Enelia: Dawn of Madness Steam Charts & Stats

I never write reviews, but I finally have to for an indie game like this. So far, I'm very excited for future chapters! The game runs smoothly (there were some slight audio glitches once etc., no overtly noticeable bugs), and the atmosphere created by the art, music, and voice acting is truly captivating. There is clearly so much love and passion behind this project! The writing, even as an English translation, is delightful. It can be hard to introduce the audience to a high-fantasy world without info-dumping, and I think the game avoids this common issue gracefully. The story is drawn out like a mystery, where pieces are collected gradually (and literally, through the journal mechanic). I found myself quite comfortable with the names, terminology, and culture pretty quickly; there was never a moment where I thought "wait, who? What? Where?". Some people, however, might find the pace to be too gradual (especially if they engage in high fantasy media regularly and want to dive head-first into lore). I only know this because I, personally, tend to get overwhelmed by lore-dumping really easily and quickly lose interest if I am given too many names and concepts all at once, but I find myself desperately wanting to know more about the world of Enelia. I am STARVED for lore for this world. I also find it impressive how such a cute art style manages to be truly unsettling at times. Given the themes, it works really well - watching a saccharine, classic-Neopets-esque world get overtaken by body-horror-adjacent blight really puts you in the mindset of the main character. The atmosphere, regardless of this dichotomy, remains consistent. This detail might feel like a weird thing to point out, but I have worked as an illustrator and consistency can be really difficult sometimes. They say that you can tell when a magic trick is really well done if you don't notice it at all, and I think that applies here. A viewer's eyes are naturally drawn first to glaring errors, and that never happened to me here. Basically, from a professional standpoint, the illustrations are cohesive and stunning. I am more than a little envious of the skill demonstrated here. Fantastic job, and good luck to the team! (P.S.: Salar, regrettably, has me kicking my feet and twirling my hair. -500/10 I hate this man and would definitely join his cult put him on a watch list and also give him my number ugh)