X-Note - Review

 

“Revenge is like dark chocolate. It's bitter, but sweet.” - Scid

X-NOTE - A Mystery Otome Game

10 years ago, Essi's mother died in a questionable accident. She left a USB flash drive with a locked folder called "X-note". Unable to understand the purpose of it, Essi continued living her life as a normal junior high school student. However, Essi is hardly normal, for she possesses power beyond normal human.

Essi's quiet life was interfered by a sudden visit of a young man named Yuon. He invited her to investigate a murder case and a mysterious disappearance in the Xen Institute, a school deeply related to Essi's mother. Tempted by the possibility of unlocking "X-note" and solving her mother's mysterious death, Essi decided to take his request. But what awaited her there was a lot more than what she could possibly imagine…

GAME OVERVIEW:

X-note is a blend between Visual Novel and Dating-Sim. Follow the story of Essi as she pursues the truth of her mother's death. The game spans for 30 days, of which you can train Essi's psychic abilities, explore the school, collect notes, and make choices to determine her fate.

Developer: Zevia Inc Production

 Spec: Flash, 65.4 MB, 800×600 

Genre: Mystery, Romance, Supernatural 

Rating: Teen 13+ 

Release Date: 8 March 2011 

 

This game may be over two years old now but playing it has really inspired me to start this blog and review visual novels which I've been wanting to do for a while now so lets dive right in...

 Essi

 

"It makes me think that life doesn't have to be complicated in order to be beautiful."

You play as Essi, a goth girl in her early teens who lost her mother through a questionable death ten years ago. Essi's mother left her a necklace which is also secretly a USB stick. The only thing found on it is a locked folder called “X-Note”. In order to open this folder and find out the truth about her mothers murder she accepts Yuon's invitation to join Xen invitation.

I enjoyed playing this protagonist quite a bit. I like how she actually feels like an actual person. She has her ups and downs, overcomes her fears and grows more confident as the story goes on. She's not a push over like some of the female protagonist I've come across, although she can be really ungrateful at moments which really did annoy me. 

 

 Yuon

 

A student of the Xen institute, Yuon was the one who invites Essi to the school in order to investigate a murder case and a mysterious disappearance. He knew about Essi's abilities and askes her to use them to find the culprit. Yuon is Serious and hardworking.

I'm still not sure what to make of Yuon; he wasn't a bad character but he wasn't great either. I just don't think I connected to his personality very well – Don't get me wrong, I don't mean it was written badly or anything, I guess he's just not my type haha. 

 

Anon 

 

“It's all good if you're fine.”

Anon is the informant at Xen Institute who seems more than willing to help Essi with her investigation. He's playful, somewhat obnoxious and never misses a chance to tease Essi; even going as far as to bring up her bust size on their very first meeting. He also loves anything that's green.

 I quite liked Anon, he's more or less always happy and I find the way he teases Essi to be quite endearing. I got quite a few laughs from his path and I could quite easily pick him as my favourite guy, however, I can imagine him being annoying for some. As a side not his cat face is adorable :3

Oure

 

“I use to be real good at hide-and-seek – particularly during winter.”

Essi meets Oure when she is lost upon taking a peek around the institute. He sports a white outfit from top to toes that completely matched his favorite pastime - watching the clouds. Naive and child-like, Essi has little trouble interacting with him.

I love how cheerful and seemingly care-free Oure was, he is always so happy to see Essi and I found his personality to be so adorable. His is defiantly the path I liked the most; the amount of times I caught myself thinking “He's so cute” :3

Stat building

i just want to point out that there is stat building in this game but its very minimal (once a day), takes only moments and Zeiva Inc have made it fun and exciting; such as watching a gauge and hitting the button at the right time, a memory puzzle and a matching the symbols system. You have a maximum of five (5) tries a day and if you fail even one day, you wont get the bonus ending but there is a quick save system so use it if you think you might get overwhelmed, especially more toward the end of each category when they are made slightly more challenging. 

Overall

Overall I've really enjoyed this game and I'm likely to remember and possibly replay it again in the future. I felt the story was solid, the twists are interesting and the characters great. It's made me laugh and it's made me cry and that does happen to me much in visual novels... well at least the crying part anyway! The good endings may not be all that soppy but you can defiantly feel the bond between Essi and her guy which left quite an impression on me. It's been really refreshing to play a game where you do have to play through all of the paths to have all of your questions fully answered. It made it encouraging to finish (not that I, personally needed it). The password system for the extras I loved; it's unique and works really well within the game. The only thing I was iffy about was the price, at least at first anyway... well that and the fact there was no Rexus path :'( but luckily, if like me, you really wanted to snag him Zeiva Inc are working on another novel called “Area-X” which will make the wish come true!

For anyone who hasn't already played this and is interested, you can find the demo and full game here

  I also suggest checking out Zevia Inc over on facebook for info on Area-X and the likes.

 

Couldn't help myself. I had to sneak this one in!