Brilliant Shadows - Part One of the Book of Gray Magic review

Exceptional

by Mia Blais-Côté

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.

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.