Review - Amarantus

(originally posted August 9, 2023)

A western-made visual novel that actually does things with the medium! And does them well. A rarity, to be cherished.

(At this point I spent a very long time staring at the draft of this post, pondering how I could write this in a way that wasn't as mechanical and wooden as my usual output, in a way that does justice to the impressive writing within Amarantus. I did not succeed. Workmanlike it is.)

Amarantus takes place in a sort of low-fantasy world where you play as a young man named Arik Tereison. The game opens with the lord's soldiers raiding his house in the dead of night, capturing his parents while he only just escapes. Arik assembles a small team of friends and acquaintances with the intent to march to the capital and Do Something About This.

The core story doesn't really change based on your choices; it's Arik's relationships with his team that do. I'd kill to see this game's internal flowchart. There's a huge amount of mutability based on what you say, and it's complex enough that I genuinely have no clue how to reach certain branches. The choices do matter and do have consequences, and they can be so small that you don't notice until they compound into a situation that smashes the back of your skull with a hammer.

The game shoves you into the deep end, expecting you to figure out the pre-existing relationship dynamics and state of the world almost purely via context clues. Thankfully, the writing is strong enough to support this approach, and the game is short as to facilitate multiple playthroughs. It trickles just enough information that I experienced multiple "oh my god, I knew it!" and "holy shit, they were actually talking about this!" moments in equal measure through subsequent runs.

This approach allows the game to squeeze tons of value out of its limited cast, who each have an impressive sense of specificity and agency. I'm used to companions in games simply following my lead and doing what I say, but would Marius stop trying to score with Raeann just because I told him to? Of course he wouldn't, he's a fucking disaster of a human being. You can't hook up with characters just by being nice like in most games with romance options (lookin at you, Baldur's Gate 3). You have to actually act in a way they're interested in.

The writing in Amarantus - the dialogue, really - is genuinely impressive. There's a heavy emphasis on naturalistic timing, taking full advantage of the Power of Computers to display things at various speeds. You know that awkward, beat-too-long pause where the game has to load the next line, even if the next line is supposed to be immediate? None of that shit here. Characters will pause to sigh, visibly hesitate to answer, interrupt themselves and others; all without waiting for player input. Words will change depending on how characters are pronouncing them.

I cannot overstate how huge this is. The classic fetter of visual novels is limited expressions and how one deals with that restriction. For example, Ace Attorney uses bombastic, hammy animations to convey character, which works well because every character is some kind of larger-than-life caricature. Amarantus has subtler writing and these accordingly subtler animations elevate it from great to amazing.

And just, man, I gotta get back in there, test every possible combination of choices. Some of my favorite dialogue in that game so far is in a scene that - according to the achievement statistics at time of writing - 2.5% of players have seen. And I can't imagine that many people are playing something as niche as this in the first place.

(Aside: Steam Visual Novel Fest is what kicked me in the ass to finish this review even though I got the game at launch, it's 20% off right now so maybe give it a look)

Honestly between Amarantus, Exocolonist, Citizen Sleeper, Roadwarden, and South Scrimshaw: Part One, I'm eatin' well from the "high-quality narrative game of relatively modest scope" table. Keep 'em coming.