Viola: The Heroine's Melody Reviews

This is a light Turn based RPG game about a girl dealing with loss and her journey dealing with the grief Along the way she meets a whole bunch of diverse characters each with their own story and abilities. Not a very difficult game and a decent amount of content to keep you busy for a couple hours

No, but I'm actually mad that more of y'all aren't giving this game its roses. Give this game her TENS! The story is S O beautiful and such a great meditation on loving oneself, finding community, moving through grief, and falling in love with artistic expression. I was nervous because I heard there was a game-ending bug, but as long as you get Emerald after they become available (which is fairly early), you should be good. Just like don't wait till the end to get them, I don't even know why people were doing that to begin with lmao. Sure, this game doesn't have a million-dollar budget. Sure, we've seen stories of friendship before. But E Y E don't care! This story does it better, period. This game will leave you with misty eyes and lungs made lighter from laughing at the hilarious dialogue. It's a vibe, it's great, play this game now, please.

Great story, soundtrack, and characters. Unfortunately it's a bit buggy.

Viola is a very good, yet small, game with great characters, it is a bit buggy, but it's still a great game, and I think lots of people can enjoy it. p.s. it work better on a controller then a keyboard, but that's just my opinion.

Came to support Discord peeps, stayed because it was a grand old time. The gameplay was neat; light platforming (with a couple of hiccups, but not a single softlock that I encountered; thanks for respawning me when I glitched out of the stage!), plus engaging turn-based combat. The customizable difficulty was a great addition, though the only option I used was the double support growth (which was ultimately unnecessary; it seems like there wasn't a big grind after all!). The rhythm elements were pretty neat. I'm very glad that the Ocarina of Time-style songs let you view the notes while playing so that I didn't have to memorize them. Props to the composer as well! It was a soundtrack beyond measure, one might say. Ayy? Ayy? And for those who are also disappointed at the end... Keep watching.

I played this game and enjoyed it. Pros: good characters, dialogue, music, and art. Cons: The combat is too easy on the highest difficulty, which is Normal. There are several options to make the combat even easier, but none to make it harder. Combat is a major portion of the game, but once I got two fast mages with multi-target attacks, I just did that for every combat. I can overlook that con because it's a short game--doing everything takes about 9 hours. Highly recommended if you enjoyed the writing and character dynamics of Undertale or Ikenfell.

[h1] See You, Violin Girl! Someday, Somewhere [/h1] Viola is a hybrid mix of turn-based JRPG-style combat, platforming, and rhythm game focused on the fairytale adventure of the titular Viola - a young girl and struggling musician who finds herself sucked into a magical, musical world inside of her violin. I want to immediately note that Viola is an Early Access title. Essentially, that means only about the first hour of the game is currently complete. In other words, what you’re purchasing now is a glorified demo and a “pre-order,” so to speak, of the finished game. So, keep that in mind when purchasing or considering this game. With that said, I think that there’s enough of a feature-complete, albeit still unfinished, game to share my initial impressions. This is usually the type of game that I attempt to avoid or outright ignore. The turn-based JRPG style of game is one that I feel we’ve aged out of - it was necessary for its time, but the progress of technology has allowed game developers to move into more actively engaging styles of gameplay. While I understand there is plenty of nostalgia around this type of game and it affords smaller, independent developers the opportunity to craft some elaborate games, in most of these cases, I find its implementation boring, lazy, and often uninspired; however, what intrigued me about Viola is how it seemingly mixes multiple forms of gameplay into a seamless experience. Viola offers players some light platforming with a blend of turn-based, rhythm game focused combat. Going into the game, I had a few initial apprehensions, the first being the aforementioned musical combat. [b] Exciting, Musical Combat [/b] My major concern with the rhythm-based combat - and by extension most of this game - was that it would be a clunky experience, too simplistic and easy, or a combination of both of those issues. Fortunately, Viola’s combat works well and even manages to offer a mildly challenging, fun experience. Most impressive is how well the concept of music and the musical gameplay is implemented into the game’s world. Combat in Viola requires the player to match a sequence of buttons as they appear. Attention, reaction, and timing are all crucial. Everything from normal attacks to more impressive “crescendo” attacks require short segments such as this to both increase the actions damage and ensure its success. If you screw up and miss or hit the incorrect button during, say, the casting of a spell, it will fail. This makes the combat more than the standard fare, click a box, click an enemy, rinse and repeat gameplay old-school JRPGs (and their modern homages) rely upon. In a larger sense, the musical gameplay is carried over into gameplay segments outside of combat. Players must learn songs in order to active campfires, which act as save points throughout the game. Additionally, music and musical aspirations are an inherent theme within the game’s plot and world - both in the story told and in its aesthetics. Overall, this is something that’s very well done. Now, one area I was also apprehensive about was the platforming. Aside from rhythmic centered combat, Viola boasts platforming and exploration. Again, I was initially worried this would fall short. While the platforming and light exploration in the game so far are serviceable, they’re far from challenging. [b] Less Exciting Platform Action [/b] The platforming in Viola does its job, but currently, it can feel clunky at times. For example, jumping can feel unresponsive and whether Viola will execute a double or triple jump feels hit or miss. Additionally, I never felt challenged by any of the level designs. By and large, the platforming is straightforward and requires little thought, planning, or precision. But, for the most part, platforming is there and it works. I don’t imagine players will come into this game expecting groundbreaking platform leaping, edge of your seat wall scaling gameplay. Regardless, though, it would be nice to see more challenging level design as the game progresses in development. [b] Gorgeous Sprites, Colorful Palettes, and Friendship For All [/b] Visually, Viola is a beautiful game. Most sprite animations are fluid and the backgrounds are gorgeous. The color palette is bright, cheerful, and compliments the tone of the game well. There is little else to say about it besides it’s a visually cohesive and well-executed experience. The last part of the game to focus on is its story. As far as the story and the game world are concerned, it’s so far very much a cheery, lets-all-be-friends-and-work-together coming of age tale. The game’s creator, Jelle van Doorne, clearly has a love for these types of lighter-toned, JRPGs. While some of the game’s dialogue can feel a little overly sentimental or too hammy, it still has its charm. Almost every character seems to only have Viola’s best interests in mind and are willing to tag right along on her adventure of confidence-building self-discovery. Can it be a bit much at times? Sure. But conversely, not every game has to be bleak, dark, or a deeply nihilistic experience that requires the player to question their own morality. Sometimes it's nice to enjoy a happy-go-lucky tale of friendship. So, I'm willing to give it a pass. Overall, Viola is much more than I thought it would be and I’m looking forward to seeing its progress unfold. If JRPGs are your cup of tea, for $10, I think you’ll find something to enjoy in this game.

Viola is a game that you should play if you just need something to cheer you up. It's a real "feel-good"-game. The story will not surprise you, but the characters will warm your heart. They are extremely diverse (including LGBT+ representation which doesn't feel forced but really natural) and their interactions with the heroine help her to become a better person. The dialogues are not too deep or long, so some things feel a little bit rushed (getting Justice to Support Level S, for example), but it fits the game - it feels like a warm, pleasant breeze, so you should be able to breeze through the game without too much effort. ;) So yeah, the game is easy, but I really didn't mind. As I already said, it really fits the overall experience. Too many challenging battles and/or platforming sections would take the wonderful lightness out of everything. I also really enjoyed the music. Actually, the musical theme was the main reason why I got interested in Viola. The soundtrack itself is nice, but what really shined for me were the 9 short songs the characters play together to open secret passages or activate fast travel. There must be several versions of these songs, because the game recognizes which characters are in your active party and only the instruments of them can be heard. That's actually one of the things which fascinated me most. xD Well anyways, the game still has some small issues. The autsaves can be bothersome, as the game only saves if you completed a zone (or exit the shop or campfire). There's no ingame menu for settings, and you can't look at the skills of your party members outside of battle. Aside from that I had just two bugs in the entire game which is really awesome if you think about it - the game was developed by only one person! So overall, I had a WONDERFUL time with Viola. It might not be for everybody, but if you just want to have fun without facing too much of a challenge, if you can connect to quirky characters quickly and just want to feel good about them (and yourself) and if you love music and instruments, this is worth your time. This game needs a lot more attention than it gets right now.

The gameplay is nice, but while the best songs are incredibly short, the ost is okay-ish. I liked the characters and the story as well. But I cannot recommend the game. Stay away from it because it has, not only an annoying bug that forced you to press "comfirm" multiple times to register entering into a stage (otherwise the screen remains black) it also has a bug flat out locking you from beating the game because the game requires you to recruit all characters to beat the game and one is bugged where she joins the party, but she vanishes. You cannot try to repeat the circumstances to unlock her, so you're screwed and forced to restart at a CHANCE that the game won't bug again when unlocking her. Until the devs fix this (if they still care), stay away from the game that can easily become unfinishable.

It's a cute, simple game, and was all developed by one guy, which is pretty commendable. The characters can be charming and the story is okay, albeit predictable, and covers topics like loving yourself and such. That being said, I can't really recommend the game right now for some reasons listed below: [list] [*]The game autosaves only whenever you leave a zone, exit the overworld shop, or exit the campfire. The game doesn't save when you exit to the title menu or exit the game, meaning you'll have to exit the level (if the game lets you) to save [*]The in-game menu is pretty wonky, with some weird bugs and design choices (why is there no option for settings?) [*]No convenient way to check out a character's skills, only being able to do so in combat. Even then, it won't let you even move to the spell if you don't have enough mana [*]The game is too easy. Now the game is clearly designed to be simple, which is fine, but this feels a bit extreme [*]Several misc bugs [/list] Granted, this was a one-man job, so it isn't going to be perfect, but I feel like it should be mentioned. I'm sure that the dev will keep working on this project and fix up the game a bit, because it's still a decent game. Here's hoping.