Amaranto review by Gerard the Lone Wolf

[Gerard the Lone Wolf 10]

http://i.imgur.com/xzX06.jpg

 

I was attracted to Amaranto because I've heard that it was a Shoujo-Ai VN. Unlike Sono Hanabibara series, Amaranto is an all ages VN. That's right, it contains no h-scenes. The lenght of this game is really short. Depends on your reading speed, most people could finish this in just a few hours. For me personally, I'm not so glad that Amaranto is very short. While it's still true that with it quality and simple plot it won't bode well for the VN if they drag the story longer, spending one hour to properly explain some of the bizarres things that occurred inside the story won't hurt either.

 

 

Characters:

 

Mio: The main character. She's pretty sharp and smart. She always carries a sword whenever she go.

 

Shizuku: The childhood friend. She used to be a distand and cold person, until she met Mio. Now she's a cheerful and somewhat carefree girl.

 

Ayaka: A charismatic woman who lead the Eustasia (Err, I think that's the name...), a rebellion group who is trying to overthrow the queen.

 

Ria: She has a cold attitude and is a very skilled swordswoman. Used to be one of Queen's warrior. She has known the Queen for a long time.

 

Azoth: The mysterious girl in white dress. She holds the power of "the end" inside her.

 

Queen: Ruler of Sect. Queenkreuz. She's a queen with a gothic dresses. She desires to bring "the end" by using Azoth. She killed half of the men in every territory that she conquered.

 

Nero: The Queen's right hand. She possess supernatural power and is a very skilled fighter.

 

Anne & Thue: The twin. Two of the 3 Heavenly Kings.

 

Troy: A former disciple of Ria. One on the 3 Heavenly Kings. She holds a grudge against Ria forsome unknown reasons.

 

Maki: She is Ayaka's guard captain.

 

Shion: She is one of the high-ranked officer from the Falcon Sect.

 

Yuuki: A friend to both Mio & Shizuku. She's an expert at gathering useful informations.

 

http://i.imgur.com/KwR0l.jpg

Ria~~

 

 

Story:

 

Seriously, the beginning of this game make me facepalm for some reason. It started with a simple narration about how a war broke out between different countries which resulting the death of half the population on earth while destroying foundation and system, and finally turns the earth into a post apocalyptic world where the remaining human were divided into many small groups called Sect. And this Sect. was waging war against each other over territorial dispute and expansion/conquering purposed until eventually only 9 Sect. remained. (I think it's 9) And the story took place in one of the Sect. called Sect. Queenkreuz. Yep, this is the narration and the world setting in this VN. Pretty grand isn't it? If only the plot was as grand as the setting.

 

The main plot is very simple, someone has dangerous weapon that could bring the "end", you need to find an ally (route), you go in, kill the bad girls, and get out alive. Finished. Why the writers need such a setting for this simple plot is beyond me. Well, it's different if they could utilize it to at least half of its potential, but unfortunately they didn't. Some of the event that occured in this VN are also quite cliche, it make me feels like I've seen this scenes numerous times before in an anime.

 

The strong point for this VN is in how well they introduced the main characters and side characters. Each character's personality and background were shown quite well using the dialogue lines and the flashback story. The characters development and progression are also good.

 

The only exception for this is Nero and Ria. They never explained properly who exactly is Nero. Why or how did she possessed such powers. This question remained unanswered throughtout the end and it became a rather disturbing plot holes. As for Ria, her own route is very disappointing. She doesn't have much character progression or development in her own route unlike the other heroine. She was just there as a sidekick for the MC and I was highly disappointed. I expected some gallant or rouge moment involving her but alas, I was denied of it. There was some cool moment, a tiny little bit of it, but it's not enough. And I blame the writers for it.

 

Furthermore, the MC is either weak or unreliable in most of the routes except in Ria's route. It was in there did she turns into a badass. Which also explained why Ria doesn't get the main spotlight.

 

For the positive part, it was when Amaranto reach the climax, which happens during the mansion raid. Most of the cool stuff in Amaranto happens during this part.The momentum and pacing at this point is good too. The mansion raid is one of the awesome part in this VN for me.

 

Unfortunately, plot holes is running wild in Amaranto. How exactly will the "end" kill all humans? How did Nero become so powerful? And so on, and so on. Seriously, the writers just pulled a bunny out of a hat whenever they needed a plot device and such.

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/1yB1R.jpg

And her best solution is to kill the entire human beings.

 

 

Art:

 

The quality of the art is bad. I could bear with the rough art for the sprite and CGs, but I don't think many people could.

 

Here's an example:

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/n4xj7.jpg

Ria on the left, and Mio on the right side.

 

 

http://s.vndb.org/sf/57/23057.jpg

Shizuku cornered by a streetwalker.

 

 

Music

 

The BGM was quite good, especially for the fighting scenes. However, I don't really like the OP song much and I think the ED song are much better.

 

Unlike the BGM, the audio quality for the voices is the worse ever. It's like they are using a bad mic for recording. *sighed*

 

 

Overall

 

While I do like some of the great moment in this VN,

such as, the fighting scene between Mio and Anne where Anne became a "sweeney todd psycho killer", the death of Shizuku, some of the humorous dialogues, and many else,

in the end the bad point outweigh the good part. This doujin VN is pretty mediocre for me and it isn't something that I could recommend to someone else.

 

I've finished all the routes including the bad ends.

 

tl:dr

 

 

I'll give this VN a 4/10. (Weak)

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/vvWHG.jpg

Yeah, yeah, I'm still going to give Amaranto a 4/10. (Weak)

Edited December 30, 2012 by Gerard the Lone Wolf