Ryukishi is remarkably good at writing characters, and you’ll see in most of his games that he makes use of a technique that clearly defines a side of the cast as good and the other as evil, while simultaneously allowing you to sympathize with his antagonists.
When you don’t truly know what the characters are capable off, and their attacks feel like something out of a children’s cartoon, reading battles is surprisingly monotonous… Especially since these battles are more often than not curbstomps by the clearly superior character, and I have thought to myself that “I wish they got to the end already” an unexpectedly large amount of times.īut why is the game so popular, then? Well, character development comes to mind. Sometimes happy scenes feel too extended or long, and generally needless, this often applies to some of the fighting scenes mentioned above, too. They’re still there, and they’re still a problem, though. If you’re used to Visual Novels, you know titles this long are almost bound to have some pacing issues, and Umineko handles that fairly well. At its worst, the dialogue in those scenes will look like something taken out of a bad RPG: Antagonist launched 20 spears! The spears turned into beats, each then becoming two hundred lightning bolts! But, antagonist 2 used a omni-shield! It’s super effective!… You get the idea.Īnother problem of the story is its pacing. Ryukishi is notoriously bad at writing fighting scenes, and Umineko is no exception to that. You shouldn’t go into Umineko expecting a mystery for the ages, though. This has a big effect on the narrative, and it’s largely a positive one. While done well, the mystery is something that serves to further develop characters and to break the status quo of the story in several different ways. Ultimately, it’s entertaining, but it’s not a mystery for one to try and solve. The game also works in a way that makes you constantly question the reliability of the narrator, which can be quite a headache. It’s intriguing, but because of Ryukishi’s less-than-poetic and often unrealistic scene descriptions, it can sometimes be immersion-breaking. If you plan on reading both games, starting with Higurashi will let you know a few extra things, as well as understand how the chapters of the story are going to work from the get go… But if you don’t have Higurashi, feel free to go for Umineko without a second though, as what you’ll learn is really minor.Īs for the mystery itself, it’s not bad. The most you’ll really miss from not knowing Higurashi, other than the origin story mentioned previously, are a few easter eggs. Umineko When They Cry is the third game (or second, depending on whether or not you consider Higurashi as one game) of Ryukishi’s “When They Cry” series, first released back on 2007~2008 and brought to steam by Mangagamer about two weeks ago. The localized game covers the first four chapters of the story, which have more of a focus on the mystery elements than the second half does.įirst and foremost, some of the game’s characters are related to Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, and you will get their origin stories there… Ultimately, that’s not too important, though – Umineko does stand on its own as a very good and fully understandable work.
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