White Violin Demo

Most visual novels allow you to make certain choices along the way in order to increase their replay value, otherwise it’s pretty boring to play the same thing over and over again. On the other hand, these choices are pretty predictable most of the time, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Even so, the usual choice is whether you want to pick one love interest or the other.

White Violin is an interactive visual novel in which you get to investigate the mystery behind the curious instrument and enjoy the castle life along with its intricacies. The full game is going to have multiple routes and endings to satisfy your need for variety, but the demo at hand does not have that, although it does feature a choice or two along the way, which obviously don’t affect the plot too much.

Speaking of which, the story puts you in the role of Luna, a young girl trying to learn how to play music somewhere in the castle of a wealthy family. Besides all the other instruments, she also becomes fascinated by the fabled white violin, which is supposed to have certain effects on those who play it. Not only that, but it is said that it doesn’t resonate with everyone, save for a few special souls.

Since interaction is kept to a minimum, most of your time is spent reading the text that comprises the story and the dialog. Hence, the characters talk with each other a lot over the course of the plot, which is how you also learn about them. Some of these characters might be memorable, but it’s tough to say so without seeing the complete thing and all the other possible endings.

As for the graphics, the artwork is certainly smooth and quite nicely done, but there are a few problems when it comes to the way it is displayed. Hence, the text is plastered all over the screen on a transparent box, which occupies the whole artwork. It’s not a very good idea to do this, especially not after the designer worked so hard on those drawings. It also ruins the atmosphere sometimes because you are always looking at the text instead of the environments.

When it’s all said and done, White Violin is more than able to keep you engaged, at least if you enjoy anime plot tropes and a bit of horror every now and again. However, the interface problem needs to be fixed as quickly as possible to avoid losing a decent chunk of the audience.