Forgotten Trace: Thanatos in Nostalgia Reviews

Warning- Don’t read this if you can’t handle sensitive topics such as suicide and death. The review is based on current gameplay (It will be updated later). A young teenager named Kazuya Nanami lies on a snowy ground, reminiscing about his dull life and his closest friends while he tries to escape the forest. The boy’s leg is in perfect condition, but how is that possible? Kazuya knows the place is fictional because he’s supposed to be somewhere else. AT HOME. A trail of footprints leads him to a lake where he sees a beautiful girl singing with a single cloth. The unnamed person recognizes Kazuya, kisses him, and disappears. Is she human? Kazuya’s world Episode 1- Waking up in his bed, Kazuya can’t remember whether it was a dream. He checks his computer and discovers people are committing suicide in his town. What’s causing them to die? You are introduced to Kazuya’s friends: Playboy Rei and Childish Miu. Childhood crush Ibuki hasn’t been in school due to medical reasons. There isn’t much information about those deaths either. In this episode, you’ll learn what happened to Kazuya’s leg and how he has changed since the incident. Some comedic scenes were uninteresting because it dragged. There are several scenes without any sound. It seems to be intentional according to the developer. I completed the first episode. In my opinion, I thought this wasn’t a good start. The visual novel has a great prologue, but it tends to fall flat with unnecessary boring scenes. I kept reading to give it a chance. I still want to know who the mystery girl is. Features include Japanese voice acting, decent artwork, and background music. You can’t make choices. Would I recommend it? No. My review might change once I finish it. Edit Review: After reading a bit further into the visual novel, I decided to keep the negative review. There are different perspectives of the characters' stories. You will encounter references from famous works, but it's rather awkward. I felt like it wasn't needed, and I was losing interest. You don't want to bore your audience with dull scenes. I can’t give it a positive rating. Definitely not recommended.

Visual novel with a plot of convoluted mix of different stories that do not gel together. The beginning feels like a slice of school life, progressing to some sort of supernatural stories meshed together that are poorly explained and developed and ends on a non-ending. There are some funny moments here and there, and some dark moments there and here, but overall, it is a very slow and boring read, compounded by the overly long text lines that add little to the story. Artwork is decent enough, though basic, and some of the character sprites/CGs do look weird at times. The music is unremarkable and of little variety, and long stretches of the game has no music at all. The only thing remotely worth reading and looking at was the Sunday's side story. Overall, I do not recommend. The only reason I have 40+ hours on this novel is due to how slow and long the story is. Avoid. 5/10

Linear Visual Novel. No choices, just click and read. On the plus side the intro is very poetic. Visuals are ok-ish, typical for what you would expect, nothing that really stands out though. For me the parts Ive read have been way to drawn out though, taking the melodramatic scenes to the point where they bore you and the funny scenes to the point where they become annoying. Negative, purposely bringing up other famous works and using it as part of the commentary totally uncool. Your story and its history and back lore should be its own. If your having to borrow the shine from other peoples work, you've already given up on you own.