Antivine Reviews

Antivine is an adorably cute and charming tale of Senshu who was born without branches on his head and has to wear false ones all his life to fit in with his community. Senshu is bullied, mocked and rejected by others in his village as they regard him as a freak. It is only his devoted parents who accept his uniqueness, especially his mother who constantly showers him with her love. [spoiler]At his 16th birthday, his mother dies and he is left alone.[/spoiler] Senshu struggles with his difference as his desire is to become a Treeman like everyone else and bear fruit for his community. Only the Mountain God has the answers to all his questions, so off goes Senshu on his quest. On his way, he meets a little girl Mumei (like Mummy!) who has lost her memory and carries her in his backpack to take her home. Game play is to click on the path where you want Senshu to go and you switch between him and Mumei to get to the exit. The puzzles are fairly easy...I only needed the walkthrough once towards the end where the difficulty ramped up. I found the music to be lovely, switching from tolling bells, flutes, piano and orchestral sounds. Graphics are mixed with monochromatic hand drawn cutscenes for pertinent parts of the story, but the diorama graphics are bright and crisp. Traversing through the dioramas, you have to dodge carnivorous plants who will chomp on you and hungry starfish who grab you with their antenna. There are cute cactus plants who were having a snooze until you wake them up and they march off (with sound effects!). There are not so cute coloured balls who are not friendly at all! There are plants that rotate to help you get to a difficult spot, shy vegetation that act as lifts and plenty of pressure pads. You are even able to manipulate the moon which affects the level of water as it waxes and wanes. There are also little carts that are moved by wind funnels. So lots of innovative ideas to get you from A to B. When you finish the game, the achievements on the main menu tell you which ones you have missed and how many deaths you need to make. I am an expert in dying, so I got those achievements very easily!! You can even go back and play a particular chapter from the menu on the main page which is very handy. There is a drawback to this game. As others have stated, there is poor English translation that can affect your immersion in the game. This ranges from blatant spelling errors and bad grammar. It is obvious that no QA was done in this area which could have been fixed by an English speaking native. Depending on your personality, this will either annoy you or you will just brush it off. I felt the end in particular was lost in translation and it felt rushed. I actually wonder if they are hoping to make a sequel to this game. If it is as good as this, I will buy it if they get an English translator. This is certainly a game that children can play as there is no blood and guts and will help them learn strategy. Overall, Antivine is a lovely example of an evocative narrative-focused puzzle platformer which takes around 2-4 hours for clever people and longer for the dull of brain (like me!). It is a story that many of us can relate to. Points deducted for lazy translation. 7.5/10