Seizing One's Destiny: A Cain X Nica Review

By Manuel

Players: 1
Platforms: PC

A few months ago I reviewed two visual novels from developer Aleksey Izimov. They were the games Stolen Memories and Debauched Memories (Whose reviews can be found HERE and HERE respectively!), and I have to admit that I thought that their next game was going to be another title in that same series. It turns out that I was wrong, and instead we got a visual novel with a unique sci-fi setting and plot. Cain X Nica is set to drop onto Steam November 14, and I was lucky enough to take a look at it before it launches. Is this game a worthy follow-up to the Memories series? Is it a visual novel worth playing in general? Does this review count as Early Access? Hopefully we'll answer all those questions and more in this review. Let's dive in!

Cain X Nica tells the story of a pair of siblings who bear the names in the title. Cain is a hard-working man who will do anything for his sickly sister Nica. Her exact ailment is never fully explained, but she suffers from a stigmata that creates wounds that don't heal easily. The pair live in a post-apocalyptic world that is covered in ice that traps the remnants of the previous civilization. The scope of this world is also never fully revealed to the player, but in this case I think the mystery adds to the overall setting. The society that has emerged in this world is built upon castes, of which three exist in this particular city. Closest to the top (of a mountain?) are the poorest of the poor. These unfortunate souls live off whatever scraps the next layer casts aside, and they have no hopes of ever changing their lot in life. The middle caste is the largest of them all, and is also the worker class. The work that this caste provides mainly deals with digging into the ice in hopes of finding relics from the long-lost civilization I mentioned earlier. Though they mostly live to work, their existence can be quite comfortable if they're lucky enough to amass wealth. The third caste is made up of the rich elite, and they live in the lowest of the levels. They are the closest to the world outside of the city, but those areas are completely unknown and uncharted. Cain and Nica belong to the lowest rung of society, and Cain earns cash by digging illegally in the ice. He sells what he finds in order to procure new gas mask filters to keep out the miasma that exists outside of the safety of one's home, but he's recently fallen behind on his finances. It's this bleak beginning that sets the stage for the saga that follows.

I don't want to get too far into spoilers, but there are some other aspects of Cain X Nica's plot that I feel are worth mentioning before we move on. Another important character I should mention now is Noah, the merchant who buys the scraps that Cain digs up. Noah feels something close to affection for him, and early on returns to him his family's hammer which he had previously sold her. She does this not so much out of kindness, but because she knows that his situation is indeed hopeless. You see he doesn't owe his debtors money, he owes them life-saving gas mask filters. No matter how he handles the situation, he is at a dead end. He can pay the brothers what he borrowed from them, but he will die before he can find enough scraps to keep him and his sister alive another month. Things come to a head when the bothers, named Invi and Avari, show up demanding payment. Cain has to make a choice, and that choice involves using the hammer that was just given to him by Noah. I'll refrain from spilling too much more of what happens next, but basically Cain and Nica decide to take this opportunity to move up in the world. They begin a new life away from poverty, and the story expands from there. Cain had previously found a note that questioned who or what drove a person's destiny. Though his answer to that question changes throughout his journey, he's determined to take his destiny in his own hands. That isn't always an easy path to take, but I'll leave further details for potential players to discover on their own.

I'll of course circle back around to the story before we wrap up, but I figured I'd take a moment to discuss the game's visuals. Having reviewed two other games from the same developer, I'm starting to realize that they have a distinct visual style. Part of the reason why I thought this was going to be another game in the Memories series was because I mistook some of the characters to be from there. I'm not exactly against the character designs found within Cain X Nica, but a couple of them gave me quite a bit of deja vu. Designs aside, all the characters are animated in a Live 2D sort of way, but I have the same mixed feelings towards that method of animation as I did in the Memories titles. Movement definitely brings the characters to life, but there are times when they twist, lean really far, and jump really high, to the point where I was totally taken out of the game. This is made even stranger when it's done during what is supposed to be a very dramatic scene. It's not the first time I'll mention tonal whiplash, but it's most striking in the animations. Also, there is no gallery at all in this game, and that's an odd exclusion for any visual novel.

Moving on, there are also plenty of chibi characters to be found in-game as well. These exist for just about every character, but most male characters only exist in this chibi form. This leads to several strange moments where scenes that are clearly meant to be heavy come off as laughable. This happens a lot during the scene involving Invi and Avari, but exists throughout the entire game. Having said that, I do have to admit that the chibi scenes do break up the monotony of the game. You don't get too many full on CG images, but the chibi ones are a nice touch nonetheless. While these problems with the visuals did hurt the cohesion of the game, they weren't my main issue. My biggest problem stems from me thinking that some CGs might be missing from the game as it exists now. Several scenes take place in total darkness, and I really can't shake the feeling that there was supposed to be some sort of image there that just hasn't been included yet. Also, most background images are reused constantly. There are essentially only one indoor and one outdoor scene, and they're not even touched up whenever they're recycled. I will give the game a bit of a nod for acknowledging these "similarities" within the game's dialogue, but I'd have preferred some variety nonetheless. Overall it made me think that parts of the game were just unfinished, and that might very well be the case considering there's still a month until release. Maybe they'll be added before then? Anyway, I feel like I've stayed on this part of the review far longer than I intended to, so let's move on.

Sound is a bit better in Cain X Nica compared the Memories series, but I also wonder if some of the music is being reused from there. Whether or not that's the case, I will say that no part of the soundtrack is actually bad. The music more than does its job, and there were actually a few tracks that eventually got stuck in my head in the best of ways. The voice acting is also very solid this time around, though there were several times where it felt lost in the mix. This wasn't an audio setting thing either, as it would usually just fix itself in the next scene. If I didn't know better, I'd say that it sounds like certain dialogue sections were recorded in sub-par circumstances. Of course I can't be sure of that, but that's the vibe I get. I should also mention that all the voice acting is done in Russian, but that was also the case for the other games I've mentioned. Going with the tropes of visual novels, only the female characters are voiced. The male characters exist as only text, but that's all rather par the course for this genre. Expected or not, it didn't take long for the many silent sections to bring down the entertainment factor a bit. Cain spends a lot of time talking to other male characters, and these parts of the game just seem to drag on and on. There were also a couple times where the POV shifted to Nica, and she suddenly went silent too. That was just weird, and felt like maybe they had just forgotten to record those lines. I guess the audio might also be unfinished, so let's just add it to the pile of things hopefully addressed before release.

Going back to the story, I was shocked to find that this is indeed a full-fledged tale. I of course mean "shocked" in the most positive of ways. Both of the games I previously played from this developer wrapped up in under an hour, but this one has a story that can stretch to 3-6 hours depending on reading speed and choices made. There are also far more dialogue options to explore, though only a few of them actually affect the game in any big way. That leads me to my next big complaint about the game, its story progression. There are several "Bad Ends" to be had in Cain X Nica, with most of them even involving the main characters' deaths. This would be all well and good if these only came about from some dialogue sections, but they actually come from most of them. I eventually realized that the game has about 2-3 bottleneck areas where you have to make very specific dialogue choices or the game would never progress. This might sound like something other visual novels do, but here it means that there are essentially only one or two "correct" paths through the game. Unless you save plenty of times, you're going to be restarting and using that scene skip option quite a bit. Progression aside, the overall tone of the game is all over the place. There are scenes where all the characters come off like jerks, there are times when things get weirdly lewd for no reason at all, and there are times where a plot twist just made me throw my hands up in frustration as to the characters they were screwing over in a literary way. I never hated or disliked the places the narrative went, but I wondered many times if an AI was writing the story as it went along. It was random to the point of ridiculousness, but I'm going to give the developer the benefit of the doubt, and assume that it was just wonky writing and translation that made the story what it is.

In the end, I'm not really sure on where I stand with Cain X Nica. I have to admit that it's the best game I've played so far from this developer, but I don't know if I would actually call it good. I had a fun time with it, but the story did seem to bog down by the end. Every time I thought it was wrapping up, it would continue, and I don't think that was to its benefit. I'm also not even sure if I can say that this game gives players a lot of bang for their buck, as the final retail price isn't mentioned anywhere on Steam. Seeing as I have to publish a review before its release date, I might come back here to amend a few things in late November. As it stand now, I can say that it's a decent visual novel that features a plot one doesn't always find within the genre. The characters have some depth to them, and there are several "WTF!" moments that are sure to draw a chuckle out of even the most jaded gamer. I'm still a bit on the fence as far as giving it a full recommendation goes, but as long as it's priced fairly, and especially if they fix some of the glaring issues I found within the game, I say pick it up. Either way, I look forward to seeing what the developers come up with next. See you in the next one!

Check Out Cain X Nica on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3000310/Cain_x_Nica/

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Story: B+
Gameplay: B
Graphics: B+
Music/Sound: B+
Value: N/A (I'll amend this when the price is revealed on Steam.)

Overall: B+

Pros:
+ Tells an original story that features a surprisingly rich and deep post-apocalyptic world.
+ The visuals are great for the most part, and are animated as well.
+ Though the story doesn't always move forward as you'd expect it to, it's held together by the characters.
+ The music and voice acting (which is in Russian by the way) are both great.
+ Much longer than the developer's previous games. With full completion taking about 3-6 hours.
+ The off-the-wall nature of the plot can sometimes be amusing.

+/- I'm still not sure of the game's final retail price, so I feel a bit strange giving it the full ratings I am now.

Cons:
- Some of the character animations are so random that it can often ruin scenes.
- The general tone of the game is all over the place, and there is enough whiplash to make one dizzy.
- There are some parts of the game that feel oddly incomplete. Scenes that take place in a void, and others that are completely silent.
- Getting through some parts of the game requires very exact dialogue choices, and not all of them are intuitive.
- While I applaud the developers for going with a much longer story, it probably ran on a bit longer than it needed to.
- One of the achievements (Destiny) seems to be broken at the time of this writing.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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The Big Choice.

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