The only thing that outnumbers the ero scenes are the ways to die in this sci-fi adventure.
What They Say
Fall, 2045C.E. Aizawa Shuuhei, a second year cadet enrolled in Central Military Academy’s main division, is dispatched to the orbital space station Aries on a training mission. There he reunites with his younger brother, Ryouta, and his childhood friend, Nao, both of whom resided there as cadets enrolled in the preparatory division.
Then suddenly, an unidentified space ship under the control of Jararacas, a radical terrorist organization, attacks the Aries and seizes control of the main control room. With all communication lines cut off, Shuuhei and the others have no way to escape; they’re trapped. Trapped in space, 250 miles above the Earth with nowhere to run. In the midst of this desperate situation, the cadets must gather their courage and rise up to take back the Aries. As they do, they draw ever closer to the fearsome truth lurking behind this incident…
The Review!
Artwork:
The benefit to a visual novel is that the game makers can use some animation to make characters and sometimes events expressive so that not all of the work in describing a situation needs to come from text itself. For Soul Link they decided to use a style of drawing that isn’t the most realistic in presentation but is less cartoon looking than some other visual novels. The game only uses twenty three backgrounds which are all well drawn but with some shading in any given scene and mixing room locations up they doesn’t get too repetitive and there is a nice variety considering the closed environment setting most of the game takes place in. There is no animation for the characters but they are drawn with care and attention paid to details and scale. There are also a number of poses and facial expressions that get used often though the story though they are switched up often enough and done well enough to convey the emotions that correspond with the events in the novel.
Text:
The text for this visual novel is translated in such a way that it reads fairly well for the most part and has a rather natural flow to it. Though there are a few errors and a few repeated words that occur (mostly later in the game) the instances are not terribly prevalent in frequency or in volume when considering the sheer amount of the text in the game.
Audio:
The audio that accompanies this game is rather top notch in terms of vocal talent for the voices and it is decent in regards to the audio background music tracks as well. There are some rather nice tracks that feature in the game but few of the tracks are really all that special or memorable and most fall under the category of serviceable.
Packaging:
The material reviewed was provided as a download so there is no packaging to review.
Menu:
The menus for this release are a basic but mostly intuitive affair. The main menu starts with an image of a segment of the Earth taken from space in the bottom left of the screen with the Soul Link title graphic above that and surrounded by a circular line with two globes on either end balancing it out to look like an elliptical pattern. Above the logo are some green lines of text and to the right are the menu options. The options are new game, load, (gallery and scene playback when unlocked) configure and exit. Start does that for the game and takes you to a screen where the four game chapters are displayed in hexagons though subsequent chapters are initially locked until the previous chapter is finished. The configure screen allows the user to customize sound level, effect level, text speed, the right click option and text skip as well as the game window size. Gallery provides a simple and easy image source of all the major images from the game outside the simple character profiles. This includes the ero scene pictures as well as less risqué dramatic ones and certain pictures can be clicked on to display additional changes in the picture where present. This section also allows for someone to display all the backgrounds used in the game also with some alternate looks where available. The music player is also accessible on this screen and once unlocked there are 26 tracks that are available to be selected. Scene playback allows access to the 11 ero scenes in the game as well as all the 27 different endings once they are unlocked.
On the game screen itself there are quick buttons in the lower right hand side to either do a quick save or quick load, return to the menu, skip text, auto text so you don’t have to right click and log. Log is useful as it contains recent text from the game so if you miss a point or wish to review something you can though you have to search through manually as there is no quick search in the log. One can also click on text that has a character profile next to it and have that spoken text repeated on this screen. The save menu allows you to save at almost any point (minus a very few points that are short in length) and has space for three quick saves and ninety regular saves which have the ability to either display the current line of text or that you can create a name for. The game does also have an auto save feature and it can store up to ten saves there. Throughout this screen a quiet music box sounding track plays.
The Steamy Side:
Soul Link is an ero game that pulls no punches when it comes to sex. From the very start the game kicks off with the main character having a dream in which an unseen party is bringing a very nubile, very naked young woman is being fondled as she is being brought to her climax time and again. From this point there are 10 more ero scenes found throughout the game which vary in participants, participant numbers, willingness and even importance to the storyline and character development. From a story point of view a good number of the scenes play no direct role in the story outside the mystery of their being seen by the main character in his dreams and even with that explained they remain on the mostly “there for the sake of putting in ero scenes” side of things. The oddest part is that these scenes are unskippable but there are four scenes that can be missed-and these are the ones that actually have some character development and story impact to them. The scenes are mostly pedestrian though there is some light bondage in one where someone is being held captive and a rather brutal rape scene as well. It is kind of a mix as most are well done but the ones done just for shear effect seem like a bit overkill at times.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
By the year 2045 CE mankind has gone beyond its first tentative steps into the final frontier and over 200 stations have been built in orbit. Among their number is the station Aries which is one of the oldest models and has fallen behind in terms of the newest accommodations. Despite that the station still has a number of guests (up to 60) as well as being put into use by the Japanese Space Administration as a practical learning site for the members of its military academy who chose to specialize in space training. The station is composed of four separate units that were joined together with only a very few connecting points present.
The prologue opens as Shuuhei Aizawa is wondering the space transport area in Japan and is a bit lost which is a touch embarrassing as he’d been there before. It is even more embarrassing for him as he is seen as a prodigy gifted in both intellect as well as temperament and he is something of a legend at the academy as he graduated from the four year program in only two years. He has chosen the station for his service placement as both his younger brother Ryouta and his childhood friend Nao Morisaki are currently assigned there as part of their training. After an odd encounter with a ponytailed woman Shuuhei finds an underclassman heading in the right direction and he finally makes it into space. While checking in Shuuhei meets another familiar face, Cellaria Markelight, who will be a serving as a teacher for the academy members on the station. He also runs into his brother (who he hadn’t told he was transferring there, just that he might visit) and meets some of the people his brother knows as well as meeting up with Nao. The tranquility is quickly shattered by the stations near miss collision alarm however.
The first chapter starts here as suddenly chaos erupts on the station as it is discovered that the object that set off the alarms is a station that came in from the Aries blind spot and is now attempting to dock. While the Aries station personal successfully get most of the civilians and trainees off the station a rough docking by the mysterious vessel creates a cascade of problems on the station which cause some of the doors to cease functioning, some of the auxiliary paths between the different sections to become damaged as well as an alert that shows up saying one of the four sections has had a hull breach of some kind. Unfortunately for Shuuhei he was helping some civilians escape and he now finds himself trapped in one of the two larger sections of the station with Cellaria, Nao, Ryouta, Sayaka (a young cadet looking for a friend who was on board) and the ponytailed woman he encountered at the start of the story.
To make matters worse they have discovered that the docking ship was used by members of a terrorist group known as Jararacas who have now seized control of the central computer station and are trying to blackmail the Earth governments. The group is using threats of dropping the station out of orbit while also using the nuclear bomb they brought with them to increase the damage done exponentially. Now in a race against time to get his group off the station before the terrorists can reach them Shuuhei will have to organize a group with no combat experience against a well trained and veteran terrorist combat team. And if this wasn’t bad enough, he’ll slowly come to realize that somewhere on the station there must be a traitor who helped the terrorists dock and some odd incidents have him a bit off kilter when he discovers he doesn’t know who to trust-including perhaps himself. But will events turn in a direction neither group has anticipated when a shadowy hand moves its pawns into place and the situation becomes more than any of them expected as a truth Shuuhei doesn’t want to accept rears its head?
The second chapter focuses on Ryouta now having to take charge of the members of the group and try to make decisions that will help them get home as Shuuhei’s status becomes unknown. While the combat aspects are lessened in this chapter the dramatic aspects take center stage as Ryouta gets different members of the stranded group to open up to him and they discover a mysterious girl in one of the cargo areas after a serious accident to one of the stranded people. As the shadow player takes center stage Ryouta will have to juggle his responsibilities as an Academy member with his responsibility for those now in his charge. He’ll also have the chance to get personal with one of the women in the section if he plays his cards right. If he doesn’t at best he misses his chance and at worst everyone dies. But hey, no pressure right? And what is the final result when events move beyond that which anyone-even the mastermind behind the scenes-could ever have anticipated?
Soul Link has a lot of potential and some great set up which helps undermine the final product sadly. While the story has a decent set up for the characters and events a number of characters don’t get flushed out quite enough to make a real good connection while upping the ante of the terrorist occupation feels a bit like gilding the lily. There is already a credible threat but the writers felt like adding an additional piece that mixes well enough but often threatens to split the main purpose of the stories focus. There are a number of sex scenes that are just thrown in as well and while the plot tries to explain them it still basically comes down to the creators wanted more ero material to attract players but couldn’t be bothered to put them in by such a means that they don’t come off as gratuitous. It is a bit of a shame as there are other areas where the writing is strong and the locked environment lends itself to adding to the tension as well. The game is serviceable if one doesn’t have a problem with sex scenes including ones that depict rape but fans turned off by such material should look elsewhere as the story is good but not great enough to overcome that hurdle if it exists. The 27 different endings also create a large opportunity for repeat play for those who wish to collect the lot.
In Summery
Soul Link is a game that has an interesting number of ideas but it falls a bit short when it comes to putting the entire package together. There are a number of twists and turns along the game’s progression that felt like with a bit more polish and they could have been a story in themselves but that there were too many cooks involved with the production committee to get a defining path going and a number of elements-for example many of the ero scenes-seem tacked on because they are expected. This is further shown with the character change in the second chapter and may lead some people to a bit of frustration with that decision. Over all it is a decent work that has elements that will appeal to quite a number of players but also gaps in how the pieces fit together that will cause a number of players to become disinterested by the somewhat scattershot approach.
Released By: MangaGamer
Required OS: Windows XP, Windows Vista*
Age Rating: 18+
MSRP: € 24.95 (Note price is in Euros)
Download Size: 792.07MiB (830,542,177bytes)
*Also DivX has to be up to date or the game locks up at the end of the prologue/beginning of chapter 1 movie.
