Review of Re;Lord ~Herford no Majo to Nuigurumi~
| Subject | Re;Lord ~Herford no Majo to Nuigurumi~ Re;Lord 1 ~The witch of Hertfort and stuffed animals~ |
| By | Helpfulness: 3 Vote: 8triority on 2020-09-10 last updated on 2021-02-01 |
| Review | Re;Lord 1 is one of my favourite visual novels (blending a comedy/drama story with an RPG tetris-like gameplay strip gameplay), probably because of the role reversal that comes into play a short way in. Whilst Wilfried initially comes off as a weird, yet somewhat sympathetic protagonist, that quickly changes as he details his plans to rape all the witches (instead of at least trying to mediate some sort of truce), and then take over the world, possibly killing many people in the process. Likewise, the witches initially seem to be the baddies (Erika starting off as arrogant and demanding, forcing Fine to fight Wilfried without her staff, which in turn gives him the idea of how to defeat the witches), until later on, Erika realises how much she depends on her attendant for her well-being. She does (sort of) try to stop Wilfried (but to no avail). Wilfried’s friends are pretty sycophantic, with the exception of Ria - whilst she tried to get Wilfried to kill Fine early on in the game (which he didn't do, mainly due to his ego), she flips between being disgusted that Wilfried has raped the witches to not really caring what he does to them. She is also seems to be pretty power mad, although whether it was just a ploy to manipulate Wilfried’s rapist and cowardly father, or not, won't be known until later in the series. Likewise she sometimes agrees with Wilfrieds sentiments, and other times doesn't - so what her true intentions are, are unknown. It is implied that she does fight – and possibly kill Wilfried, early in the game. The backgrounds are nice, if not always detailed as much as they could be. Character graphics are good and the stripable CG's are very nice. The action sequences are good fun, and certainly not easy on the harder difficulty levels. It's certainly not a game for those who are offended by the subject matter, which is probably made somewhat worse by the girls sanguine response to their plight. Whilst they do suffer from the after affects of being defeated by Wilfried (although it's due to having their magic forcibly removed), they generally ignore what's happened to them (although Erika is interested in knowing what happened to fine) - with the one small note by Fine at the end of the game, acknowledging what happened. There is some comedy in it, but there is always a sense of forboding behind everything. The story is certainly very intriguing, and I would dearly like Escu:de to hurry up and put in the translated text for Re;Lord 2 so it can get tested and released. Also reviewed at <link> |
| 3 points |