straightforwardly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
straightforwardly) wrote2020-01-04 10:22 am
straightforwardly) wrote2020-01-04 10:22 am
220 | Heart of the Woods
We’re four days into 2020, and I’ve already completed my first visual novel of the year—Heart of the Woods, which HLTB logs as taking between 5½-8 hours to beat and complete, though I completed it in four.
I liked this game, but I didn’t love it, and I think at least a part of that is because of mismanaged expectations on my part. What I knew about this game going into it was “ghost story, a cabin in the middle of a snowy forest, f/f romance”, and what I expected based on that was something slightly spooky, mysterious, atmospheric, and magical. I also expected more of a “the mystery of who this ghost is story”, which this game very much isn’t.
I loved the first few chapters of this game, and especially the opening. That’s actually the part of it that felt the most atmospheric to me—the nighttime train ride; the cold, dark, and snow; the strangeness of Morgan’s arrival on the horse-drawn carriage and the mystery of the unknown; and how that’s all contrasted with the mundane and very real conflict simmering between Maddie and Tara.
The scene, too, where they first see the forest spirit was a fantastic moment: the blizzard, the old church, and then that moment when they see the spirit towering over the treeline—it’s all very well done, and I think the game does an excellent job of capturing the way that moment completely overturns Maddie and Tara’s worldviews.
Where the game started to lose me, I think, is when we switched to Morgan’s POV, and specifically when she tells Tara the truth about Evelyn and the town. It’s not a bad plot, necessarily, but I did feel a sense of deflation when it happened.
As I type this out, it occurs to me that it might have been less because of the plot itself, and maybe more because of how we learn the information. I was expected more about Maddie and Tara uncovering the mysteries of the town, but instead the information is just… given to them.
The same is true of Abigail’s backstory, which, now that I think about it, would have worked with the “mystery of who this ghost is” set-up that I’d expected, but isn’t handled that way at all. Instead of it being a mystery for Maddie to undercover, it’s something which Abigail tells her as a relationship-building moment via tragic backstory. Which is a valid choice! It’s just not what I was looking for. I think the only real “mystery” they have to uncover is Evelyn’s background / how to defeat her, but because of the switching POVs, the reader puts the story together long before the characters do.
I was also a little frustrated with how the ghost plotline was resolved. I was initially shocked when Maddie died, but afterwards I was really intrigued by the choice. As a solution to the “can’t touch or communicate with this ghost” problem, it’s certainly novel (at least in my experience), and I was interested in the emotional complexities of how this affected Maddie and Tara’s relationship.
I loved the detail about how projection (i.e., how a ghost—or, rather, “living soul”, since that’s what Abigail and Maddie actually are; their bodies died, but their souls were rescued by the forest spirit, which is why they still exist) was something that took Abigail decades to learn, and how that prevents her from being able to communicate with Tara.
I loved the mess of emotions between Maddie and Tara at this point: their regrets about their argument and all the things they left unsaid, how fiercely they still cared about one another, Tara’s fear and determination and mourning all wrapped together in a tangled mess… it’s all really good, I definitely cried when Tara had her breakdown while filming with Morgan, and I was really looking forward to how the game would handle this.
Instead, Maddie becomes the Fairy Queen and uses her magic to give herself and Abigail physical bodies again. It takes all of two seconds.
On that note, I also loved the Fairy Queen plotline when it was first introduced! I found the fairies’ mindset wonderfully alien when they gave her a taste of what being the Fairy Queen would be like, and I was really into the idea of a increasingly-inhuman!Fairy Queen/ghost romance between Maddie/Abigail. But in the end, Maddie as the Fairy Queen was basically indistinguishable from the usual Maddie, save for the change in clothing.
To jump back a bit chronologically, I also found the scenes between Abigail and Maddie after Maddie joins her in death to be… kind of boring? Which is strange to say about scenes where two ghosts wander around a magical forest, but it’s true. Earlier in the game, I wasn’t wild about the switches away from Maddie’s POV, but at that point I was grateful for it, because Tara and Morgan’s side of the story was much more interesting.
When it comes down to it, despite all the magic within the game, it ended up having a very mundane feeling to it. Which makes sense—all of the characters, ghost included, want nothing more than to leave Eysenfeld and either continue on with (Tara and Maddie) or build, for the first time (Abigail and Morgan), a normal, mundane life.
Also: Alma’s death struck me as a rather pointless bit of brutality. Between the forest spirit’s decline, Abigail’s weakness, and Maddie’s constantly shifting in and out of existence, it’s already very clear how bad the situation in the forest is, and it doesn’t raise the stakes at all. There really wasn’t any need for a baby deer to be violently killed, and the whole scene put a really bad taste in my mouth.
But, to go back to what I did like about the game… Maddie’s character design! I loved, loved, loved it. Her coat, her glasses, her lipstick, that scarf… she was a delight to look at. ♥
I also adored the forest. The fairy clearing was gorgeous, and the friendship between the forest spirit and Abigail might have been my favorite relationship in the game. Their goodbye in the good ending was so incredibly touching, and was definitely my favorite part about it. I wish the forest spirit had played a bigger role, because I was really intrigued by it.
I also really liked the friendship between Geladura and Morgan quite a bit, and only wish that game could have focused more on it. Still, her giving the signal too early out of fear for Morgan’s safety and her goodbye to Morgan in the second bad ending were both excellent moments and gave me feelings. On that note, Geladura’s happy ending was the other aspect that I loved best about the good ending.
Beyond that… the good ending was more of the “mundane life as a happy ending”, which is fair, but not something which I find interesting.
The two bad endings can be categorized as “Abigail and Maddie get a happy ending in the mundane real world” and “Tara and Morgan get a happy ending in the mundane real world”, and the second of those was the most interesting of the three for me. The biggest minus for me was that Geladura dies, but that’s also the catalyst for Maddie having to stay in the forest as the Fairy Queen, which (despite her distress when she realizes what’s happening), I personally loved. On top of that, they lose their physical bodies again, which, on one hand felt like a cop-out, but, on the other hand, I never liked them getting those bodies back in the first place, so it still worked for me.
And… that’s all I had to say about this game, I think.
I liked this game, but I didn’t love it, and I think at least a part of that is because of mismanaged expectations on my part. What I knew about this game going into it was “ghost story, a cabin in the middle of a snowy forest, f/f romance”, and what I expected based on that was something slightly spooky, mysterious, atmospheric, and magical. I also expected more of a “the mystery of who this ghost is story”, which this game very much isn’t.
I loved the first few chapters of this game, and especially the opening. That’s actually the part of it that felt the most atmospheric to me—the nighttime train ride; the cold, dark, and snow; the strangeness of Morgan’s arrival on the horse-drawn carriage and the mystery of the unknown; and how that’s all contrasted with the mundane and very real conflict simmering between Maddie and Tara.
The scene, too, where they first see the forest spirit was a fantastic moment: the blizzard, the old church, and then that moment when they see the spirit towering over the treeline—it’s all very well done, and I think the game does an excellent job of capturing the way that moment completely overturns Maddie and Tara’s worldviews.
Where the game started to lose me, I think, is when we switched to Morgan’s POV, and specifically when she tells Tara the truth about Evelyn and the town. It’s not a bad plot, necessarily, but I did feel a sense of deflation when it happened.
As I type this out, it occurs to me that it might have been less because of the plot itself, and maybe more because of how we learn the information. I was expected more about Maddie and Tara uncovering the mysteries of the town, but instead the information is just… given to them.
The same is true of Abigail’s backstory, which, now that I think about it, would have worked with the “mystery of who this ghost is” set-up that I’d expected, but isn’t handled that way at all. Instead of it being a mystery for Maddie to undercover, it’s something which Abigail tells her as a relationship-building moment via tragic backstory. Which is a valid choice! It’s just not what I was looking for. I think the only real “mystery” they have to uncover is Evelyn’s background / how to defeat her, but because of the switching POVs, the reader puts the story together long before the characters do.
I was also a little frustrated with how the ghost plotline was resolved. I was initially shocked when Maddie died, but afterwards I was really intrigued by the choice. As a solution to the “can’t touch or communicate with this ghost” problem, it’s certainly novel (at least in my experience), and I was interested in the emotional complexities of how this affected Maddie and Tara’s relationship.
I loved the detail about how projection (i.e., how a ghost—or, rather, “living soul”, since that’s what Abigail and Maddie actually are; their bodies died, but their souls were rescued by the forest spirit, which is why they still exist) was something that took Abigail decades to learn, and how that prevents her from being able to communicate with Tara.
I loved the mess of emotions between Maddie and Tara at this point: their regrets about their argument and all the things they left unsaid, how fiercely they still cared about one another, Tara’s fear and determination and mourning all wrapped together in a tangled mess… it’s all really good, I definitely cried when Tara had her breakdown while filming with Morgan, and I was really looking forward to how the game would handle this.
Instead, Maddie becomes the Fairy Queen and uses her magic to give herself and Abigail physical bodies again. It takes all of two seconds.
On that note, I also loved the Fairy Queen plotline when it was first introduced! I found the fairies’ mindset wonderfully alien when they gave her a taste of what being the Fairy Queen would be like, and I was really into the idea of a increasingly-inhuman!Fairy Queen/ghost romance between Maddie/Abigail. But in the end, Maddie as the Fairy Queen was basically indistinguishable from the usual Maddie, save for the change in clothing.
To jump back a bit chronologically, I also found the scenes between Abigail and Maddie after Maddie joins her in death to be… kind of boring? Which is strange to say about scenes where two ghosts wander around a magical forest, but it’s true. Earlier in the game, I wasn’t wild about the switches away from Maddie’s POV, but at that point I was grateful for it, because Tara and Morgan’s side of the story was much more interesting.
When it comes down to it, despite all the magic within the game, it ended up having a very mundane feeling to it. Which makes sense—all of the characters, ghost included, want nothing more than to leave Eysenfeld and either continue on with (Tara and Maddie) or build, for the first time (Abigail and Morgan), a normal, mundane life.
Also: Alma’s death struck me as a rather pointless bit of brutality. Between the forest spirit’s decline, Abigail’s weakness, and Maddie’s constantly shifting in and out of existence, it’s already very clear how bad the situation in the forest is, and it doesn’t raise the stakes at all. There really wasn’t any need for a baby deer to be violently killed, and the whole scene put a really bad taste in my mouth.
But, to go back to what I did like about the game… Maddie’s character design! I loved, loved, loved it. Her coat, her glasses, her lipstick, that scarf… she was a delight to look at. ♥
I also adored the forest. The fairy clearing was gorgeous, and the friendship between the forest spirit and Abigail might have been my favorite relationship in the game. Their goodbye in the good ending was so incredibly touching, and was definitely my favorite part about it. I wish the forest spirit had played a bigger role, because I was really intrigued by it.
I also really liked the friendship between Geladura and Morgan quite a bit, and only wish that game could have focused more on it. Still, her giving the signal too early out of fear for Morgan’s safety and her goodbye to Morgan in the second bad ending were both excellent moments and gave me feelings. On that note, Geladura’s happy ending was the other aspect that I loved best about the good ending.
Beyond that… the good ending was more of the “mundane life as a happy ending”, which is fair, but not something which I find interesting.
The two bad endings can be categorized as “Abigail and Maddie get a happy ending in the mundane real world” and “Tara and Morgan get a happy ending in the mundane real world”, and the second of those was the most interesting of the three for me. The biggest minus for me was that Geladura dies, but that’s also the catalyst for Maddie having to stay in the forest as the Fairy Queen, which (despite her distress when she realizes what’s happening), I personally loved. On top of that, they lose their physical bodies again, which, on one hand felt like a cop-out, but, on the other hand, I never liked them getting those bodies back in the first place, so it still worked for me.
And… that’s all I had to say about this game, I think.