After playing through all three romance routes and achieving all of the endings, I can say that my opinion of The Heiress of Sorcery is mostly a positive one. Here we have a game that, on the outside, looks sort of unassuming and quite different from most of its sisters in the otome genre, but if you can look past that it's not a bad story at all. I won't lie, though, there are definitely a lot of flaws and I think the biggest one presents itself in the romance.
While I felt that there was at least some chemistry between MC and the others, it does feel like more of a platonic/friendship chemistry, or in Darius' case maybe rivals, rather than love. It's hard to explain because, yes, there are some romantic CG's and mentions of being in love and whatnot, but it feels a lot more... one-sided on the heroine's part? Like these other characters essentially don't share her feelings at all, or at least not nearly as strongly, until near the very end of their routes - and even then the way it concludes can be a bit vague. I mean it kind of felt like the dynamic between the brother and sister was a lot more fun and interesting than anyone else's. I think this might have something to do with the heroine's character, she feels a bit empty and is strangely passive to the things going on around her. In general, she doesn't seem to have or express much realistic emotion other than in a few moments.
Everyone involved with the sorcerers' faction, the Magisterium, comes across as sort of antihero and morally gray. Which isn't a bad thing, the fact that the people who are meant to be saving the world aren't all good is an interesting take, but then it never really gets cleared up or anything. It sounds like a not-so-great organization, but there is never any reform or even any talks about doing anything about it. So, some of the endings feel sort of bittersweet knowing that all of that is still inevitably going on.
[u]Some minor gripes[/u]: Alvin feels like he's essentially friendzoned you the entire route up until the moment he [spoiler]proposes to you with a pie in his good ending... yeah.[/spoiler] The whole thing with Darius and the [spoiler]MC's grandmother[/spoiler] was definitely weird, especially when [spoiler]you're literally making out and he says her name.[/spoiler] Plus, I get that he's supposed to be a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ and cynical guy, but even in his romantic ending it feels like they just slapped some feelings for the MC in at the end and didn't really make them believable, either. Lastly, Brigitte's probably had the best ending out of them all, but as I saw it mentioned in another review it's noticeably more fetishized than the others. Thankfully, for most of the route this is unnoticeable, it was only up to a few parts where the MC started expressing sexual thoughts about her (that never happened with ANY of the other characters) that I realized it was a male gaze-y type beat. In her good ending it's even [spoiler]implied that they have sex[/spoiler], which is great, but why does it [i]only[/i] happen with her?
Anyway, I liked all of the other parts of the game just fine. I liked the music tracks, they weren't boring or repetitive and I thought they were nice. The art, when I first looked at the store page, wasn't really my thing, but I grew to appreciate it a lot while playing the game. Some CG's are better than others and all that, but there was a ton of art and even minor characters who show up like one time got their own sprite, which I really appreciate the amount of work put into that. I also liked the sound effects, there were quite a lot and they fit really well with the atmosphere. I especially loved the one where the guard drags his stick along the prison cell bars. It was just cool to hear all the interesting sounds they added and that level of commitment to a visual novel is awesome.
I think this game was originally in Russian, but the translation was pretty smooth, not the best I've ever seen but there weren't really any major problems that stood out to me. The translation on the store page is worse than in game, for some reason. To me, it seems like a lot of heart and love was put into this title, and even though it falls short in some aspects I think the finished product is overall enjoyable and something to be proud of. I played one of this creator's other VN's, Escape From the Princess, and I liked that one, too, so there's definitely a level of quality from Salamandra88 that you can expect to see. I'd have paid the $10 for it if I didn't get it on sale, but if you see another one then you might wanna pick it up.
