![]() ![]() While symptoms of melancholy were usually easy to recognize, medical opinions often differed on what it was that caused the condition. Like depression, melancholy ranged in seriousness from mild, temporary bouts of sadness or “low spirits” to longer, more extreme episodes, characterized by insomnia, lack of appetite, and suicidal thoughts. What we recognize today as depression was, in the Victorian era, popularly known as melancholia or melancholy. Melancholy Love is available for purchase on Steam and itch.io, with a demo available on both platforms.Melancholy by Alfred Émile Léopold Stevens, 1876. It’s a gentle and, at times (as the title suggests), a melancholy love story that ultimately leaves you with soft, warm feelings. While it doesn’t break the mold, it’s full of charm and endearing characters that you come to care about deeply as the story progresses. Melancholy Love is a sweet, sometimes melodramatic coming-of-age story. Qianxun and Mianxue are both interesting, multifaceted characters in their own right, and their chemistry together is the perfect blend of angst, yearning, and bittersweetness. ![]() The central romance, from both perspectives, is compelling enough to drive the story forward on its own, and non-conflict complications add an extra bit of interest at the right time without feeling shoehorned in. While it still has its slow moments, the characters are enjoyable to just sit with and listen to. ![]() The characters have such strong voices that the point of view shift injects some extra interest into what could have turned into a tedious extra-slow burn romance.īroadly, this game does what ostensibly amounts to slice of life extremely well. The switching between different characters’ perspectives, however, is a fun-to-read way of exploring the budding romance. There’s also some additional plot involving them in the background, but with the way it meanders through the main romance, it can sometimes get a little lost. It’s an interesting choice, but it sets up the expectation you’ll learn more about the relationship between these two characters (teacher Qingwei and headmaster Zihua), but it takes some time for them to even show back up again in a meaningful way. It starts off a bit strange, introducing the setting with two characters that end up being pushed back into secondary slots once the game gets going. The mutual pining between social opposites angle makes for compelling romantic storytelling, and the addition of a third character, Qianxun’s “sister”, thrown into the mix drives the slice-of-life story forward as you wait to see how it all unfolds. The central romance between the two leads, Qianxun and Mianxue, is very charming. The overall visual feel is well-constructed and pleasant to look at even if the aesthetics themselves aren’t particularly novel. The UI is applied with a light but well-structured touch. The backgrounds are soft and delicate while still being bright and colorful. ![]() These are all minor grievances that aren’t unique to this specific game but are present nonetheless. In favor of maintaining a cuter style, the teacher characters don’t look that much older than the students. Occasionally the clothing (especially prevalent in the blazers of the school uniform) conforms to some very strange rules of physics regarding their relationship to the wearers’ anatomy. The poses force the girls into occasionally backbreaking positions, and their expressions are a little bland when they do use them. That being said, the sprite design does fall into a lot of the usual traps of this style of art. When the girls can be out of uniform, their clothing choice has something of a street fashion flair that strikes me as very bold and shows off their out-of-school personalities. The art is the quality and style to be expected from a mid-tier or larger commercial studio, clean and highly polished with generally well-thought-out character designs. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |