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ARISEN: Prologue

ARISEN: Prologue Game Cover
68%Game Brain Score
story, graphics
gameplay, replayability
77% User Score Based on 39 reviews

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ARISEN: Prologue Game Cover

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ARISEN: Prologue is a single player role playing game. It was developed by Maratus and was released on July 18, 2020. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

WISHLIST THE FULL GAME NOWhttps://store.steampowered.com/app/1101670/ARISEN__Chronicles_of_VarNagal/ Late Pledge About the GameARISEN: Prologue is a free playable alpha demo of ARISEN - Chronicles of Var'Nagal. It's a story-driven game in which you express yourself with your emotions, embodied by cards. Your choices will impact the world around you while you unlock new cards. This version of t…

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ARISEN: Prologue screenshot
ARISEN: Prologue screenshot
ARISEN: Prologue screenshot
ARISEN: Prologue screenshot
ARISEN: Prologue screenshot
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77%
Audience ScoreBased on 39 reviews
story4 positive mentions
  • The artwork, especially the card art, is consistently praised as beautiful and expressive.
  • The innovative card-based emotion system for dialogue choices adds a unique twist to traditional visual novels and enhances replayability.
  • The game handles its mature and political themes about slavery and racism with sensitivity and depth, providing an intriguing narrative.
  • The script suffers from poor writing quality and translation issues, breaking player immersion and making some dialogues awkward.
  • The card system feels more like a gimmick for dialogue selection rather than a fully developed gameplay mechanic, limiting its impact.
  • The prologue is short, incomplete, and lacks key quality-of-life features such as skipping, auto-advance, saving, and interface hiding.
  • story
    19 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The story is praised for its immersive and gripping portrayal of slavery from a slave’s perspective, offering a unique and emotionally impactful narrative with original decision-making elements. Some users find the theme powerful but express discomfort with the cultural perspective and translation issues, while others appreciate the streamlined, intriguing storytelling that avoids obvious choice paths. Overall, it shows promise as a compelling and thoughtful visual novel despite some stylistic and thematic challenges.

    • “You have the option of choosing a male or female protagonist and the story starts with the protagonist chained in the hull of a slave ship, traveling to a distant land where you await your fate and be sold.”
    • “The story is very gritty in nature due to being about, well, slavery from a slave's perspective but since it never crosses the line of being overly gratuitous or not serious enough then it's handled quite well in my opinion.”
    • “I'm not going to review an early access demo, except to say that both story and decision-making are very original and set the scene for what promises to be a huge, intriguing and absorbing adventure.”
    • “Furthermore, I find it deeply uncomfortable that an all-white studio is writing a story that's specifically about black slavery.”
    • “If they wanted to write a slave story, that's fine, but making it specifically about black people being traumatized and enslaved is disturbing, especially when the slavers seem to be based on Romans (who did not target slaves by skin color).”
    • “The writing style is quite a vivid poetic style, which I have to say doesn't tie incredibly well to the theme or the structure of the story; it's not helped by the odd translation either.”
  • graphics
    11 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's graphics are widely praised for their fantastic and gorgeous artwork, especially the tarot card designs, which stand out as a highlight. However, some users find the comic-book style character and background art somewhat mismatched with the game's darker theme. Overall, the art style is considered impressive and a strong point of the game.

    • “The artwork here is gorgeous.”
    • “Starting with the positives, I'll say the art style and direction for this is very nice, particularly on the cards.”
    • “Cool graphics, especially the tarot-card-like card designs.”
    • “I will say that the character/background art does feel a little out of place in the story, given its dark theme but comic-book style visuals.”
    • “From then on it's a trainwreck of grammar errors, buzz words and really boring gameplay... the only okay thing is the artwork of the cards and that is it.”
  • gameplay
    10 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The gameplay features a unique card-based dialogue system where players choose emotional responses instead of words, offering a fresh take on visual novel interactions. However, the mechanic is seen as more of a thematic skin than deep gameplay, with clunky card interactions and limited strategic depth. While innovative and visually appealing, many feel the system lacks meaningful development and can be frustrating due to interface issues and lack of quality-of-life features.

    • “I have more than 50 visual novels and this is the first time I see one with totally different gameplay: you answer with your emotion, not with some words.”
    • “The art is pretty good, if a bit generic, and the card-based decision mechanic is quite interesting; every time the player makes a choice, they are presented with a hand of cards representing moods or emotions and choose one to represent their character's response.”
    • “Secondly, the gameplay with the cards is quite innovative!”
    • “No skipping, no auto advance, no saving, cannot hide the interface; etc. The card choices are also clunky. You need to drag a card to the play area to see what the conversation choice is instead of just seeing what it does; a totally unnecessary mechanic for what is ultimately just a skin over a dialog choice.”
    • “I also have to say while I absolutely loved the card art in the game it essentially boils down to unlocking extra dialogue options; there's no actual card play or real mechanic here.”
    • “From then on it's a trainwreck of grammar errors, buzz words, and really boring gameplay... the only okay thing is the artwork of the cards and that is it.”
  • music
    2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The music received high praise for its quality and how well it complements the art style, with some users rating the soundtrack a perfect 10/10.

    • “10/10 art style + soundtrack ~ <3”
    • “The music was good.”
  • replayability
    1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game offers strong replayability potential by allowing players to unlock different cards in each playthrough, encouraging multiple sessions to experience all content.

  • emotional
    1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Users feel that the emotional impact of the game’s choices is weak, as decisions lack clear explanations and often fail to align with the context, diminishing their overall emotional resonance.

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Frequently Asked Questions

ARISEN: Prologue is a role playing game.

ARISEN: Prologue is available on PC and Windows.

ARISEN: Prologue was released on July 18, 2020.

ARISEN: Prologue was developed by Maratus.

ARISEN: Prologue has received mostly positive reviews from players. Most players liked ARISEN: Prologue for its story but disliked it for its gameplay.

ARISEN: Prologue is a single player game.

Similar games include Major\Minor, The Pirate's Fate, Sacred Fire, Black Book: Prologue, Dysfunctional Systems: Learning to Manage Chaos and others.