Check out the Twice Reborn: A Vampire Visual Novel Review:
Twice Reborn: A Vampire Visual Novel, by EastAsiaSoft Limited, First Step Cinematics, and Ratalaika Games, is a…well, it’s a visual novel.
Gamers play as Mark Delaware, a teaching assistant who stumbles into the hidden world of vampires and has to make decisions about his friends, family, and humanity.
Story
Gamers, or maybe Readers would be a better description, playthrough Twice Reborn as Mark Delaware, a student in his last semester at university, who is also a TA for the hardest history professor on campus, Professor Michelson. Michelson has arranged for a job interview for Mark, leading players to their first significant choice in the game, whether to accept the interview or politely thank but reject Michelson’s offer. I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler here to tell you that if you reject the professor, you die pretty quickly after. A green-mohawked vampire named Spike approaches you, saying some mysterious stuff about how “the others want you, but I don’t care,” and then you die. Thus, leading to “Dead End 1”, titled “Another dead student on campus,” by the developers… that’s dark!
According to developers, there are 33 possible endings to the game. 1 is considered the “best ending,” 2 are considered “good endings,” 4 are considered “normal” endings, and a whopping 24 are considered “bad endings,” “dead ends,” or “bloodlust endings,” which just means you gave into your vampiric hunger, blacked out and killed everyone around you.
If you took the time to do the math, you might notice that only equaled 31. The last two possible endings are called “hunter” endings. It turns out that strict Professor Michelson is not what he seems; he’s actually, gasp, the vampire enforcer, by which I mean a vampire who enforces vampire law. If you partner with the professor, you can unlock the hunter storyline, which may or may not include a bear.
Gameplay
This game is a choose-your-own-adventure novel, meaning players are given options about how they want to proceed at specific points. A player’s choices also give players points towards which endings are available to them. For example, while on a date early in the game, if players choose to pay for dinner, the game will award 1 point towards the best ending. If players decide to split dinner, no points are awarded, and if players choose to let their date, Jody, pay, they will lose a point toward the best ending. Points add up during the game, causing changes that players can monitor on their stat screen.
The stat screen tracks Mark’s relationships with different vampire factions, individual characters, and overall hunger. I figured out this last part after I politely refused a bottle of blood at a party, then went to run an errand, lost control, and killed everyone.
There are times in the game when players don’t do much except read and press a button to advance to the next line of text, which… got pretty boring after a while, especially when I figured out I could select the “Auto Advance” feature, and just sit and read.
The game actually provides a lot of save slots, I mean a lot. So, the developers expect players to think strategically and save during major choices. Which is great, except for the crashes.
Crashes
At first, I thought I had done something wrong, but then I realized, nope, it’s not me; the game is actually crashing. In Chapter 8 of the game, after two human characters trick Mark into meeting two vampires, Dameon and Zhenzhu, the game began repeatedly crashing when I was trying to choose between joining the House of the Skulls or remaining with The Society (two rival vampire factions). I figured out I could get past the crash point by selecting “Skip Mode” for the dialogue, which, when selected, will skip players to the next story choice. Unfortunately, that meant there was a giant chunk of the story where I had no idea what happened or was said, and when faced with my next choice, I just threw up my hands and guessed at what to do.
I saw a few other people reporting game crashes, but it doesn’t seem like most people are dealing with them. If it does happen to you, though, try skipping ahead and then take your best guess.
Art
I want to take a moment and talk about the game’s art, which I thought was the weakest part of the game.
I’m not sure about anyone else’s reaction, but the first time I opened the game and saw the cover art, I thought that all of the characters on the front were the same character.
I thought, “Oh, does the story change depending on who I decide to play as? Will I turn into the bad guy or the professor dude, depending on if I’m a Paragon or a Renegade?” Turns out, no. These are all different characters, but tell me they aren’t all actually the same?
I would understand similarities because the characters are by the same artist, but these characters all look like one template with different hair. The choice to make most of the characters copies of each other was made more noticeable because during certain scenes in the game where Mark is in a crowd, the developers don’t bother adding an actual character; they just put a black silhouette that players are just supposed to accept. This was especially weird during the ballroom scene where Mark danced with a black blob.
The game’s art style was flat, bland, and super clunky, and there were several times I found myself wondering about the artistic choices rather than paying attention to the story.
I’ve played Twice Reborn for about 4 hours, died about a dozen times, and had the game crash about a dozen more.
While there is potential, I personally found the plot boring, but I wonder how much of that was due to the artwork and animation choices, which let the game down (Seriously, there would be minutes I was just staring at a black screen reading text).
I’m pretty torn about this game because I’m a completionist at heart, and I want to get to collect the endings, but I don’t know that the time and energy would be worth it. I have a feeling this will be a game I put down for a while, and then on some unknown lazy Sunday in the future, I pick up again, binge my way through, and never think about it again.
Overall
6/10
Twice Reborn: A Vampire Visual Novel is currently available on all platforms. For more information, visit: https://www.eastasiasoft.com/games/Twice-Reborn-A-Vampire-Visual-Novel
Related: Reviews by Michelle Jones
I'm a completionist gamer who just needs to find that one last object and clear that final dungeon. I love all video games, from open world sandboxes on a console to a mindless match three on my phone. In addition to gaming and writing, I am a graduate student working on a thesis about the ancient Icelandic Sagas. Feel free to ask me anything about Vikings.
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