Advent: Dawn – Review
As much as we enjoy serving up drinks or romancing colour-coded ninja hunks, nothing beats a good old mystery plot when it comes to visual novels. The genre was practically invented for them, as their inherent interactivity provides a fantastic way to challenge players/readers’ intellects. Throw in a good puzzle or two, and you’ve got a recipe for success. Of course, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and we’ve seen quite a few attempts that failed to deliver. Today, we’re taking a look at Spire Games’ Advent: Dawn to see where it falls. As is the case with narrative-driven games like this, we’ll refrain from getting too spoiler-y, so you can safely read on to see whether or not Advent: Dawn is worthy of your time and money.
Story
Set 40 years in the future, on the 27th of June 2066 to be exact, Advent: Dawn tells the story of neuroscientist Dr. Atlas Everly. At the behest of the APERTA Corporation, Everly and his assistant Amelia are invited to a remote island in the South Pacific to study a newly discovered kind of crystal inside volcanic caves. Soon after the pair arrive, an earthquake causes a cave-in that traps our protagonist underground alongside six strangers. Tensions quickly escalate when one of the expedition crew is found murdered, cryptic messages and strange symbols appear, and a mysterious entity hacks base camp computers.
From that point on, Advent: Dawn’s narrative unfolds across five branching character routes that culminate in the game’s ending. The story deals with themes of human connection and paranoia, with Everly experiencing strange hallucinations, including voices in his head and mysterious shadows. These throw his reliability as a narrator into question, effectively making you question what is real and what isn’t as a reader. Advent: Dawn is a sequel to 2022’s The VII Enigma, but don’t worry if you missed that one, as it works well as a standalone story too. That said, the overall worldbuilding felt a bit rushed, likely owing to the game’s relatively short length. Advent: Dawn is the second part of a trilogy, but we’re looking at the game on its own merit, so your mileage may vary here depending on how much The VII Enigma fleshes things out (and if you’re reading this in the future, what the third part adds).
Graphics
The anime-inspired visuals of Advent: Dawn reminded us of those of the Zero Escape series, particularly 2012’s Virtue’s Last Reward. As you’ll find in the gameplay section of our review, this isn’t the only area where Advent: Dawn feels reminiscent of the Zero Escape series. Advent: Dawn’s character designs are highly effective, establishing personality not just by their aesthetics but also through facial expressions, body shape, and poses. Advent: Dawn isn’t afraid to break the typical conventions of visual novels either. The game utilizes visual haze and text effects to reflect Everly’s mental state, for example. Relatively simple tricks like that are a very effective way to convey information without the need for lengthy explanations. It’s almost Pavlovian: as soon as a visual effect comes into play, you know which direction the story takes. Of interest is that the original artist contracted to provide environments used AI to do so, unbeknownst to Spire Games. When they found out, they had a human artist repaint the environments, showing their commitment to human-created visuals.
Sound
The soundscape for Advent: Dawn is fleshed out way more than what you’d typically expect for a visual novel. The soundtrack is particularly effective at setting the mood, ranging from soft piano notes for intimate scenes to energetic guitar riffs during high-adrenaline moments. The game also features partial voice acting, which is further supplemented with text-sound “beeps” during unvoiced dialogue. The quality of the voice work is a mixed bag, with some performances falling flat. Both the voices and the beeps can be toggled off if you prefer. Perhaps the most unexpected inclusion is environmental audio, which adds haunting whispers and atmospheric sounds that enhance the story’s eerie subterranean setting.
Gameplay
A visual novel first and foremost, Advent: Dawn combines lengthy narrative sections with scene investigations and puzzle solving. This brings the game much more in line with mystery games like Famicom Detective Club, Ace Attorney, and Zero Escape than straightforward visual novels like Birushana or Lover’s Enigma. The puzzles in particular are reminiscent of something you’d find in Zero Escape, like having to memorise patterns of flashing blocks or piecing together hidden shreds of paper to restore an authentication code. Advent: Dawn includes a hint system and an option to have companions solve puzzles if you prefer to focus on the story. Given that some of the puzzles aren’t clearly explained, this does help if you’re really stuck and want to avoid frustration without having to brute force your way through with an online guide. Advent: Dawn is the kind of game that wants to challenge your intellect but that also wants to respect your time.
The latter is also noticeable in how the game’s flowchart is integrated in-universe, in the form of a digital cave map/neural chip interface. It allows you to track the story’s branching routes and view unlocked paths, while simultaneously letting you jump back to earlier scenes from choice points and make corrections should you reach a dead end. Mind you, we’re grossly oversimplifying things here, as completing Advent: Dawn isn’t just a matter of hopping back and forth and bypassing puzzles. The relationships Everly builds with other characters determine story routes, and you’ll need to make in-story decisions to nudge the narrative in specific directions. Some of your choices have a normal decision time, while others feature a countdown timer where failing to respond forces a specific outcome. If you complete the game, you’ll unlock a secret epilogue and a final riddle, providing extra context for the upcoming third chapter in the trilogy. This does incentivise not sticking to just one route and instead aiming for 100% completion. It’s not like that would eat up ages of your time either, as Advent: Dawn should take most players around 12 hours to complete. This is reflected in the relatively low price of €17.25, though with the caveat that this one should be viewed not just as a standalone release but also in the context of this being part of a trilogy.
Conclusion
Perhaps the most telling thing about Advent: Dawn is that it got us interested enough in its world and characters to check out The VII Enigma ahead of the trilogy’s closing chapter. While it doesn’t break any new ground in terms of mechanics, Advent: Dawn comfortably fits in with some of the better entries in the genre. If you enjoyed the Zero Escape series, then this one should be right up your alley.
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