Romance of Raskya

Romance of Raskya is a sexy, violent, intimate tale that follows a small group of people attempting to not only survive, but to find their own happiness in the midst of war and political machinations.
A Rome-inspired romance; a choose-your-ending game with all the sex and violence of Game of Thrones.
That may sound cliche in the year of our lord 2021, but it's the best one-line review I can think of for this game. The game is a Western visual novel with eleven endings, but may be disappointing to those expecting a dating sim or fully-erotic scenes. There is nudity, but I would give the game the rating of "R" if it were a film.
The world is an epic tapestry, inspired by many eras of human history but most heavily ancient Rome and Greece. The story, however, is a zoomed-in study of three characters caught in the middle of history. The romance is such a small part of the conflict at-large, but the game impressed me with its awareness that history is skewed by the minds that study and write about it. Real, human emotion and the small, daily struggles of individuals are often lost in the sea of nation-altering events.
The creators did a few things that I've never seen before, pushing the game over the edge for me from "decent" to "great".
- Battle scenes are written remarkably well, with realistic tactics and outcomes. The backgrounds and text effects are animated to support these violent clashes between armies, small squads, and even siege towers and the walls they are designed to destroy.
- Some of the bad endings are worth finding in their own right. They're well-written tragedies, not just "oops you made a wrong decision and died."
- Sections of the game are book-ended with excerpts from academic texts written from the perspective of historians living within the game universe, bringing to life the fictional ancient nation-states of Raskya, Durja, and others.
- Without spoiling anything, some of the art in the game takes the form of in-universe paintings. The camera is, at appropriate times, animated to zoom and pan around these pieces like a Ken Burns documentary.
There are a few other noteworthy things that any visual novel worth paying for should have, and I was pleased to experience these in Romance of Raskya.
- The music is addicting and sets the mood properly
- The art is solid. Though there are clearly multiple artists involved with the project, the creators grouped art into categories - in-game sprites, CGs, backgrounds, and the aforementioned paintings.
- Your decisions have meaning. I didn't find any glaring instances of decisions having a lame, nonsensical outcome, and, though there was challenge in hunting down different endings, endings seemed to be worthy results of decisions made.
Some other (random) technical details:
- An ending can be reached in 4-6 hours. There are some endings that share common threads, but most major endings are unique and worth achieving. There's a pleasantly large difference between major endings as well, and I went back and played the game again right after achieving my first ending.
- The game is set in a world where armies rape and pillage, but the main characters are pointedly apart from that world - ranging from disinterested to disgusted.
- Erotic scenes are consensual, steamy, and would be at home in an HBO series.
- Controls are standard for visual novels. You can skip text, and the skip feature will stop when you reach text you haven't read before. This is critical, since there are some text effects (colors, animations, movement) that add to the mood. Try not to click rapidfire through things when there are words or short phrases appearing on-screen (something that the game doesn't do a great job of telegraphing, and it's unfortunate to see hard work go to waste by hasty clicking)
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tl;dr Worth a buy, especially if you (like me) were looking for Visual Novels that don't fall back on the same tired tropes, and the same teenage settings. This is a Visual Novel that embraces well-presented historical fiction.

Romance of Raskya is a thrilling tale based on roman history that takes you through a tragic story of two lovers stuck on opposite sides of a bloody and violent war. While I am new to visual novels, I am a well-established bookworm and have a fondness for good stories - something this game gives you beautifully. From the very start, I couldn't stop until I saw this through until the end. And even when I reached the end, I immediately dove in to a second play through to experience it all again with a different outcome.
From the moment I started this game, I could see the heart and effort the creators put into this project. The artwork is beautiful and enchanting. The characters are well-written and are a joy getting to know as they journey through their battles (war and political). The choices you make were exciting because there was not obvious right and wrong options to choose, so I found myself trying to think ahead to imagine the decisions I made, all in an effort to see the two main characters find their happiness in each others arms.
I would highly recommend this game to anyone, whether you are an experienced visual novel gamer, or someone like me who simply enjoys a good story, you will not be disappointed. With multiple endings to seek out, this game will entrap you again and again.

Romance of Raskya is a short VN that takes place in a war setting in which two lovers are trying to become reunited with one another while a large battle is looming to take place at any moment, likely resulting in either one's untimely demise.
My first play through took about 2.7 hours to complete, although it definitely was a little shorter than that from leaving the game idle when I had to get up and do a few things around the house.
I would estimate skipping through already read dialogue would allow you to see all 11 of the games endings in less than 10 hours, maybe closer to 6 or 7 to keep it safe.
The story is interesting, the setting is decently well built up and I liked most of the dialogue between the characters. None of the characters were uninteresting to me, and I enjoyed making decisions on how the two lovers should go about navigating the delicate battle situation that they are in to try and minimize the danger that they are putting themselves in so that they can be reunited.
What I did not like about the game was how sexually charged the dialogue was throughout the entire game. The story constantly (and I mean nearly every paragraph) has to remind you how horny every single character is and how much they want to have sex, how much sex they are having, how much sex they want to have, how much they want to rape, etc. It gets old rather quickly and I feel as though it could have been toned down a lot and still gotten the same point across.
Another critique I have with the game is that the game actually has two completely different art styles. I am not talking about what you see on the Steam page with the CG's looking like paintings and the sprites looking like a typical "anime-like" sprites. No, about halfway through the game, the CG's change from having their "painting-like" appearance to being full on digitally drawn heavily anime-like CG's. I do not dislike either art style, in fact, I prefer the heavy anime-like art style that appears later in the game (I also think the H-CG's are way better in that art style), I just don't like that there are two very heavily contrasting art styles present in the game that look nothing alike.
Overall, I liked Romance of Raskya and can definitely recommend purchasing it with how cheap it is if you are looking for a short read like I was. If you are turned off by heavily sexulized (and often unnecessary) dialogue, you will not like a lot of the conversations and exposition that are present in this game.

Romance of Raskya is a unique and well-written exploration of a beautiful love in very stark and disturbing times.
This game does not pull its punches; while the visuals aren't very graphic for the most part, the savagery and brutality of the Roman times and Roman warfare is portrayed earnestly, in a way that will endear and horrify you in equal measure. It is not a game for the faint-hearted, but nor does it feel like it inserts shocking scenes gratuitously.
In a move I personally applaud, it does not attempt to whitewash this period of history, nor the main character - who, while certainly a lot better than his peers, still holds attitudes that would be considered barbaric or repugnant today. This is not a game which moralises - it's about love in a stark and cruel world, and all the more compelling for it.
It also does not fall into the usual romantic visual novel format of "one route per character"; instead, many routes lead down the road to tragedy... but they are portrayed in a very dramatic and satisfying (if harrowing) fashion. Many people will play this for the erotic aspect, but the narrative is not an excuse, and "bad ends" are not a simple poor selection. Many consequences are subtle and surprise you, requiring you to understand the larger narrative to work out a "better" path.
Overall, while short, I found this a very compelling read - if you're here for the romantic aspects, the women have distinct personalities and are drawn beautifully - while certainly sensual (and with full nudity), it's not ridiculously explicit, and the narrative is very much the focus (and certainly not arousing), so this is not a game to pick if you're just after a thrill; however, I think it's very unfortunately overlooked given how fascinating the setting and characters are, and I'm looking forward to more from this studio.
Recommended.

Nice visual novel that takes place during a siege between two hostile sides.
Disclaimer: Because most adult visual novels, or visual novels in general, use the same engine, I won't go into detail about the technical aspects. All you need to know is that you can save the game at any moment and that you can skip every piece of text right from the start. Having said that, the engine is heavily customized to such extent that you won’t notice any similarities with titles made with the same engine.
The main characters are two lovers who find themselves on opposing sides during wartime. One is a member of the army that is laying siege to the city, while the other is trapped inside a castle. You frequently switch between them. Fortunately, the romance is only a small part of the entire plot. It's an interesting experience reading about wars, betrayals, and other nasty aspects of war.
Choices are included, and they are important. There are eleven possible outcomes, the most of which don’t end happily. What I like about the choices is that they take you to a new part of the story rather than just being a couple of extra sentences heading to the same outcome.
Another thing to note is that the "Adult" tag is a bit misleading. It’s actually more similar to historical/fantasy television series and completely safe to play in any environment. Furthermore, nudity turns up so rarely it is not even worth mentioning. All you will see are a few breasts, nothing that might scar you for life. Bonus images are a bit more revealing, but you’ll have to get all endings to unlock those.
Art is another positive. Although it mixes different styles, paintings for scenes and cartoon/anime for character portraits, the art is colorful and very detailed. The fact that a character look slightly different on paintings and portraits is not a distracting factor.

A great short visual novel that brims with heart and soul. From the gorgeous art to the engaging story, Romance of Raskya is well worth the price and excites me to see what else this team will create in the future. Give it a shot if you enjoy drama and romance with a grounded pseudo-historical setting.

I've only gotten 6 of the 11 endings, but I just have to talk about how much fun this story is.
Romance of Raskya (RoR) is a rare experience, giving me the same feeling of playing through the original Fate/Stay and wanting to know more of the world it creates. RoR doesn't have magic or anything too fantastical to offer, but that allows for it to focus on delving into it's characters, locations and the gritty details of a time gone by.
Throughout my several playthroughs, I found myself impressed the games design and structure. Choices in the game have a domino like effect, making it so that every one can change the narrative going forward. To me this feels like an impressive stunt to prevent anyone from claiming the choices don't matter. It felt fun and interesting figuring out exactly which of the choices led to which ending (lots of bad ends made the "true ends" feel more worthwhile.)
And that's not even mentioning that there is tons to be said about the art, music, style which all seem to lend towards re-cobbling a story from the past. With all this peering into the past comes some moments straight out of a hardcore history podcast, but nothing you wouldn't read in a game of thrones novel or darker vn.
I recommend this game for anyone looking for a solid historical fiction story with tons of clever ideas, twists and flavor, with a true classic love story at the heart of it. (Unless you go for my girl Naz, but that's neither here nor there.)