in this game, but Aoba does a damn well good job explaining in game.
Anyways, one day while working, he receives a weird email that downloads a game to his Coil system (Coils are sort of like portable laptops that fit on your wrist). The game is very Dragon Quest 8 bit style (In fact, the cave part I'm pretty sure is ripped right from DQ1, lmfao). The next day, he gets a headache while working, which apparently, he's had for most of his life. We also find out about people mysteriously disappearing (Rumor has it that Morphine, a legendary team, is behind it). Turns out that this isn't just a rumor and one day, Aoba finds out that Dry Juice is completely wiped out and Morphine's 'logo' is plastered all over their hideout. He's rightfully pissed and now he's out to find out the 'who, what, where, when, why' of what happened.
To sum it up, shit happens to Aoba's friend, and he decides to go find out why with his merry band of LIs. Honestly, I really can't say anymore because the game would be spoiled. Some people that show up:
Ren - Aoba's All-Mate, he's a cute blue puppy dog. Aoba deeply cares for him, despite him being a very out-dated model.
Koujaku - Aoba's childhood friend, he's a hairdresser and a huge Lady's man. He's really obsessed with Aoba's hair. He owns a red bird All-Mate named Beni.
Mizuki - A friend of Aoba's who is part of the Rib gang called Dry Juice. He's into tattoos.
Virus and Trip - The 'Not Twins' that work for the Yakuza that were aquainted with Aoba back in his 'teenage punk' stage. They call themselves Aoba's 'fans'. They also have their own All Mates but you don't see them until a certain point later on.
Tae - Aoba's Grandmother, who won't hesitate to lay the verbal and physical smackdown on people who deserve it. XD Aoba deeply cares for her.
Noiz - The 'Tsundere' teaser guy who is pretty obsessed with Rhyme. And Aoba for some reason. He has a shit ton of body piercngs and a cube rabbit-like All-Mate.
Clear - A very weird bubbly guy who is always wearing a gas mask and calling Aoba 'Master'. Like wtf, a gas mask!? He also likes Jellyfish (I don't get it but meh).
Mink - The Leader of a gang called 'Scratch' (Which consists of mostly criminals, joy), his first order of biz being his gang thugs to rape Aoba. ~_~ He throws off 'GOAWAYOMG!' vibes. His All-Mate is a pink Parrot. Like da fark?
There's more characters like Toue, a mysterious dark haired boy, the brat brigade, Aoba's boss, the crazy cop guy who abuses his powers, the big lady who has an all mate that has a crush on Ren, the crazy chick but actually a d00d all mate (Least his voice is) that looks over the Rhyme battles, and other characters that show up on other routes, but I'll try to cover them later on.
Holy shit, I realize there's a TON of characters in this story on top of a lot of Jargon. Like a lot to even keep track of. I don't think I can even name a game that has as many characters as this one has. It kind of blows my mind now that I think about it. Also, when the characters are introduced, the game says their name, gives their b-days, hobbies, positions, etc (I can't tell what else, because it flashes by so fucking fast). It's kind of funny how detailed this game is.
There's not much to say about the plot, because the plot is really this game's biggest weakness. The overall plot being who Aoba is and where he came from, isn't covered until Ren's route. The other routes focus on Aoba's Love interest rather than him. Which isn't a bad thing, but it does hurt the overall story itself.
I think one good thing about this game is that it's in First person PoV for the most part. Most VNs usually go the third person pov, so we can flipflip between the Main protag and the LI or other characters. Here though, we get in Aoba's head and we can get a clear feel on his thoughts and emotions. So we can connect to Aoba a lot better than we could with Akira and Konoe. The ONLY bad thing is we can't get into the minds of the LIs, and honestly, I don't even think that's a bad thing, because the focus of the routes is on the LIs from Aoba's PoV. It works really well here, believe it or not.
I also think the characters make up for the so-so plot. The characters are what really bring this game to life, and you feel drawn to them. They're all different and complex from one another. Aoba is probably the most likable main male lead for a BL game. And he's easily in my top 5 for most likable main protag of all VNs I read. For the others, I was drawn to Koujaku and Noiz pretty strongly. I was really curious about Clear as well (Mostly wondering how he knows Aoba. And why a gas mask!?). As for Mink, urgh. We'll get to this route.
Anyways, I would highly suggest you do the routes in the order I review them: Koujaku > Mink > Noiz > Clear > Ren. You can't do Ren's till the end regardless because he's the 'true route'. Yes, Aoba's All-Mate gets his own route too! I'd suggest doing Mink's route second because of all the routes, it's one of the more controversal routes (aka rapey and abusive route) and you should get it out of the way asap. I recommend doing it second though, because I feel doing Koujaku's route first is the better one to start out (It's not full of feels, but it's not controversal. It's the perfect 'in the middle' route). Also, take the warnings I give to that route seriously too.
( Koujaku, spoilers! )
( Mink spoilers )
( Noiz spoilers )
( Clear, massive spoilers )
( Ren, massive spoilers )
( Bad Ends/Virus and Trip Ending )
Overall 8.8/10 - Cept for one route, every route was solid and kept my interest to the very end. The story itself was so-so, but the characters FAR make up for it and Aoba is super likable.
Of all the routes, Noiz's is my favorite. I really thought Clear would grab me, but the big problem was the tone of the route took a 180 just randomly. Noiz's route could get angsty at points, but it was balanced, while with Clear's, I felt it went down a slope more and didn't go back to being fluffy till the end. In the end, it comes down to my personal taste. Though to be really honest, it's sort of hard for me to choose. >.> But if you're not a completionist, those are the two routes that MUST be played.
Music/sound 9/10 - Again, I loved every track in this game and all the characters have their own theme songs when you finish their routes. I think if I had to pick one, Clear's song would be the best. And a certain 8 bit song to a certain 8 bit ending. >.> Actually, I liked most of the tunes and I kept humming the main theme to myself a lot.
Gameplay NA - Again, visual novel. You have choices to get to people's routes, you have choices along the way that decide what ends you get. Again, warning, choose wisely, the Bad Ends are seriously no fucking joke.
Overall 9.3/10 - A VN that needs to be played. It has a couple of kinks in it, but it's a must play, moreso if you're looking for a BL game with an above average plot and complex characters. It's a little bit lighter compared to Lamento and Togainu, but it's much more polished and well written.
Also, I'm not going to review Re: Connect, there's no point to, because if you enjoyed the original and want an 'epilogue' to all the routes, you should go pick up Re: Connect. Yes, Dramatical spawned a sequel, but it's really just expands on the endings, and adds in a side story to Mizuki and Aoba's parents. The bad ends are expanded on and like I said in the review, the only one worth reading of that mess is Clear's, the others are there for shock/gore/rape torture. The good endings for the others are just pure kinky fap material. Even with that in mind, if you wanna see what Aoba and whatever LI is doing post game, it's a must read.
As for the anime, I didn't finish it, but really, pick up the VN before the anime, regardless. 99% of all animes based on VNs, the VN is almost always the better choice. Seriously, go read this!
Anyways, I think I'm going to take a long deserved break from VNs, replaying this one took a lot out of me. Maybe back to fanfiction. And holy shit, this review is long as hell. X_X
And I'm surprised that there's people who rank this game lower than Lamento and Togainu no Chi. Like wtf? Is it because the game has a more 'ligher' plot???? Or am I missing something???
Like, look, I get it, TnC had a dark plot. A lot of Nitro games in general lean more to dark plots. Chaos; Head was my first official Nitro game and I was not disappointed. I read summaries of Sweet Pool, and I will read it when it comes out (Though the meat monster thing is.. um, barf?). I also played Saya no Uta as well (I do NOT recommend it at all though, I can see some people liking it, it was not up my alley of dark stories). I love dark plots in my fiction, I mean fuck, I was part of Yami no Matsuei fandom for a long time. But the problem with TnC is that the routes themselves were terribly done and full of rape. Rape =! good dark story.
Anyways, enough with ranting and on to the review! Sadly, this review is full of damn spoilers. I tried hard to avoid spoilers for the main plotline, but I do somewhat spoil the other routes, so be warned.
Title: DRAMAtical: Murder
Company: Nitro+Chiral
Translation done by: Kick ass people from Aarinfantasy
Rating: E
Genre: Future Earth/Cyberpunk/Yaoi
Warnings: Violence, angst, dark themes, drug use, rape, gore, physical abuse, incest?, cannibalism, Amputation, beastility, sadism (Quite a few of these warnings only apply to the bad ends and a certain bad end)
Graphics: 10/10 - I absolutely love the artwork in this game. It's colorful and bright when it needs to be. And it can be dark and edgy too. I love all the character's art design. Aoba himself is cute to look at. All the love interests I liked their character design. I love the different expressions that Aoba makes and the other characters as well. And I love Ren to mother fucking pieces, that cute little puppy!
When you first start the game too, you'll notice a little 8 bit Aoba sprite walking across the game. As you finish people's paths, the sprites that come on the screen are 8 bit characters of the pathes you finished. I thought that was a small but really nice touch.
Also, don't rush the text. Because sometimes, the characters change their expressions while they're talking! Yeah, sometimes while you're reading, the face changes depending on the text. It's not totally important or mind blowing, but it does add some flavor to the story, like the characters are reacting to what they say.
Plot: 7.5/10 - Ho boy, I'm going to try my hardest to avoid major spoilers. And like the last VN, I'm going to cover the routes because the routes are so different from each other and one of them is VERY story heavy to the main overall plot. All together, there are 5 routes. Including a 'bad end', there's 6.
Basically, the game takes place WAY in the future. Our main protag, Aoba, lives on the island of Midorijima with his Grandmother and his cute All-Mate, Ren (machines that people own that act like a cellphone/laptop/GPS/anything you want. They come in many different shapes and models). He works in a 'Junk shop', just living his life the best he can. He seems to show no interest in 'Rib' (Basically street gangs) or 'Rhyme' (A virtual fighting game). It's more along the lines of pokemon since people use their All-Mates to do battle.
I just realized there's a ton of fucking jargon in this game, but Aoba does a damn well good job explaining in game.
Anyways, one day while working, he receives a weird email that downloads a game to his Coil system (Coils are sort of like portable laptops that fit on your wrist). The game is very Dragon Quest 8 bit style (In fact, the cave part I'm pretty sure is ripped right from DQ1, lmfao). The next day, he gets a headache while working, which apparently, he's had for most of his life. We also find out about people mysteriously disappearing (Rumor has it that Morphine, a legendary team, is behind it). Turns out that this isn't just a rumor and one day, Aoba finds out that Dry Juice is completely wiped out and Morphine's 'logo' is plastered all over their hideout. He's rightfully pissed and now he's out to find out the 'who, what, where, when, why' of what happened.
To sum it up, shit happens to Aoba's friend, and he decides to go find out why with his merry band of LIs. Honestly, I really can't say anymore because the game would be spoiled. Some people that show up:
Ren - Aoba's All-Mate, he's a cute blue puppy dog. Aoba deeply cares for him, despite him being a very out-dated model.
Koujaku - Aoba's childhood friend, he's a hairdresser and a huge Lady's man. He's really obsessed with Aoba's hair. He owns a red bird All-Mate named Beni.
Mizuki - A friend of Aoba's who is part of the Rib gang called Dry Juice. He's into tattoos.
Virus and Trip - The 'Not Twins' that work for the Yakuza that were aquainted with Aoba back in his 'teenage punk' stage. They call themselves Aoba's 'fans'. They also have their own All Mates but you don't see them until a certain point later on.
Tae - Aoba's Grandmother, who won't hesitate to lay the verbal and physical smackdown on people who deserve it. XD Aoba deeply cares for her.
Noiz - The 'Tsundere' teaser guy who is pretty obsessed with Rhyme. And Aoba for some reason. He has a shit ton of body piercngs and a cube rabbit-like All-Mate.
Clear - A very weird bubbly guy who is always wearing a gas mask and calling Aoba 'Master'. Like wtf, a gas mask!? He also likes Jellyfish (I don't get it but meh).
Mink - The Leader of a gang called 'Scratch' (Which consists of mostly criminals, joy), his first order of biz being his gang thugs to rape Aoba. ~_~ He throws off 'GOAWAYOMG!' vibes. His All-Mate is a pink Parrot. Like da fark?
There's more characters like Toue, a mysterious dark haired boy, the brat brigade, Aoba's boss, the crazy cop guy who abuses his powers, the big lady who has an all mate that has a crush on Ren, the crazy chick but actually a d00d all mate (Least his voice is) that looks over the Rhyme battles, and other characters that show up on other routes, but I'll try to cover them later on.
Holy shit, I realize there's a TON of characters in this story on top of a lot of Jargon. Like a lot to even keep track of. I don't think I can even name a game that has as many characters as this one has. It kind of blows my mind now that I think about it. Also, when the characters are introduced, the game says their name, gives their b-days, hobbies, positions, etc (I can't tell what else, because it flashes by so fucking fast). It's kind of funny how detailed this game is.
There's not much to say about the plot, because the plot is really this game's biggest weakness. The overall plot being who Aoba is and where he came from, isn't covered until Ren's route. The other routes focus on Aoba's Love interest rather than him. Which isn't a bad thing, but it does hurt the overall story itself.
I think one good thing about this game is that it's in First person PoV for the most part. Most VNs usually go the third person pov, so we can flipflip between the Main protag and the LI or other characters. Here though, we get in Aoba's head and we can get a clear feel on his thoughts and emotions. So we can connect to Aoba a lot better than we could with Akira and Konoe. The ONLY bad thing is we can't get into the minds of the LIs, and honestly, I don't even think that's a bad thing, because the focus of the routes is on the LIs from Aoba's PoV. It works really well here, believe it or not.
I also think the characters make up for the so-so plot. The characters are what really bring this game to life, and you feel drawn to them. They're all different and complex from one another. Aoba is probably the most likable main male lead for a BL game. And he's easily in my top 5 for most likable main protag of all VNs I read. For the others, I was drawn to Koujaku and Noiz pretty strongly. I was really curious about Clear as well (Mostly wondering how he knows Aoba. And why a gas mask!?). As for Mink, urgh. We'll get to this route.
Anyways, I would highly suggest you do the routes in the order I review them: Koujaku > Mink > Noiz > Clear > Ren. You can't do Ren's till the end regardless because he's the 'true route'. Yes, Aoba's All-Mate gets his own route too! I'd suggest doing Mink's route second because of all the routes, it's one of the more controversal routes (aka rapey and abusive route) and you should get it out of the way asap. I recommend doing it second though, because I feel doing Koujaku's route first is the better one to start out (It's not full of feels, but it's not controversal. It's the perfect 'in the middle' route). Also, take the warnings I give to that route seriously too.
( Koujaku, spoilers! )
( Mink spoilers )
( Noiz spoilers )
( Clear, massive spoilers )
( Ren, massive spoilers )
( Bad Ends/Virus and Trip Ending )
Overall 8.8/10 - Cept for one route, every route was solid and kept my interest to the very end. The story itself was so-so, but the characters FAR make up for it and Aoba is super likable.
Of all the routes, Noiz's is my favorite. I really thought Clear would grab me, but the big problem was the tone of the route took a 180 just randomly. Noiz's route could get angsty at points, but it was balanced, while with Clear's, I felt it went down a slope more and didn't go back to being fluffy till the end. In the end, it comes down to my personal taste. Though to be really honest, it's sort of hard for me to choose. >.> But if you're not a completionist, those are the two routes that MUST be played.
Music/sound 9/10 - Again, I loved every track in this game and all the characters have their own theme songs when you finish their routes. I think if I had to pick one, Clear's song would be the best. And a certain 8 bit song to a certain 8 bit ending. >.> Actually, I liked most of the tunes and I kept humming the main theme to myself a lot.
Gameplay NA - Again, visual novel. You have choices to get to people's routes, you have choices along the way that decide what ends you get. Again, warning, choose wisely, the Bad Ends are seriously no fucking joke.
Overall 9.3/10 - A VN that needs to be played. It has a couple of kinks in it, but it's a must play, moreso if you're looking for a BL game with an above average plot and complex characters. It's a little bit lighter compared to Lamento and Togainu, but it's much more polished and well written.
Also, I'm not going to review Re: Connect, there's no point to, because if you enjoyed the original and want an 'epilogue' to all the routes, you should go pick up Re: Connect. Yes, Dramatical spawned a sequel, but it's really just expands on the endings, and adds in a side story to Mizuki and Aoba's parents. The bad ends are expanded on and like I said in the review, the only one worth reading of that mess is Clear's, the others are there for shock/gore/rape torture. The good endings for the others are just pure kinky fap material. Even with that in mind, if you wanna see what Aoba and whatever LI is doing post game, it's a must read.
As for the anime, I didn't finish it, but really, pick up the VN before the anime, regardless. 99% of all animes based on VNs, the VN is almost always the better choice. Seriously, go read this!
Anyways, I think I'm going to take a long deserved break from VNs, replaying this one took a lot out of me. Maybe back to fanfiction. And holy shit, this review is long as hell. X_X
