Developer: ALICE IN DISSONANCE
Publisher: Phoenixx inc.
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Fault – StP – Lightkravte – Review
After almost seven years of waiting, ALICE IN DISSONANCE finally brings us their new entry in the fault series. Fault – milestone two: side above, the last entry from 2015, was a great success. It has over 98% positive reviews on Steam and is a fan favorite. Since then, two games have been revealed: fault – milestone two: side below and fault – Silence the Pendant. However, these two games were never actually released. Even though according to their site the series should get a new entry every 6~8 months, it took them over seven years to release their new game: fault – StP – Lightkravte. This is a third game that seemingly comes out of nowhere, which now actually releases before the other two games that were already announced for a very long time. This new title is a prequel that takes place five years before the events of fault – milestone one.
Story
Fault – StP – Lightkravte tells us the story of Khaji, the only son of the most famous fruit farmer in the entire Kingdom of Rugzenhaide. Instead of inheriting the farm, he wants to become a painter. However, he has absolutely no talent for it, he’s extremely bad at it, and can’t seem to improve at all. The Kingdom of Rugzenhaide works with a vocation system in which you have to apply for the job you want and a group of experts and amateurs then judges if you’re allowed to make that your life-long profession. This is the way that tasks are divided in what seems to be a society with seemingly no form of currency whatsoever. Of course, Khaji’s application to become a painter gets refused with an abysmally low rating. Lightkravte is a coming-of-age story in which we see Khaji struggle against his capabilities and the expectations of the adult world that would rather see him take over his father’s farm.
The story teaches us more about the Kingdom of Rugzenhaide that Ritona and Selphine, the main characters of Fault – milestone one and two, grew up in. Fault – StP – Lightkravte focuses more on bringing new characters into the story rather than expanding on the characters in the first two games of the series. Ritona and Selphine are present in the story, as they are very important characters in the Kingdom of Rugzenhaide, but they are not nearly as prevalent in the story as in milestone one and two. The new characters that are introduced all revolve around Perchwood, a group of friends of which Khaji and Ritona are a part. This group meets in the middle of the forest to eat together and have fun. All characters of Perchwood are well-written and truly feel alive. Throughout the story, we get to know them better and they all evolve into very likable characters. The same counts for Khaji, the true main character of the story. He starts as a cringy teenager that is hard to like, but as the story progresses, he learns from his faults and improves on himself. The character design and character progression in this game is really well done.
The pacing of the story felt a bit weird though. The game starts very slow as we get to know Khaji and the other members of Perchwood. We learn about their daily lives through a lot of well-written filler dialogue. Then, all of a sudden, the pacing shifts completely as one event happens after the other without any filler content. Before we can process what just happened, the next thing already hits us in the face. More events happen in the last fifteen minutes of the game than in the seven hours before that. These events are then connected by weird time skips that don’t always make sense. Because of that, the ending feels rushed.
The story is also much more ‘feel-good’ than the previous games. The previous games, while lighthearted at most times, had some pretty heavy topics. In this new game, most of the plot and events were very feel-good and shallow. There were a few basic philosophical concepts but they were far and few between and these were quite superficial.
Graphics
Fault – StP – Lightkravte is a beautifully drawn game. It has an anime art style that just like the rest of the fault series is amazingly well done. It is probably the aspect that makes players want to try out the fault games the most. While this anime art style is known to not be for everyone, it is hard to argue that fault isn’t well done. The backgrounds are super detailed and pleasing to look at. Everything is polished and nothing feels really out of place.
Sound
The music in this game is great, it really adds to the atmosphere, and together with the sound effects it really makes the story come alive. Something important to point out is that the game has no voice acting whatsoever. It doesn’t feel like that’s something that’s really missing though, as the music and background sounds fill in that gap more than enough. However, we still felt like we should at least point it out.
Gameplay
Fault – StP – Lightkravte is a cinematic visual novel with an anime art style. There’s almost no gameplay to be found in a game such as this. The story is the game, and all you do is click the left mouse button or press enter to progress through the story. You can press the space bar to make the text go away so you can look at the beautiful art, and moving your mouse around makes the background move. The latter is a cute effect that makes the art stand out even more. The demo of the previously announced fault – Silence the Pendant game did have gameplay where you would walk around and do some RPG-like things. It is a bit disappointing that this game doesn’t have anything like that to spice things up. You’ll just be clicking through the story that slowly unfolds until you reach the end.
Conclusion
Fault – StP – Lightkravte is a new visual novel in the fault universe that can be played without any knowledge of the previous games whatsoever. It feels like a standalone game set in the same world rather than a new game in the main series. While this is probably disappointing to fans of the series, it is still a fun game with a well-written story set in a very interesting world with interesting characters. The pacing felt a bit rushed towards the end, but aside from that, it’s a solid anime-style visual novel.
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