Gear of Glass

 

Gear of Glass just recently released its English Version upgrade allowing English speaking and reading players a chance to get into this Visual Novel. Gear of Glass was developed and produced by Remnants of mosaic and the original language is Russian. The game offers multiple endings for multiple characters as well as multiple romances. From what I have played through so far for the majority of the characters you can interact with there are good, neutral, and bad endings, however I haven't played through all of them.

The Visual Novel allows you to pick between a Male or Female character and then allows you to place points into certain area's like an RPG such as Strength, Agility, etc. Though I like this aspect I haven't found a great deal where these come involved or if they do they are done so without really knowing what activates them. This game also has a high probability that you will end up dying multiple times through the process of playing through a single play through so I advise saving often or at choice scenes to make sure you can pick a different choice.

The game doesn't say exactly what situation or state the world is in but it would appear to be a alternate world in which technology is post Imperialist Age but not quiet that of the WWI Era. From what information is given there are a couple of powerful nations currently at war with one another and one such nation is attempting to create super soldiers and to some extent better humans. This is led by a secret group in an underground bunker facility. Part of this groups methodology is to use children found on the streets as test subjects.

Economically speaking based on the game's story that is given there is a growing disparity between a group of elites and the common people, so much so that there is an ever growing poor population. With more and more families choosing to send children to orphanages or to force them on the streets in order to be able to feed themselves. 

The MC and the sister (as you can choose to be male or female) are orphans that fled the confines of an abusive orphanage in the hopes of obtaining freedom. However, in this world Freedom comes with a high price, that price being poor and downtrodden. Because of this the MC and the sister end up living on the streets and with little to no food and no shelter they end up malnourished and sick. It is at this time when both are on the doors of death that they are saved by a young man that appears to be a doctor and researcher. It is after they are rescued that things start to happen. Taken to an underground facility the MC is separated from their sister and can take injections, (not sure if you can refuse it or not though I am thinking you can). 

One of the things that makes this VN unique is that there are so many different endings pending on the choices you make through the game. There is a walkthrough that you can find in English on Steam if you wish to use it to get to the ending you want. Currently I have just started so I have not actually gotten many of the endings but I plan on playing through more and seeing about getting more endings.

So what are my thoughts overall on this game? The graphic quality is not as good as higher end Visual Novels but as an indie developer it isn't that bad. I do think that a later updated adapting it to better resolution would be a good thought though. Sound quality wise I am pretty impressed with, while there is no voice overs which personally isn't a requirement, the sounds for the back ground and music used is pretty good and does a good job of getting the player in the mood for what is going on around them.

The story and character development can be a bit rough around the edges, and the story is a tad bit short and doesn't explain a great deal of what is going on in the game world to really get the players mindset to be in the game. That said, I think the game still has a lot of promise and is still well crafted for what parts of the story is being told. I think the story is very engaging and makes for a good starting point for some expansion later if the developer decides to do that.

My only real complaint is the lack of time given to convert all text to English as well as the grammatical errors. Also I there is a lot of switching back and fourth between genders. Playing as a Male MC there were many instances when the MC had 'her' and 'she' instead of the needed 'he' and 'him'. I figure this will be the same on the Female MC as well.

There is one thing that I must warn possible players of though, there is a great deal of violence, suicide, description of scenes of blood, guts, and more. People with weak stomachs or constitutions probably will want to avoid this game.

I would recommend this to people that enjoy a Visual Novel that has a lot of endings and a lot of those endings are you most likely dying, because you will die a lot in this VN.