Echoes of the Fey
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playingstoryName: Echoes of the Fey
Status: Complete
Site: https://woodsy-studio.itch.io/echoes-of-the-fey-the-foxs-trail
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: F/M and F/F side plots, with M/M between NPCs
Description: A magepunk detective game with simple mystery but complicated characters
While this game has some superficial elements of point and click adventures, it is primarily still a choice-based game and its core is pretty solidly that of a VN. There's a small point and click layer where you do some inventory management, and move your sprite around on a limited side scrolling map, but these things really could have been removed without there being much of a change beyond saving a little time watching your character move back and forth.
The setting is a magicpunk fantasy Eastern Europe. Humans have started using technology to manipulate the fey, and their neighbors, the long-lived Leshin are not happy about this at all. They start a war, which rages for about a generation, and then the Leshin go a little too far and explode an entire human city by blowing up a fey reactor. This act results in more moderate Leshin rebelling against the extremists who were running the show, and eventually we have an armistice and a peace. The game starts shortly after that peace. The main character, Sofya, was present at the Immolation and has ended up with some unique powers as an after effect of the explosion, which she keeps hidden. She works as a private eye, and is approached by a Leshin woman who insists that her son, who was reported dead, must actually be alive, and wants to pay to have him found. The game then revolves mostly about trying to find this missing Leshin, to determine if he's alive or dead, and just generally what happened to him.
The solution to this, the central problem of the game, becomes pretty obvious very early on into it. The game took me about 4 hours to play through, but by the first hour I was pretty certain I knew what was going on, and every bit of progress confirmed that I was right. It was therefore something of a slog to go through three hours of investigations as more evidence piled up pointing to the obvious solution, but the main character shows no indication that she's really figured things out until near the very end.
Since this is something of a mystery game, the mystery being solved so early on is a bit of a problem, but it isn't as much of a problem as I thought it would be, and this is thanks to a collection of side plots, interesting people, and minor complications that come up along the way. Sofya herself is an interesting character. Superficially she's one of those care free, partying troublemakers that is told no and hears yes, but she has a little more depth than that. She went through some shit during the Immolation and struggles with nightmares, cynicism, and a condition that could kill her in any number of ways. She is also a massive flirt and you can basically make romantic advances towards almost every NPC in the game. There are about 7 major ones, all quite different, with a variety of motives and personalities that were fun to navigate. While the broad concept for a lot of this game may feel like something that's been done a thousand times before, the execution was actually pretty refreshing.
For example there is a human church. The characters there exhibit some elements of the stereotypical religious figure in fantasy lit, but the head of the church is generally friendly, just a little crazy in a possibly literally Cthulhu type way. Rather than the church concerning itself with heretics and moral oppression, which is where a lot of lazy writing likes to go with fantasy church, this one is focused on scientific advancement specifically because some sort of weird alien creature is their goddess and they want to get to know her corpse better. The church leader's interactions with Sofya are therefore pretty interesting because while there is some antagonism, there is also respect. That's the case with most of the characters. Sofya can't really trust much of anyone. The authority figures are suspicious of her, and her targets know she's out to get them, but the choices you make let you navigate that interpersonal stuff in a satisfying way.
When it comes to the choices there's actually a lot. Like I said there are a few side quests, and some parts of the game that exist as nothing more than an opportunity for worldbuilding, which I found interesting because the world is actually intriguing. The writing is strong. Characters behave pretty naturally, and past events or lore is introduced to the player through conversation that manages to avoid "as you know," mostly by having humans and Leshin explain themselves to each other. While the mystery is easy to solve, the game still does a decent job of giving you the solution by showing you the mechanics of the world as a means, and teaching you about the politics as a motive.
The also balances railroading you into solutions with certain things you absolutely must do and giving you some options with stuff you don't need to do. Solving the mystery isn't the end of the game. You then have to figure out what to do with the information you're given, based on your feelings toward the other characters and the political situation that you've come to understand over the course of your playing. I got what was a pretty good end but I think there are better. You get an end credits roll that tells you the outcome of the other characters in the game, and there were a few that didn't turn out so well for me. But it seems that if I focus on some of my choices at the very end that's all it will take to correct that. There also appears to be a possibility of a romantic ending of some sort. Like I said, Sofya is a prolific flirt. She had sex with one person multiple times, went on a date with another, propositioned two more, and her relationship with her doctor Heremon is also something that clearly is capable of going further. In my playthrough he almost confessed but didn't quite manage it. I don't know know if I could get him to do it if I played my cards better, but I liked their dynamic and wanted it to happen.
Unfortunately there is no internal tracking of any of this. The game is on steam and achievements would let you know if you've caught what you want from the game, but outside of that I'm left wondering if I saw everything in one path or another. I am not the sort of person who replays games. I get bored quickly with this, and because this is not a standard VN with skip options, a redo would be extremely tedious. I will probably go back a save or two and see if I can't get the final few scenes a bit better, but that's all I'm willing to do.
Art wise things are ok. Very western is how I would put it. It kind of reminds me of old RPG manuals from decades ago. The map you walk around in gets the point across but isn't very pretty, and your sprite is a classic three jointed flash game type thing. The art direction and the ui turned me off in the beginning, but I'm glad I played anyway because the story was ok, and the world in particular was intriguing. The game did a good job of getting me to want to know a little more, and since there is a free prequel available I probably will play it for that reason.
A final note: the game is advertised as Episode 1. This is typically cause for concern, but the overall plot here is finished. There are a few hooks for future games (and there is a sequel already out) and a bit of a cliffhanger coda after the final credits, but overall you can play this game without being worried that it will end at an unsatisfying time.
Status: Complete
Site: https://woodsy-studio.itch.io/echoes-of-the-fey-the-foxs-trail
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: F/M and F/F side plots, with M/M between NPCs
Description: A magepunk detective game with simple mystery but complicated characters
While this game has some superficial elements of point and click adventures, it is primarily still a choice-based game and its core is pretty solidly that of a VN. There's a small point and click layer where you do some inventory management, and move your sprite around on a limited side scrolling map, but these things really could have been removed without there being much of a change beyond saving a little time watching your character move back and forth.
The setting is a magicpunk fantasy Eastern Europe. Humans have started using technology to manipulate the fey, and their neighbors, the long-lived Leshin are not happy about this at all. They start a war, which rages for about a generation, and then the Leshin go a little too far and explode an entire human city by blowing up a fey reactor. This act results in more moderate Leshin rebelling against the extremists who were running the show, and eventually we have an armistice and a peace. The game starts shortly after that peace. The main character, Sofya, was present at the Immolation and has ended up with some unique powers as an after effect of the explosion, which she keeps hidden. She works as a private eye, and is approached by a Leshin woman who insists that her son, who was reported dead, must actually be alive, and wants to pay to have him found. The game then revolves mostly about trying to find this missing Leshin, to determine if he's alive or dead, and just generally what happened to him.
The solution to this, the central problem of the game, becomes pretty obvious very early on into it. The game took me about 4 hours to play through, but by the first hour I was pretty certain I knew what was going on, and every bit of progress confirmed that I was right. It was therefore something of a slog to go through three hours of investigations as more evidence piled up pointing to the obvious solution, but the main character shows no indication that she's really figured things out until near the very end.
Since this is something of a mystery game, the mystery being solved so early on is a bit of a problem, but it isn't as much of a problem as I thought it would be, and this is thanks to a collection of side plots, interesting people, and minor complications that come up along the way. Sofya herself is an interesting character. Superficially she's one of those care free, partying troublemakers that is told no and hears yes, but she has a little more depth than that. She went through some shit during the Immolation and struggles with nightmares, cynicism, and a condition that could kill her in any number of ways. She is also a massive flirt and you can basically make romantic advances towards almost every NPC in the game. There are about 7 major ones, all quite different, with a variety of motives and personalities that were fun to navigate. While the broad concept for a lot of this game may feel like something that's been done a thousand times before, the execution was actually pretty refreshing.
For example there is a human church. The characters there exhibit some elements of the stereotypical religious figure in fantasy lit, but the head of the church is generally friendly, just a little crazy in a possibly literally Cthulhu type way. Rather than the church concerning itself with heretics and moral oppression, which is where a lot of lazy writing likes to go with fantasy church, this one is focused on scientific advancement specifically because some sort of weird alien creature is their goddess and they want to get to know her corpse better. The church leader's interactions with Sofya are therefore pretty interesting because while there is some antagonism, there is also respect. That's the case with most of the characters. Sofya can't really trust much of anyone. The authority figures are suspicious of her, and her targets know she's out to get them, but the choices you make let you navigate that interpersonal stuff in a satisfying way.
When it comes to the choices there's actually a lot. Like I said there are a few side quests, and some parts of the game that exist as nothing more than an opportunity for worldbuilding, which I found interesting because the world is actually intriguing. The writing is strong. Characters behave pretty naturally, and past events or lore is introduced to the player through conversation that manages to avoid "as you know," mostly by having humans and Leshin explain themselves to each other. While the mystery is easy to solve, the game still does a decent job of giving you the solution by showing you the mechanics of the world as a means, and teaching you about the politics as a motive.
The also balances railroading you into solutions with certain things you absolutely must do and giving you some options with stuff you don't need to do. Solving the mystery isn't the end of the game. You then have to figure out what to do with the information you're given, based on your feelings toward the other characters and the political situation that you've come to understand over the course of your playing. I got what was a pretty good end but I think there are better. You get an end credits roll that tells you the outcome of the other characters in the game, and there were a few that didn't turn out so well for me. But it seems that if I focus on some of my choices at the very end that's all it will take to correct that. There also appears to be a possibility of a romantic ending of some sort. Like I said, Sofya is a prolific flirt. She had sex with one person multiple times, went on a date with another, propositioned two more, and her relationship with her doctor Heremon is also something that clearly is capable of going further. In my playthrough he almost confessed but didn't quite manage it. I don't know know if I could get him to do it if I played my cards better, but I liked their dynamic and wanted it to happen.
Unfortunately there is no internal tracking of any of this. The game is on steam and achievements would let you know if you've caught what you want from the game, but outside of that I'm left wondering if I saw everything in one path or another. I am not the sort of person who replays games. I get bored quickly with this, and because this is not a standard VN with skip options, a redo would be extremely tedious. I will probably go back a save or two and see if I can't get the final few scenes a bit better, but that's all I'm willing to do.
Art wise things are ok. Very western is how I would put it. It kind of reminds me of old RPG manuals from decades ago. The map you walk around in gets the point across but isn't very pretty, and your sprite is a classic three jointed flash game type thing. The art direction and the ui turned me off in the beginning, but I'm glad I played anyway because the story was ok, and the world in particular was intriguing. The game did a good job of getting me to want to know a little more, and since there is a free prequel available I probably will play it for that reason.
A final note: the game is advertised as Episode 1. This is typically cause for concern, but the overall plot here is finished. There are a few hooks for future games (and there is a sequel already out) and a bit of a cliffhanger coda after the final credits, but overall you can play this game without being worried that it will end at an unsatisfying time.
