Of all the otome games that came out last year, one I was especially excited for was Virche Evermore: Error Salvation.
Set on an island where people die by the age of 23 and following a protagonist cursed to bring death to those around her until she makes a deal with the “Watchman of Death,” Virche Evermore was described as being very dark and full of despair.
Fans were dying for it to be localized, and its reputation was such that I was excited to finally sit down and play it.
I actually finished it ahead of Yakuza last year, but unfortunately, I didn’t love it nearly as much as I expected to.
Not that it was all bad. The main character is likeable enough, with a tragic and sympathetic situation. The love interests were all right, with a couple standouts for me compared to the rest. The premise is intriguing, and I still love that. As for the darkness and despair, it probably hits harder if you don’t play a lot of darker games to start with, but it certainly had some hard-hitting moments and sad endings.
There’s one route I absolutely loved (Scien) and a few I found enjoyable, but Virche Evermore has one big problem that held me back from enjoying it as much as I wanted to.
You see, despite what seems to be an overtly supernatural premise, this game fancies itself as a sci-fi story. Since people can’t live past 23, they’ve developed cloning technology that allows them to clone themselves and download their memories into the new bodies after death. These clones can’t develop past where they were at when they created the backup, and emotions like love can’t transfer with their memories. This is the sort of dubious science I was willing to overlook for the sake of the story, but to my dismay, Virche Evermore depended more and more on its questionable science as it went on.
Look, I know I’m a Professor Layton fan, I can accept huge leaps in logic for the sake of an emotional story, but the science needs to make enough sense for me to suspend my disbelief.
I was also disappointed by its structure. You need to get all of the Despair endings before you’re able to go back and unlock the Salvation endings, so I assumed there was a story reason for that. I expected the final route to include a big reveal that would involve either us going back in time to change things in the routes, or more information for the player that would unlock additional choices on subsequent playthroughs. Neither of those is true; you just go back through with the same choices as before but get a better outcome this time. In other words, there’s no reason for the Salvation endings to be locked, and that made it feel pointless to me.
Before I played it, I thought Virche Evermore had the potential to become one of my favorite otome games. Instead, while I certainly enjoyed parts of it, I felt disappointed by it overall.
If the fandisc is ever localized, I’ll consider picking it up for Scien the characters I liked, but I doubt I’ll be rushing to make it a priority.
