It's been a long time since I've started buying games here and there from 
Today i'll be focusing on my first impressions of Eden*, a Japanese Visual Novel with Anime Visuals.
The setting of this Visual Novel is quite unique so to say. Not that I have played a lot of visual novels at all but from searching through the top rated ones on Steam, I could sort of get an idea of how the writing, setting and characters worked out, and this is where this novel turns your head upside down. You see, the full name of this Visual novel is "Eden: There were only two, on the planet."
The narrative takes place on earth, but there's a slight twist to it; You, or the Male character are completely alone with one other person in earth. I don't know exactly how the situation managed to get to that point but I won't necessarily say it didn't take me off guard; The thought of everyone else being dead is just... Morbid... And it doesn't stop there, from what I've gathered, the unique and only two human beings on earth are simply awaiting for their end to come as well, since the ominous and foreshadowed armageddon mentioned through the first chapter isn't what killed the rest of the population.
Given the first elements and setting of the initial chapter, the story can be summarized in this way: There are only two people left in the world, you and a girl who in the past you promised to protect till your last undying breath... And here you are, fulfilling your contract, even when there's nothing left that could hurt her, you're still there, not leaving her side at any moment.
At this point in what I've advanced through the plot, I still don't know what wiped out the rest of humanity or why this girl and our character are the select few who are still standing on this abandoned earth, but as the plot deepens and develops, i'm sort of getting an idea of how the story goes...
Although at first we're left wondering how the narrative and setting got to that point, the story doesn't waste a lot of time in bringing us back to the past, where most of the events had place. We as a reader are given the knowledge that the male character (I don't remember the name atm) is not a completely blank slate and has some character and personality of it's own, after all this is a visual novel where you don't get to choose how the story progresses, you just sit through it; We get to know that our main character was part of the special forces in the military, and that these forces were created to contain terrorist attacks and premature wars back when the imminent armageddon was discovered. Once the special forces disbanded, our male character got assigned to guard a special facility where the project of taking humans out of this soon to be destroyed earth was being developed by the most intelligent human being on earth.
Later down the road we learn that this unknown but brilliant human being is in fact, the same girl we're left with alone in the planet in the future. We also get to know that she's a so called "Felix", which directly implies that she's a genetically modified race of humans. A new race of humans akin to elves without the pointy ears, so to say; This race was developed exclusively so their intelligence could bring a swift and efficient solution to save the most humans before the armageddon actually happens.
And basically that's as far as I've reached in the story, but there are some things I've liked and disliked that I'll get to next.
I really like the fact that the male character is not a blank slate like in other novels. You actually feel there's some background to him and that somehow he got involved in this ordeal because of the events that ocurred in his life. It's not like WOOSH, a portal appeared out of nowhere and your two faced ass flat supposed insertion in the game got randomly selected out of thin air from his boring and regular live to participate in this story because the developers want to cheaply insert you as a character into the game. The game recognizes and proudly tells you that you're not an active participant, you're just a reader... And I actually haven't made up my mind in terms of liking or disking that choice for each certain aspects this brings to the game. You see, I like how the game doesn't try to cheaply insert you into it's story, but... that may be tied to the fact that you're just a reader... literally. One thing I dislike about the game is how there are no branching paths or differences for replayability in the story, and hear me out, I KNOW I BOUGHT A DAMN VISUAL NOVEL, IT'S MY FAULT! But I thought it had some more interaction to it rather than just clicking the space bar after every line of dialogue.
This game or so called Visual Novel is just that, A novel. A book you can read with some visual anime effects. There's no interaction, there's no participation, you just sit through it, eating paragraph after paragraph.
I think it's okay for this games to exist, it's like the merged daughter of a book, an anime series and a videogame (because you run it off steam) But there's nothing more to it, it's just not my cup of tea.
I still want to finish my playthrough and see how the story holds up, because this game has got some amazing reviews on steam and what not, so even if I don't really enjoy it on my own as a game, I should still be able to enjoy this rather as a good story driven narrative.
I'm possibly wrong on some facts I mention in this blog post. The rest of the humans might not be dead at all! There might be some other humans left on earth or what the hell, there might be branching paths on the story or different endings in some way! I think it was far too early for me to say stuff like that but I also say it as things that i'm expecting. they're not a given but things that definitely sit on the back of my mind.
Peace out, friends!
