The End of an Actress Reviews

Muhaa! The French....Revolution has always been celebrated for its excellence. There is a British VN by Ebihime, inspired by that same French revolution. It's fermented in Ren'py and, like the best French champagne, has a beautiful salacious artstyle...

A sad love story about a beautiful princess who was perfect and never did anything wrong.

Beautifully written story. Wonderful, engaging characters. Beautiful art and CGs. Really, I have no complaints. It delivers on every front. I love the author's style and I wish more "mainstream" games were half so well written.

Did [i]Rose of Versailles[/i] make you a Marie Antoinette apologist? This VN is for you. For anyone else, the biggest draw is probably the story’s novelty: beautiful young Queen Liliane partied while the people starved; Marius, who once admired her from afar, is now an embittered revolutionary and the deposed queen’s chief jailor. As her house arrest drags on, he is slowly seduced (or not) by her once again. Liliane’s life story maps closely that of Marie Antoinette, but in personality, she’s an antiheroine à la [i]Carmen[/i], laughing in the face of men who want to kill her. Marius’ conflict – the rage he feels towards his fallen idol warring with his growing awareness of Liliane as a human being– is compelling. But his personality is a bit vague, exacerbated by the major difference between CG Marius (stern and physically imposing) and sprite Marius (thin and bland). There are four choices to determine Marius’ relationship with Liliane and five endings. Remarkably, none of them are ‘game over’-type bad ends, each of the five is a fully fleshed possible story. (And the steam achievement descriptions afterwards are worth a good snort.) The narrative prose is pretty good, sounding neither too modern nor too self-consciously period; the dialog, however, can be a little mannered. A number of the individual scenes could’ve stood to be tighter. The UI is elegant. The music, heavy on strings and harpsichord, is quite good. I won’t go into detail on the art since the store page has a representative showing. Overall, [i]End of an Actress[/i] was worth the time I spent reading it, and I even cried a little when I came to the end.

Artsy visual novel. Well written with very nice art. I liked the dialogues and the story a lot. However there were some bad points. First of all it is a bit short. Secondly some of the scenes are artificially prolonged by a main character repeating the same thoughts over and over. I think it could have been made a bit deeper instead. I also did not like the music but this is not the games fault. The music is stylised to the era the story takes place in, and I just happen to dislike the music of this period. It could be argued that it is necessary however to keep the overall atmosphere of the game. Some endings were actually very nicely written and well thought of. All in all I liked the game and can recommend it to all artsy vn fans.

Inconsistent CG and story. Each choice is end the story or continue. And so 4 times. Boring and predictable.

[i]''When everyone else is losing their head, it is important to keep yours'' - Marie Antoinette[/i] It's interesting how [i]ebi-hime[/i] approached this Visual Novel that's loosely based upon Marie Antoinette as, even though there are moments that refer to the events of the Revolution against King Louis XVI & Marie Antoinette that include the betrothing of the Royal marriage as well as actualities up to the finality of the French Royals in the 18th century, the central 2 characters of Liliane & Marcius are portrayed with their own identities throughout. I think this benefits the story as it allows the fantasy setting to be appreciated instead of critiqued against Antoinette's life since this creates characters based around the history rather than the real-life tragedy of the Queen. This divide is important in the telling of this tale because it truly manages to capture the purpose of the title, [b]End of an Actress[/b] by showing the reader the strong personality of Lilianne who strives in taking pride in her role albeit from a standpoint of her predetermined upbringing and obligations within the realms of Royalty. Lilianne comes across as strong-minded, abrupt, fearless and aloof while pride is her essential defence she doesn't suffer fools gladly. Throughout her imprisonment with Marius, she never allows shame, fear, despair or control to weaken rather it is Marius who struggles with the traits of Lilianne leading to many personality clashes that often leave Marius perplexed in how to behave especially as he has an unfavourable attitude to Lilianne that is shared by the people of Artoire. As the story progresses, the barriers of trust very slowly start to fall and, as letters bearing bad news of her loved ones appear, Lilianne's sadness, upset & remorse become visible as Lilianne's 'mask of nobility' cracks revealing the emotional side to her. Marius now has the dilemma of if to succumb to his original love for Lilianne (as seen at the introduction of the story) or does he remain firm knowing that to risk anything else other than his role of overseer could be disastrous for both of them. These choices & directions appear as 5 branching choices throughout the story and, interestingly, each reflect a particular personality trait for Lilianne while revealing the choice of duty expected by Marius in his role as Captain. As the choices delve deeper into the interactions between Lilianne & Marius so too do the choices that open up and the direction available to take; whether it be ending the waiting game for Lilianne or if to pursue the potential for a love interest leading to further possibilities beyond Lilianne's doomed fate. The Visual Novel is developed in Ren'Py with exceptional attention to graphics/CG Art including moments of nudity while the OST is glorious in its concerto sounds that feature 8 pieces including 1 vocal theme for the title [i]End of an actress[/i]. There are multiple save slots and a skip, auto-play and transition to choices feature that is typical of Ren'py. Upon full completion of all 5 endings, there is an unlocked area in the menu showcasing the music, art and an extra memo. It's definitely a more thematic visual novel by [i]ebi-hime[/i] that is very detailed in its writing, some areas I found to be repetitive in the point being made while other areas I felt were micro-managed to prevent any change of mood or feeling within the choice routes chosen. The overall purpose that [i]ebi-hime[/i] wished to portray was successful as this visual novel takes a perceived notion of society roles (particularly the one of Queen) and offsets it against the expectations of the residents of Artoire. It results in an interesting viewpoint of a biased, prejudged mentality that can arise during extreme struggles versus a birthright which is guided, shaped and formed into a role denying a true version of the real person - instead nobility forcing a role to be enacted under the guises of masks much like that of actresses. ~~~ Liked what you see? You can find more reviews at [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32839633]Have a Word[/url]~~~

This is the weakest writing of Ebihime from what I've read so far. The characters have zero chemistry, Liliane is nothing but a shallow spoiled brat, yet Marius still falls in love with her. Liliane has her moments but she's still a weak character in the bigger picture. The art is meh; the eyes of Liliane's sprite are disturbingly ugly, and her boobs change size in every CG. It wouldn't bother me otherwise but in the bath CG scene, her boobs were pretty big for her petite frame even though the narrative stated her boobs being "smaller size for her age" (Wtf does that even mean?? She's a grown adult LOL). And suddenly in the sex CG her boobs are literally huge even though she's supposedly have lost weight during the course of the story. The CGs are otherwise aesthetically pleasing if you can ignore the booby problem. This review is a bit rough for me to write because I usually love Ebihime's writing, but this visual novel is just awkward and made me snooze. All of this is of course just my opinion, so don't come at me please. I still love her even though this one was a disappointment.

The game tells a story about Marius and Liliane. A jaded, bitter revolutionist and a spoiled, flighty queen and her imprisionment before her sentence. The strength of this game comes from the characters, both who come from extremely different social class. Their interactions and how their opinions of one another changes over their brief time. How both comes to care for one another, love each other and pretty much is doomed to never have their love come in fruitation. Both characters are treated as humans who have had their own struggles, Liliane is not a horrible monster who ruined their country and betrayed the people's trust, Marius himself has every right to hate the monarchy and lived a life barely lived. Both come with an understanding with each other. This is a very well written game that made me love both characters, it's definately not a happy happy story and all endings ranges from tragic to bittersweet but it still tells a wonderful tale. I'd definately recommend this game.

This story is based on the later life of Marie Antoinette, last queen of France. [i]However[/i], I'm going to focus this review on the fictional characters and the historical fiction story created by ebi-hime. Seeing as how I'm a socialist and detest historical figures like Marie Antoinette, I feel that not separating the two would muddle the review and insert unneeded bias. For its sake, I'll try to pretend that Liliane isn't based off of Marie. The story follows two characters: Marius and Liliane. Marius is a "peasant" who suffered under the incompetent rule of Queen Liliane and King Charles of Artoire. He was homeless and often starving as a young boy. As an adult, after going to war, for a meaningless cause and ungrateful monarchs, he joined revolutionaries plotting to overthrow and dismantle the monarchy. Being the leader of the particular squadron of militia that infiltrated the palace, he met Queen Liliane face-to-face and was in charge of ensuring she didn't escape. Liliane Sabine Saint-Coeur, a princess of Charentes, was forced to enter a political marriage at the age of 14 to the future king of Artoire. The citizens of Artoire expected a lot from her; they saw her as their country's salvation. However, the young girl didn't know how to save them and was rarely given the opportunity to actually exercise any power. She was also expected to have children, especially a boy. Her husband, meanwhile, seemed to be asexual? He seemed uninterested in his new wife or the prospect of sex entirely. However, the people blamed Liliane for not siring an heir. Without the comforts of her previous home or any true friends in her new home, the new queen was depressed and turned to self-indulgence as a way to cope ... until the revolution came. This is not the kind of story with a happy ending. It's just not meant to be. She can't be forgiven entirely, even if all the death and suffering wasn't completely her fault. It just wouldn't sit well with the reader/player, you know? There are a total of five endings: [spoiler]four involve Lililan's death/execution and one involves Marius's death/sacrifice.[/spoiler] The ending entitled "Please don't say goodbye" seems to be the one that's likely canon, as it is the only ending with post-credit scenes. As "luck" would have it, that is my favorite ending. I'll try not to give too much away, but it's my favorite because instead of a simple execution, Liliane actually gets to [i]learn[/i] something about the way her former "subjects" lived, which would naturally lead to understanding why they were upset enough to have a revolution. [u]Praises[/u] ⦁ The image of Liliane on the title screen changes based on which ending the player got last. Neat! ⦁ The memorandum has a message from the dev about her work on this story. Nice! ⦁ Beautiful CGs and the CG gallery unlocks once the player has seen all endings. ⦁ The inclusion of a Romani character. Considering that his perspective is given more than Liliane's, it's not actually tokenism, since there are only two main characters. Bonus: There's awareness that the term "g*psy" is a slur. ⦁ The story does not ask for forgiveness of Liliane, but a smidge of sympathy, given how unfair things were for her as well. ⦁ It isn't the same ol' sh*t I've seen in other media that's based on Marie Antoinette. I was worried about that when I got this VN, but ebi-hime didn't disappoint. [u]Complaints[/u] ⦁ Several typos. There are people who'll proofread just to have their name in the credits, you know. ⦁ The fixation/admiration/worship of pale skin, blond hair, and blue eyes. ... I'm [i]not[/i] accusing ebi-hime of anything, but this is [i]really[/i] not sending a great message, as there was (and still is) a whole group of evil people out there who revered the same traits. >.> ⦁ Too many CGs of Liliane, not enough of Marius. (Joking. ... Kinda.) I definitely recommend it to those who enjoy: other ebi-hime VNs, historical fiction, and [spoiler]forbidden romance[/spoiler].