Sound of Drop - Fall into Poison, which I'll shorthand to Poison from here on out, is one of those rare VN's which I took a keen interest in long before the release, I tend to steer clear of VNs on account of them being pretty sugary affairs on the whole, and not my bag (I don't waifu, yo). Poison however is a horror VN, and much more path based, having echoes of the highly acclaimed 9 Doors series that featured on the NDS (which I was a big big fan of).

After much pondering and considering, I decided to put my money where my mouth is, and shelled out on Poison, because I felt it was worth a punt. The game touts a lot of bad endings compared to good ones, and it doesn't disappoint one bit. For four "good" endings, there's a sum of twenty seven "bad" ones. This is getting on for Long Live the Queen territory, and some of them are pretty brutal, others are downright creepy (we're talking Elven Lied levels of ick, whilst it's not overtly graphical, the descriptions allude to enough to put the idea in your head).


Protagonist Mayu is well written, played out as something of a weaker main character who over the course of the novel (depending on the path you take) becomes either strong as a team leader of sorts, or strong in herself, and depending on the choices you make, the paths -will- diverge pretty significantly. There's some pretty big storyline branches which lead towards the various ending options, which lend themselves well towards replayability, with the nice touch that you can skip at near lightspeed over passages you don't feel like re-reading if you're simply playing to discover a new ending that time around.

Her counterpart, Himeno, is immediately likeable, and there's a very clear sense that the friendship has the capacity to develop into something much deeper and more real depending on how the evening plays out in the aquarium. The stage sets up early to indicate that you'll be spending a lot of time together, only for the story to then switch directions back and forth, I won't spoiler much beyond this, because it's hard to explain without giving tons of the plot away, but suffice to say, you'll be confronted with Mayu facing some deeply difficult emotional decisions, and forcing her to be logical even when her heart is trying to make her pick up the idiot ball at times.

(side note, feel free to pick up said idiot ball when fishing for the bad endings, some of them are ... well... *shudder* )

The rest of the cast are minor part players, with the antagonists being somewhat tangential because of the way the plot is structured, but you'll come to -really- dislike at least one person (and the way they've been written, that's by design), another will in one path be quite likeable, and in another will probably have you wanting to strangle them through the monitor, and so on. Suffice to say, it's a good sign when the writing makes you want to root for characters and feel satisfied when the conclusion has been reached.


Particular merit goes to the sound and graphics, which are practically wallpaper worthy in many cases, the sound design too is of an absolutely excellent standard, with the music very clearly and beautifully conveying both emotion and tone all the way through the novel. This is a game where everything "fits", which is a rare treat. Considering how rarely I do these VNs, and so often I've been disappointed by the lack of quality production, it's been a treat seeing just how polished this particular one has been.

I -do- have one minor complaint though. Just one. The endings are gathered together in an unlocked grid for your perusal, however, that grid isn't clickable so you can't revisit them seperately. THAT is an annoyance, perhaps something that could be fixed, because it would be nice to revisit those endings (both good and bad) just out of curiosity, as well as being able to revisit areas of the story (there's a generous number of save slots as well as a quicksave option provided, so you can bookmark just about everywhere, thankfully).


I don't do VN's. This might be the only review for a VN I ever write, which should give you an idea of how much of an impression it's left on me. It's been such a departure from the norm for VNs, and with it's horror theme and unique take on things. Mechanically, it's a path based VN, and I'm sure that's not going to be new for anyone, but the high production values, the original setting, the quality writing, all add up to a quality product.

Verdict : Highly recommended - Especially to fans of Horror stories and Visual Novels

Writer and columnist for Just Reviews, where you can get similar fine reading material. Join our group, follow our curations, and throw me a like if you would like to keep up to date with our efforts!

[H1]I rarely play Visual Novels, but when I do...[/H1] Sound of Drop - Fall into Poison, which I'll shorthand to Poison from here on out, is one of those rare VN's which I took a keen interest in long before the release, I tend to steer clear of VNs on account of them being pretty sugary affairs on the whole, and not my bag (I don't waifu, yo). Poison however is a horror VN, and much more path based, having echoes of the highly acclaimed 9 Doors series that featured on the NDS (which I was a big big fan of). After much pondering and considering, I decided to put my money where my mouth is, and shelled out on Poison, because I felt it was worth a punt. The game touts a lot of bad endings compared to good ones, and it doesn't disappoint one bit. For four "good" endings, there's a sum of twenty seven "bad" ones. This is getting on for Long Live the Queen territory, and some of them are pretty brutal, others are downright creepy (we're talking Elven Lied levels of ick, whilst it's not overtly graphical, the descriptions allude to enough to put the idea in your head). [H1]I'm blue, la-da-de-da-da-daaaa....[/H1] Protagonist Mayu is well written, played out as something of a weaker main character who over the course of the novel (depending on the path you take) becomes either strong as a team leader of sorts, or strong in herself, and depending on the choices you make, the paths -will- diverge pretty significantly. There's some pretty big storyline branches which lead towards the various ending options, which lend themselves well towards replayability, with the nice touch that you can skip at near lightspeed over passages you don't feel like re-reading if you're simply playing to discover a new ending that time around. Her counterpart, Himeno, is immediately likeable, and there's a very clear sense that the friendship has the capacity to develop into something much deeper and more real depending on how the evening plays out in the aquarium. The stage sets up early to indicate that you'll be spending a lot of time together, only for the story to then switch directions back and forth, I won't spoiler much beyond this, because it's hard to explain without giving tons of the plot away, but suffice to say, you'll be confronted with Mayu facing some deeply difficult emotional decisions, and forcing her to be logical even when her heart is trying to make her pick up the idiot ball at times. (side note, feel free to pick up said idiot ball when fishing for the bad endings, some of them are ... well... *shudder* ) The rest of the cast are minor part players, with the antagonists being somewhat tangential because of the way the plot is structured, but you'll come to -really- dislike at least one person (and the way they've been written, that's by design), another will in one path be quite likeable, and in another will probably have you wanting to strangle them through the monitor, and so on. Suffice to say, it's a good sign when the writing makes you want to root for characters and feel satisfied when the conclusion has been reached. [H1]The beauty of the aquarium and the wonder of the sound...[/H1] Particular merit goes to the sound and graphics, which are practically wallpaper worthy in many cases, the sound design too is of an absolutely excellent standard, with the music very clearly and beautifully conveying both emotion and tone all the way through the novel. This is a game where everything "fits", which is a rare treat. Considering how rarely I do these VNs, and so often I've been disappointed by the lack of quality production, it's been a treat seeing just how polished this particular one has been. I -do- have one minor complaint though. Just one. The endings are gathered together in an unlocked grid for your perusal, however, that grid isn't clickable so you can't revisit them seperately. THAT is an annoyance, perhaps something that could be fixed, because it would be nice to revisit those endings (both good and bad) just out of curiosity, as well as being able to revisit areas of the story (there's a generous number of save slots as well as a quicksave option provided, so you can bookmark just about everywhere, thankfully). [H1]Closing thoughts...[/H1] I don't do VN's. This might be the only review for a VN I ever write, which should give you an idea of how much of an impression it's left on me. It's been such a departure from the norm for VNs, and with it's horror theme and unique take on things. Mechanically, it's a path based VN, and I'm sure that's not going to be new for anyone, but the high production values, the original setting, the quality writing, all add up to a quality product. Verdict : [b]Highly recommended - Especially to fans of Horror stories and Visual Novels[/b] [i]Writer and columnist for [url=http://sp.zhabite.com/groups/justreviews]Just Reviews[/url], where you can get similar fine reading material. Join our group, follow our curations, and throw me a like if you would like to keep up to date with our efforts![/i]