Name: Silver (81.25% in 16 votes) Type: NVL Platform: WINDOWS Company: NekoNeko Release date: 2000 Reviewed by: Gastalt
A very dark and mysterious game by Neko Neko...
This company decided to give
this game an English text and voice option!!
I doubt this will open up the market to Japanese game companies translating their
games as well, but this a very good bonus for any non-Japanese speaking person to get!!
Story/Game play/System:
The game is split into chapters with different stories.
The first story starts off with us seeing a lonely girl as she tells us about the painful empty life
she leads in a brothel
were she is kept. The muscle in one of her legs has been cut to keep her there. She
has no name....she knows nothing about life. She only knows the darkness that she has
been made to live in.
But one night she escapes....
Gisuke, a drifter whose parents and brother died in an epidemic when he was a
child meets her wandering in the forest. He wants to leave her at first but is drawn to her mysterious ways.
From here they travel together through out the forest. As they travel Gisuke kills
unsuspecting travelers in order
to get food and money. He tries to make the girl steal the food from him with his
sword drawn but he can't bring himself to
hurt her. During this time they encounter many passerby and some men looking for
the girl(which he names Ayame at the end of the scenario)....he kills them of course.
This scenario ends on a very sad note...
I really liked her character, she was so cute and innocent!
There are three other stories involving other girls; Two sisters and how they make it running their parents store and how they try to keep their relationship strong through the hardship of it all, A Miko named Sagiri, that wants to find her purpose in life, a young girl that is mute from a tragedy and wants to be able to talk again and the guy Taira who wishes to save his village from the drought. All of the stories in the game revolve around the legend of the Silver Thread that says: If you make a wish when you have this thread that it will come true.
I would like to recap the other 3 stories in more detail but it would create too long of a review.
The really neat thing about the scenario's system is that you will be able to see the point of view of the female characters as well as the male. She will tell her part of the story then it will switch back the guy at any given time, which makes the stories seem more realistic. Also, the stories will take place in different era's of Japanese history, from Heian to the Present.
Art:
The artwork is very beautiful, I love the way the eyes of the characters are
drawn. The game art isn't very colorful but has a dark hazy hue to all of the backgrounds. There are very few
H-scenes in this game but the good stories and nice artwork compensate for it!
Music/Sound/Voice Acting:
The music in this game is in CD-DA format.
Most of the music is very sullen and elevator music like.
The game seems to use the same track too much, which makes it a bit repetitive. But it does add to the mood of the game. Voice acting can either be in Japanese or English...The english voice isn't bad since its just the Japanese voice actress speaking english its just as cute.
Overall/Recommendations:
I would recommend this game to people who like mysterious games. So far all of the scenarios end in a tragic way, so if you are more of a happy end type of person this isn't a game you need to play!! The English text mode isn't as half bad as I had been hearing. Its only some broken english and slang that might cause a bit of confusion. There are really good story lines and you can empathize with the characters. Plus, its
worth your dollars because its in English!!
Also if you want to hear the OP song its on the NekoNeko Server:
http://www.moemoe.gr.jp/~nekoneko/004.mp3
