Thank you AnotherIndieGameDev for providing us with a review code!

Unveiled is an indie visual novel created by AnotherIndieGameDev that inserts some strategy elements into it instead of relying mostly on a kinetic or “choose your own adventure” format. The game starts in a dark void where the character Artenas finds himself in where he comes across “God”. Poking fun of the situation, “God” tells Artenas that he ended up getting hit by a truck and is now dead (Truck-kun truly is a terror to society.) Like many isekai (genre where the protagonist is transported to another world), Artenas is now given the chance to reincarnate into a different life with almost anything that he wanted—so Artenas wishes for power.

The mischievous “God” grants his wish, but with a twist. Artenas is now Lord Artenas, but finds himself metaphorically shackled to his manor. He is unable to leave until the demon lord is defeated. Unfortunately for Artenas, it took around 160 years for that goal to finally be accomplished. After his loyal servant Celcian lets him know of the good news, Artenas is eager to stretch his legs and is curious about the new generation of heroes. He sets his eyes upon the new hero party and plans to watch over them.

Celcian comes up with an idea to get him enrolled in the academy where the new heroes are being trained. It’s not the most ideal plan Artenas wanted as he’d rather stay out of the spotlight. Because of Artenas’ unique situation, as well as very few knowing of his existence, Artenas is more akin to a secret boss in a role-playing game so he’s the most powerful being in the setting. He ends up having to hold back a lot of his power. Due to Celcian pulling a few strings, Artenas finds himself as the newest member of the hero party consisting of Celestia, Faye, and Castoria. As both Artenas and Celcian want the heroes to get stronger, they do manipulate some things behind the scenes, such as empowering the monsters of the land. In a way, Artenas ends up becoming the “mentor” of the group, focusing on improving their strength but also making sure they’re never in too much danger.

The art of Unveiled is mostly competent. The character models take an anime-esque style with colorful pallets, large head and face features and smaller body features. The various monsters take a more simple approach to their designs. In terms of backgrounds, this is where it gets a little less competent. The actual environments do have a good variety, and there are sometimes little animations going on in the scenery, but it also suffers from a perspective problem. One of the most noticeable perspective errors is actually at the beginning of the game in Artenas’ manor. He has a sword near his throne in the ground, but with the way the floor is drawn and the angle the sword is sticking out, it makes the sword stick out like a sore thumb.

I’ll admit that I like the music as it is done well with the structure, but a lot of it is ill-fitting for either the scene or area it is placed in. The music can take you out the experience at times because of this aspect. There is some voice acting, but it mostly consists of grunts and laughs that are very low in volume that you can barely hear.

Getting into the combat of Unveiled is turn-based strategy that takes inspiration from RPGs. All the fights are predetermined, like most strategy games, but the layout is more RPG with characters and enemies having stats and turn order. In these fights, you’ll control up to four characters. Celestia acts as a tank with a good balance of offense and defense. Faye is the ranger who has high HIT and AGL letting her land critical hits often. Castoria is the support mage focusing on healing and enemy debuffs. Artenas is the offensive mage with high damage offset by a high cost. Battles have a focus on buffs, debuffs, and mana management. Mana management is pretty unique compared to most games as it generates over your turn, with more mana generating if you choose a character’s basic attack. Enemies also follow this rule and have to manage their mana as well. If you played any RPG that isn’t a super casual experience, you shouldn’t struggle in most battles. It helps that Unveiled does a fine job explaining what each buff and debuff does.

However, there are some issues when it comes to the visual novel aspect. Unlike probably every VN in existence, this one has an autosave feature and no manual one. It’s not a massive issue as Unveiled is only two hours long but it’s also kinda strange for it to lack such a basic feature. With grammatical errors, I can forgive a few, but Unveiled has a distracting amount of grammatical errors, and most of them have to do with punctuation such as a lowercase “I’ in many situations or confusing a word for another. The log feature that archives dialogue also starts from the beginning of the scene and not from the last word so if you’re deep into a scene, you’re gonna have to do some scrolling. It’s also strange that there is both an auto feature and a dialogue speed option, but with every screen transition, you have to toggle it again.

In terms of morality, Unveiled has some issues that need to be pointed out. Violence isn’t graphic, but it does consist of the typical RPG fare with killing magical/fictional creatures. Then, there’s the whole magic aspect. Nearly every character utilizes magic in some way or is magical in nature. Language is mild with only “d*mn”, “h*ll”, and “b*st*rd” being uttered a few times each. Most of the characters are dressed rather conservatively, but the character Principle Rivalie does have a rather form-fitting shirt.

Unveiled does have problems that cannot be ignored despite it being inexpensive, and it mostly being a college project. The visual novel mechanics could use refining as there are even basic features missing that nearly every VN has by default.. Artenas and Celcian have a simple enough motive and commentary that a player can get behind their reasons, although Celestia, Faye, and Castoria have very little if any motives or development. They’re only heroes for the sake of being heroes. Everything about Unveiled just manages to be okay, from the writing to the battle system to the artsyle. But my biggest complaint is that the entire experience feels like a prologue to a game that doesn’t exist as when the stakes start building up, the experience just ends. For what amounts to be a student project I can’t be too hard on it, but just know what to expect if something like this interests you.