Visual Novel Horror: A Sunlight Scream Review

By Rose

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC

I had to double check every time I used this game's title in this review. Sunlight Scream, partially named for the city the story takes place in, doesn't really evoke anything besides a vague gesture towards horror-inspired themes. The same can be said for the cast, whose names I had to write down after the first time I realized that I couldn't reliably match a name to a portrait. Entirely forgettable names for entirely forgettable personalities. Sunlight Scream is, ostensibly, a horror story. A visual novel about some "university students" (we'll get to that) investigating (sort of) a series of murders. The premise sounds decent for a game at such a low price, and the game's storefront description promises "[making] decisions to build your adventure." And what an adventure it is.

The player takes on the role of Max, a young man moving back to his hometown to live with his older brother after the deaths of their parents. You're quickly introduced to the hint system, if you choose to keep it enabled: a battery icon which indicates the narrative significance of the choice you're about to make. This is a fine idea, if a little oddly-implemented at times. The only other mechanics are the ones that appear in the pre-built visual novel engine the game uses, like being able to go back and choose different options or let the game's text progress automatically. Pretty soon it's time for school, where the bulk of your adventure is to take place.

Max enrolls at Sunlight University, a high school in all but name, where he meets a few of the usual shonen-fare stock characters, a bully straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon, and a sparse supporting cast. Your main trio of friends is rich boy Leon, shy nerd Samantha, and less shy nerd Sarah (AKA "The Slayer"). Sarah is a hacker, which means she can do anything the story needs her to do. Samantha is writing a book, and Leon lives in a big house.

You also meet the aforementioned cartoon bully, Grant, who hates everyone because he's mean, and Erika, a girl bully, who hates everyone because she's mean. Rounding out the cast are stereotypical nerd Nate and math teacher Mr. Johnson. Pretty soon you're getting a mysterious phone call warning you that everyone you know will die, and that you'll pay for everything, and that you should never have come to this town.

Here's the main draw of the game: the killer's identity changes based on the player's choices. This could be a neat feature, but if not carefully implemented it can also mean that there's no room for thematic depth behind the murders. I think Sunlight Scream does a decent job of this, with the potential killers having their own thin but distinct motives. Most of the choices you make throughout the story feel pretty minor, even the ones with higher marks on the battery meter (which I alternated turning on and off to get a feel for it). You might go an entire heavy conversation without a single choice, then be given several options in quick succession describing how you choose to approach a game of basketball. At one point you're given a list of items and told you can buy only one, and that this is a somewhat important choice. The item never came up again in that playthrough. This is all to say that the choice system, while interesting, is sloppy at best. And sloppy is the best way to describe the game overall.

Sunlight Scream was written and developed in Russian, but is primarily in English on all platforms, with the choice to switch between only those two languages. The English translation is abysmal. A translator is credited, but at times it feels almost machine translated, with many long strings of nonsense and inconsistencies. The translation has no bearing on the quality of the narrative, necessarily, but the narrative itself is weak as well. Conversations are often unnatural, forced, awkward, even repetitive. Characters introduce themselves like robots, and even deciphering what they're supposed to be saying reveals an amateur understanding of dialogue construction. At its best, Sunlight Scream reads like fanfiction.

The art isn't much better. Credited to several Fiverr artists, the background art and character sprites are generic anime-inspired fare, an odd choice to be paired with forgettable western names like Max and Sarah, but certainly a choice made because "that's what visual novels look like." Most development choices in the game boil down to the same. There's a cop because that's what murder mysteries have, every character archetype is there because they were there in one of the stories this game was inspired by, the killer wears a white mask because the killer is supposed to be Scream's Ghostface with the serial number shaved off. You go camping in the woods after several murders have occurred, because other horror stories also take place in the woods sometimes. Nothing here feels original, nothing here feels inspired, it's all just slop made for the sake of content.

This is all fine. It's a cheap game, seemingly well-liked by the few who have reviewed it on various platforms (some of whom are thanked in the credits), and supposedly the first game Faithy started working on (though the second released). It has all the trappings of a practice project by somebody learning how to make games for the first time, and frankly I wouldn't have given it a second glance if it hadn't been submitted for review. It has no business being listed for sale. As a commercial product, however, there's an air of laziness here. I would be more lenient on the game's shortcomings if Faithy hadn't used machine-generated imagery in his previous game, Experimentation. Or if he wasn't repackaging and selling the royalty-free background music he purchased as DLC for the game. Or if his most recent game (he has released two since the PC release of Sunlight Scream) wasn't a low-effort minutes-long clicker. In fact, this year alone Faithy has released two hidden object games with a third set for release in Q4, all minutes-long free-to-play slop with similar soundtrack and art book DLC. The cat clickers are kinda cute, for what it's worth, and also not the subject of this review. As it stands I wouldn't have reviewed Sunlight Scream; it's a clearly amateur work by somebody who is, at best, learning how to make games. But it was submitted for review just the same, and Faithy is charging for a bundle of assets he did not create, so I decided it was fair game. If for some reason you want to play Sunlight Scream, it releases for the Nintendo Switch on either July 11th or November 7th depending on who you ask, or is available now on PC via Steam or on Android devices.

Check Out Sunlight Scream on Nintendo Switch:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/sunlight-scream-switch/

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Story: D
Gameplay: D
Graphics: D
Music/Sound: D
Value: C

Overall: D

Pros:
+ I guess it's cheap.
+ It runs decently well, and there aren't any glitches to note.
+ Has achievements if that's the kind of thing you're after.
+ It could be worse.

Cons:
- Features both weak writing and a poor translation.
- Lackluster art.
- Forgettable characters.
- Just read the review again.

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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Maybe they were right about this one...

#SunlightScreamNintendo