Brilliant Shadows - Part One of the Book of Gray Magic
About
Brilliant Shadows is a visual novel that follows the story of Veronica Ashmar, a new graduate of the Mountain and a necromancer. Tradition dictates that upon graduation, necromancers and paladins are to perform the pairing ritual. Binding together one of each type of mage, entwining their lives and powers with another and sealing their fates together with a matching mark upon their primary hands.
Those that succeed and become paired go on as full mages, those that do not are considered nothing more than hedge mages. There are no exceptions and the ritual has never failed…
Until the day Ash receives a mark and no fellow graduate to match it.
Now she must discover the origin of her mark and attempt to solve the greatest magical mystery that the Mountain has ever known.
Brilliant Shadows – Part 1 of the Book of Gray Magic is 57,023 words long, estimated at 3-6 hours of game play depending on read speed.
There are 3 different endings depending on your choices, as well as a few larger branch options within the story.
Plus, the main character is a lesbian necromancer who specializes in undead plants!
All spoken lines are fully voice acted, and the game features an extensive original soundtrack with 25 awesome songs.
Those that succeed and become paired go on as full mages, those that do not are considered nothing more than hedge mages. There are no exceptions and the ritual has never failed…
Until the day Ash receives a mark and no fellow graduate to match it.
Now she must discover the origin of her mark and attempt to solve the greatest magical mystery that the Mountain has ever known.
Brilliant Shadows – Part 1 of the Book of Gray Magic is 57,023 words long, estimated at 3-6 hours of game play depending on read speed.
There are 3 different endings depending on your choices, as well as a few larger branch options within the story.
Plus, the main character is a lesbian necromancer who specializes in undead plants!
All spoken lines are fully voice acted, and the game features an extensive original soundtrack with 25 awesome songs.
System requirements for macOS
Minimum:
- OS: Mac OS X 10.6 / 10.7 / 10.8
- Processor: 1.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo or better
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: Integrated Graphics Chip
- Storage: 400 MB available space
Recommended:
- OS: Mac OS X 10.6 / 10.7 / 10.8
- Processor: 1.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo or better
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: Integrated Graphics Chip
- Storage: 500 MB available space
System requirements for Linux
Minimum:
- Processor: 1.2 GHz Pentium 4
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Storage: 500 MB available space
Recommended:
- Processor: 1.2 GHz Pentium 4
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Storage: 500 MB available space
System requirements for PC
Minimum:
- OS: Windows Vista / 7 / 8 / 10
- Processor: 1.5Ghz Processor or better
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: Integrated Graphics Chip
- Storage: 400 MB available space
Recommended:
- OS: Windows Vista / 7 / 8 / 10
- Processor: Pentium 4 or better
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: Integrated Graphics Chip
- Storage: 500 MB available space
Brilliant Shadows - Part One of the Book of Gray Magic reviews and comments
One of my favorites VN. Sublime images, a fantasy world well developed, endearing characters, a gripping story, 3 endings and dialogues entirely dubbed in English (a rarity!). Recommended without hesitation.
Translated by
Microsoft from Deutsch
Microsoft from Deutsch
A Visual Novel with a really intriguing story and amazing art. It builds an interesting world with a lot of potential and I hope that for future parts we get the opportunity to explore it more. The characters are diverse and compelling and I like the choices we get to make considering the protagonist's personality and reactions. However sometimes I would've liked to have more options,
like when we had the choice to kiss or slap Hector I would have preferred one where we just talk or do nothing.
I also feel like the finale had a lot of missed opportunities for possible choices. But maybe I'm just too used to Telltale Game's sort of choice-system.
I also had some trouble with the story from time to time. While I love that it tries to be progressive, it sometimes feels forced and takes away from the main plot because of that. It has trouble finding a balance between world-buliding and character-/romance-building. While it doesn't give a lot of exposition on the first, it just drops a lot of it on the latter. That bugging me can of course only be my personal preference.
All in all I would definetly recommend Brilliant Shadow to anyone looking for an intiriguing Visual Novel set in a refreshing fantasy world. Personally, I couldn't stop playing until I finished the first ending of the story. Looking forward to more.
Translated by
Microsoft from Spain
Microsoft from Spain
When it comes to visual novels, my first priority is good stories. And What Brilliant Shadows has accomplished.
To begin with, the story is interesting, and when you finish a route you are itching curiosity, not only by the second part (which achieved almost five times what he asked in his campaign), but by the other routes possible, the world where it develops. He surprised me, made me laugh, filled me with tenderness and brought me to the brink of tears. And that's not an easy thing to accomplish.
The art is nice and beautiful, with distinctive designs between necromancers and Paladins. Some images give you the feeling of being an illustration in one of those art books for collectors. You can have a gloomy and colorful image at the same time.
The design of characters, both in appearance and in sexuality, brings something very welcome: diversity. And diversity that shows how much a story can improve. You Don't have X character like And just to say you don't discriminate, but your And it's part of the story, and it enriches it.
The music accompanies, but in the sound aespecto, what I liked the most were the voices. Not just in the literal sense, they give new dimensions to history. Sometimes I came back just to hear the voice of a character.
This is one of the best visual novels I've played, and I've played a lot. Recommended, no doubt.
Related pages
Projection: First Light, ACA NEOGEO THE KING OF FIGHTERS 2000, Genesis, Hangman Pro, Create