A Foretold Affair Reviews

Review – A Foretold Affair, an indie visual novel from 2017. 4.5 hours to finish I only played the male romance route, as a heterosexual woman, so that’s the perspective I’m speaking from. Player Character: The protagonist is masked and hooded, leaving their appearance and identity deliberately ambiguous. In theory, this lets the player project onto them. No point in that, I can’t relate to them at all. They are reckless and alien as they aren’t from a culture like ours so there is no point in trying to project anything. Their ambiguity only serves to make them more alien in this case. Their behavior seems rooted in a bizarre, hyper-isolationist culture—almost cult-like. It reminded me of the “factions” in Divergent, but even more extreme. There is a line about how they aren’t seen as individuals until a coming of age ritual where they get a mask to hide them even better from each other. The game attempts to reflect the PC’s upbringing through odd behavior. That they believe in love and feel it, yes. Did they ever seek it out before? Do they like or want sex? They seem to be asexual. So I can pick their pronouns and gender but I can’t pick what romantic structure they want, odd choices all around. Plot and Structure: The story's pacing becomes repetitive. The cycle of someone gets kidnapped, then rescued, then someone else gets kidnapped happens multiple times, seemingly just to drag out a short trip into a weeklong journey. It feels artificial, and clearly contrived to force camaraderie among characters. Ya, it got boring but I wasn’t here for world building, I was here for choices and character romance. Choices: Aside from selecting your route at the beginning, your decisions seem to carry very little narrative weight. Most choices only alter surface-level dialogue. For example, I was once given the choice to run away or stay. Even if you choose to flee, you’re back where you started within a few minutes, and the game proceeds. The Male Romance Route (January): This route left me deeply unsatisfied. There’s a common complaint in indie otome games: when developers include one token female love interest, it often feels half-baked. The assumption is that it was written by someone who isn’t bisexual or lesbian and so, badly, make a stab at what they think a lesbian relationship would be like. That same kind of disconnect is painfully obvious here, except flipped. This male romance route feels like it was written by someone who isn’t attracted to men. And perhaps, are against basic traditional romance structures such as monogamy. The romantic arc is all over the place. Main character leaves behind their entire culture for a vision of married bliss to a man they’ve never seen. They meet him, show him the same vision and he is IMMEDIATELY on board. There must be emotions in these visions or something. We then have to deal with THE PLOT. Along the way, we learn very little about him. His mom died, leaving him his title. He’s 26. And oh, by the way… People around him have set up an arranged marriage for him to make sure he has kids. It that okay with the main character that he needs to father a child with a woman neither of you has met, purely for the sake of continuing a noble bloodline? Oh boy, that sure IS NOT A PROBLEM with the main character. They are legitimately nonchalant about such a pesky detail. I’m not even sure if this meant they were only married in spirit and he’s actually married to the noble lady? Or if the noble lady just serves as a surrogate? There’s no emotional consideration for the surrogate mother, as the main character declares that although this other woman may receive his semen, she will not receive an ounce of affection from January for January will only love the main character. There is no reflection on consent. No opportunity for the player, myself, to prefer 100% monogamy and choose that. The MC later seems to pity the woman and comments that they should share a kind word or two if they ever run into them in the hallways. @_@ Neither even question the morality of the arrangement. The implication is clear: if you romance January, he will impregnate someone else, and the player just has to accept it just as the main character is hard written to accept it. I can only imagine this whole storyline was written for the asexual or male players to enjoy? Why couldn’t I control the MC enough to say, oh no, I’m fine with breeding as I have picked she pronouns and gender and imagine myself to have girl parts. let's leave out the whole surrogate mother plan? To make things worse, there's a point in the story where January emotionally abandons the protagonist after they literally lose a limb. During this time, it’s the agendered character, Kae who steps in as emotional support. Crazier to boot, the chemistry and emotional connection between the PC and Kae is more believable than anything I saw with January. It left me wondering if Kae was the author’s true favorite. An absolutely lost opportunity to explore the idea that our choices matter more than seeing the future and choosing to break it off with January altogether to pursue Kae. Or even just go back to the culture we’d left. Eventually, January returns and offers a sincere apology, which the PC immediately accepts in there usual, “No harm, no foul” sort of way.. There’s no meaningful reckoning for his actions—just a tidy resolution that ignores the depth of the hurt. They were hurt! Hurt badly! Emotionally all over the place as their bloody stump ached and they struggled even to feed themselves. Seriously! Interesting Themes, Poorly Explored: The game does raise a few intriguing psychological themes such as culture shock, body dysmorphia, injury-related disability, and how certainty about the future can blind us. But these ideas are introduced and then quickly glossed over. A potentially life ending injury in the middle of nowhere? magical medical tech to the rescue! The weight of losing a limb fucking with what you see as your “self” ? vague optimism to the rescue! A sudden unexpected homesickness? Ha, in that isolationist culture, were they even really your friends and caregivers anyway? Better off without them! Final Thoughts: I cannot recommend this game based on the male romance route because of whatever the fuck was even happening there. And it seems the developer intentionally downplayed the romance arc in favor of broader themes. In response to a similar review, they stated: “The way we handled January's route—it’s problematic for a proper romance route, but we had other priorities that beat that concern out.” That may be fair from a storytelling perspective—but if you’re advertising a romance game, then romance should be a priority, at least on the chosen route. If I select January’s path, I expect to spend meaningful time with him. I’ll get to know the others on their own routes.

A fine visual novel, kind of missing the mark on that romance tag though. Genuinely started to enjoy the entire cast by the end of Kea's route, but I did feel like after the story actually started getting good the entire future marriage partner stopped mattering in any capacity. And while the ending bit was cute, it was a bit of a bad epilogue. I think the game needs a *Three years later* or a *How the Buffalo Seer actually ends up getting married* type thing, because having none of either despite it being the main thing talked about on the game's description is weird. As other reviewers mentioned, the Buffalo Seer can be annoying for the first half(?) of the game, but they come around, so don't worry about that. Overall, if you can get it on sale like I did, it's a lovely time.