Shikkoku no Sharnoth
Shikkoku no Sharnoth: What a Beautiful Tomorrow is a Japanese adult visual novel developed by Liar-soft. Shikkoku no Sharnoth is Liar-soft’s 24th game. The game is described as a “steampunk horror ADV” (スチームパンク ホラーADV, suchiimupanku horaa ADV).
The game includes references to the works of H.P. Lovecraft including mention of Kadath and having a character called ‘Howard Phillips’.
Gameplay
Shikkoku no Sharnoth’s has two modes of gameplay. The first mode, like other visual novels, requires little interaction from the player as much of the player’s time is spent reading the text that appears on the game’s screen which represents the protagonist’s thoughts or the dialogue between the different characters. The second mode occurs twice every chapter. In this mode, the player is presented with an isometric view of the protagonist and her surroundings and is tasked with guiding the protagonist to certain spots in the map while avoiding the monsters in the area in a turn-based system. This secondary gameplay feature is rather unique to Shikkoku no Sharnoth as the player’s interaction with a visual novel is usually isolated to the graphics and audio.
Plot
Shikkoku no Sharnoth is set in 1905 and takes place in London.
The player assumes the role of Mary Clarissa Christie, the protagonist of Shikkoku no Sharnoth. Mary has heterochromia eyes, her right eye is gold while her left eye is blue. She originally had blue eyes but her right eye changed colours one year prior to the game’s events and she has been seeing strange visions since.
Game Discussion
Steam User 1
This game is a steampunk fantasy visual novel by the "liar company" Liar-soft. It takes place in a fictional version of the British Empire's Golden Age, where the industrial revolution has covered London in dark clouds and fog. You play as a student named Mary who accidentally gets the "Golden Eye" that lets her see through reality. To save her friend Charlotte, who is in a coma, Mary makes a contract with a mysterious man named "M" to act as bait to lure and kill monsters. The story has a strong "dark fairy tale"/Lovecraftian atmosphere and the characters are all fully voiced, but the way the story is written uses a lot of repetitive sentences and circular talk that can feel like a brainwashing advertisement.
This game has a gameplay mechanism that is very outdated for today. You have to play a hide-and-seek game on a map where you move 1, 3, or 5 steps at a time to collect "memory fragments." This is supposed to make you feel the "tension" of being chased by monsters, but the movement is so slow and limited that it just feels a bit redundant. You cannot save your progress during these parts, and there is no backtrack function if you make a mistake. The UI is very simple and inconvenient, and you have to keep clicking arrows just to move your vision around the screen.
This game is very unique because of its hand-drawn art style that looks like a picture book. The characters have very strong impression colors, like Mary’s Gothic black and white dress and Shirley's Baroque style. The performance is different from other games because it uses landmarks and cards instead of just changing the background. However, the Steam version is a lazy port because the resolution is locked at only 800x600, which looks tiny on modern monitors. This game is okay for loyal fans of Liar-soft, but I would not recommended it for new players because the system is so old.
Steam User 0
Aside art&music, r merely mid.
桜井光's writing is a bloated mess packed with typical jpVN fluff, endless cryptic riddles, and blatant copy-pasting. It feels like she's just flexing her prose rather than writing something readable. Chs.1-2 set up the worldview nicely, but everything from ch.3 onwards is completely hollow. Repetitive structure, combined with her obsession with parallelisms drags the story out incredibly. The rushed finale reveals the whole thing is essentially just a yandere yuri story. And, character execution is terrible, u can't even distinguish the main cast from siders cuz they only get fragmented, superficial slice-of-life scenes completely disconnected from the core plot. The male MC, M, feels like a random NPC who only appears for combat. メアリnever shuts up about シャーリー, they really should've just made it a pure yuri game. Forcing sex between M andメアリjust alienates both target audiences.
Copy-pasted riddles -1, baffling H-scenes -1, no EN dub/subs -1, masked clown drop a さて every act -1, ♥♥♥♥♥♥ grid-walking gameplay -1
Leaving a positive only I'm a sucker for steampunk.
Reviews: 5/10