Noctuary Review Summary

Outstanding Story and Narrative: The game's story is highly praised for its depth, emotional resonance, and engaging twists. It combines serious themes with light-hearted moments, creating a balanced and immersive narrative experience.

Excellent Art and Music: The game features beautiful and detailed artwork, including character designs, CGs, and backgrounds. The music is also highly praised for its quality and how well it complements the story and atmosphere.

Well-Developed Characters: The characters in the game are well-designed with distinct personalities and motivations. Their interactions and development are a significant part of the game's appeal.

Enjoyable Gameplay: The gameplay is fun and engaging, with enjoyable combat segments that serve the story well. The game provides a good overall experience with its gameplay mechanics.

Immersive World-Building: The game's world-building is detailed and coherent, creating a rich and immersive environment that enhances the overall gaming experience.

Combat system criticisms: The combat system is widely criticized for being lackluster, poorly executed, and frustrating. Many players find the combat controls stiff and the overall experience tedious, detracting from the game's enjoyment.

Emotional and narrative shortcomings: The game's emotional depth and narrative are found lacking, with many players unable to resonate with the themes or characters. Some story elements feel forced or unnecessary, and the emotional payoff is often insufficient.

Pacing issues between combat and narrative: The game suffers from a significant disconnect between its fast-paced combat and slow-paced narrative sections. Players find the transition between these two elements jarring, with excessive side quests and lengthy text readings disrupting the flow and immersion of the main story.

Technical and design flaws: The game has several technical and design issues, including poor character modeling, unclear role identification during combat, and repetitive gameplay elements. These flaws contribute to a less enjoyable gaming experience.

Localization and voice acting issues: The game's localization, particularly in English, has been criticized for being awkward and sometimes incomprehensible. Additionally, the voice acting, especially in Chinese, has been noted as subpar and in need of improvement.

Dual-character combat system: The game features a unique combat system where players control two main characters, each with three distinct combat styles. The combat is real-time and can be customized with different abilities and difficulty settings.

Adjustable difficulty settings: Players can adjust the difficulty of the game on the fly, allowing for a customized gaming experience that caters to different skill levels.

Rich narrative and lore: The game is set in a dark world where light-bearers called '光使' live in lighthouses and fight against dark creatures. The story explores themes of light and darkness, with a deep lore and character development.

Visual novel with combat: The game combines visual novel elements with combat gameplay, creating a unique blend of storytelling and action. The combat sections are integrated into the narrative, enhancing the overall experience.

Mixed combat reviews: The combat system receives mixed reviews. Some players find it decent and well-made, while others criticize it as lackluster and poorly executed, feeling it detracts from the overall experience.

Optimization issues in gameplay: Several players have reported performance issues, particularly during battles, indicating that the game suffers from optimization problems. This includes high performance overhead and insufficient optimization in combat sections.

Developers actively improving performance: The developers are noted for continuously updating the game with performance improvements and quality-of-life changes, which has resulted in smoother gameplay and better battery performance on platforms like the Steam Deck.

Achievement bug when skipping dialogues: There is a specific bug where achievements are not unlocked if players skip dialogues. This issue has been highlighted by multiple players.

Slow loading speed: The game has been criticized for its slow loading speed, which affects the overall gaming experience.

Minor bugs present: Some players have reported encountering minor bugs, though these reports lack specific details.

Highly recommended for story and art: The game is frequently praised for its exceptional artwork and engaging storyline. Many players highlight the unique plot and recommend it to fans of visual novels and story-driven games.

Recommended for visual novel fans: The game is highly recommended for fans of visual novels, particularly those who enjoy deep storytelling and beautiful art. It is suggested for players who appreciate narrative depth and symbolic elements.

Recommended for specific player preferences: The game is recommended for players with specific preferences, such as those who enjoy long stories, challenging combat, and immersive storytelling. It is also suggested for players who liked previous games by the developer.

Emotional and immersive storytelling: The game is praised for its emotional journey and immersive storytelling. Players appreciate the heartfelt writing and the world-building that makes the game's narrative compelling.

Worth playing despite minor issues: Several reviews mention that the game is worth playing despite some minor flaws and translation issues. Players find the overall experience enjoyable and recommend it.

Steam Deck: The game has received mixed feedback regarding its performance on the Steam Deck. While it is praised for its stability and lack of crashes, there are significant issues with text readability and gameplay experience. The game runs smoothly and has good battery performance, but the small text and overwhelming visual effects detract from the overall experience.

External guides: The primary user complaints revolve around the complexity of the game mechanics and the need for additional instructional data to fully understand and progress through the game. The game's extensive content and multiple endings require players to seek external resources to grasp the full experience.

Free DLC with Japanese voice acting: The game offers a free DLC update that includes Japanese voice acting. This adds value to the game and caters to fans of Japanese voice acting.

Niche fan appreciation: The game includes a small scenario that fans of another game by the same developer will appreciate. This is a specific detail that caters to a niche audience.

Cantonese language support: The game includes support for Cantonese language, indicated by '粤配'. This caters to Cantonese-speaking players.