Author: Night Wanderer - Custom Jun
preface
Once upon a time, London was remembered as Dickens's "worst of times," as if the impoverished streets could always breathe in an unfilterable fog, from the lungs to the bone marrow. Through the thick fog, you will find a pair of eyes called capital, greedily and wantonly plundering the gold coins hidden in the beret. As the Industrial Revolution worked as artists, rusty gears took a turn on the road of history, targeting a more grotesque and fantastic Victoria.
"Under the Night" of London Rhapsody
Pitch Black Shernos is one of the classics in the prestigious Steampunk series of renowned ADV developer LiarSoft. If you've been lucky enough to play several other games from this developer, like Heryan's Inca Nok... You'll find that the worldviews of these games all seem to be in the same context, with "steampunk" as the main stage of the world, accompanied by a hint of horror and suspense, just like "The Undead of Baker Street" shrouded the London of that period in the fog.
However, this "Dark Shernos" is also a game that has long been dusted. After all, it was released in 2008, and even if it is later on the PC, few people know of its existence, and only players who like visual novels or Galgame can contact it. Today, more than a decade later, the game has also been put on the Steam platform, although it smells a hint of fried cold rice, but it is indeed a visual novel with a suspenseful plot, and it also has a hand-drawn character standing, and even a London rhapsody called "Under the Night".
Dodge the invisible claws of the night
Our protagonist, Mary, has to evade the enemy on a Monopoly-like chessboard, with the ultimate goal of escaping from this land of right and wrong. Unfortunately, there are four or five enemies on this map that will come and capture you, and you can only move in a fixed number of steps. At this time, your mood also changes from the initial "calm" to "anxious", and finally until the fear reaches despair, so that your san value drops to the ground. If our protagonist had the ability to attack, it would be similar to the "Other Shore Flower" I remembered. Although the mini-game can improve the gameplay of the game, it is only a chicken rib mini-game that is simply added for the sake of ADV, and it will not make the push box so beautiful and delicious like "Catherine full body".
Fortunately, the player can choose whether to skip these mini-games at the beginning of the game, and the price is to lose a few CG maps, which does not have much impact on the plot. Today's players may scoff at this mini-game, but for players of that era, it should be a rare game add-on.
Nostalgia under the Gothic style
When I first saw the style of this game, my mind immediately searched for an old "GOSICK" of the same era, perhaps the shape of the characters in the game also has a classical Gothic style costume, plus there is also a lot of suspense in the game, so the two seem to me so similar. The style of painting in the game is mainly hand-drawn, coupled with the color scheme that matches the London background, so that all the characters are in a dark tone. However, after watching the habit, you will still like the appearance of the heroine, especially the pair of different pupils that make the game more mysterious.
At the time of the release of Dark Sharnos, like most visual novels today, there were no voices for the characters. The player can only follow what the visual sees to click on the next piece of text. After all, for this type of game, dubbing itself is a very time-consuming task, coupled with so much text, you can imagine the complexity of the project behind it. Fortunately, when I landed on the PC at that time, the characters in the game were dubbed, which was also a very conscientious point of the production team. It's just a pity that the UI design of the game is still in the same way it was more than a decade ago, which is very uncomfortable to watch.
As for the music, it is still very good, and as most visual novels do, there is a relatively good soundtrack, which allows players to feel the rendering of the plot by the music. In particular, the music at the beginning of the game shows the mystery of the streets of London to the fullest. Whether you're intoxicated by the dimness of the London lights or shuddering at the intrigue behind the darkness of the night, you can feel it in BGM.
Even if you are in a deep quagmire, you still look up at the stars
"Wait, and have hope!" This passage is a classic line from The Count of Monte Cristo, and the plot of the game and even the connotation of the game is intended to express. Everything seems to have a subtle connection with the rumors in London, where there is a monster called "weird" that attacks pedestrians in the middle of the night, but no one knows what this monster is, like an indescribable thing that exists in fantasy, adding a little bit of gray to the steam-rich city.
Although it is an official Chinese that has only been launched in recent years, I still have to admire the translator's translation of the text, because it is the most poetic translation I have ever seen a visual novel, and it is also the most riddle person's translation. So much so that when I read the text, I see some of the better words and phrases and will look back and look at it again. In particular, the description of the sky fascinated me, because London rarely saw the sky, basically gray thick clouds piled up in the sky, and gradually people called the small piece of sky that was secretly illuminated by a certain ray of sunlight "gap", which is also the most yearning thing in everyone's heart. It is because we are in the darkness that we are full of longing for the sun, just like Wilde's words: "Sink into the quagmire and look up at the stars."
epilogue
As mentioned at the beginning, the game itself is a story set in "steampunk", which is an imagination and extension of history, so it will definitely give players a new and strange play experience in the plot. If you like "steampunk" style works and visual novels, you can give it a try. Coupled with the tense and mysterious BGM in the game, the night city is full of secrets, no one can know what conspiracy is hidden under the cold gears, and the soft and resolute tune also makes us look forward to the "gap" in the sky even more - as if we are hopeful, believing that the sun will shine on our faces and dispel the haze that hangs over the town.