Fault - Milestone Two - Side: Above is the first in a two-part sequel, although even though many years later, the second part still has not yet been released. The story follows straight after the cliffhanger of the first game, where Selphine had a sudden personality change. It’s quickly explained what happened though and the explanation makes sense, having to do with her royal background. The game tries something different, and while we have seen it a few times before, so it doesn’t quite have the same shock factor, it feels out of place. Just like how the mana and science thing happened in the previous game, this attempt doesn’t quite gel with the setting of the game.
Nevertheless, the trio of Princess Selphine, her guardian Ritona, and their friend Rune, manage to escape and continue with their journey. The story then returns to the cheerful adventuring of the previous game, even though the stakes are supposed to be high, and they need to return to their country whose capital had been devastated. The game shifts the perspective from time to time, to other characters so we see what else is happening outside of the trio, but those scenes don’t contribute much to the current situation at all.
The trio arrives at another city, and pretty much the rest of the game stays there. Of course, they meet another new character who joins them to show them around. The city that they find themselves in are segregated into two, with a big schism between them. It kind of parallels the discrimination you would find in real life, but it doesn’t quite manage to tackle that theme in a meaningful way. The writing just feels too predictable and lacking any sort of surprise.
However, the quality of the game seems to have increased. Not that the first game was bad, but there is a bit more movement in certain schemes, and the writing, while isn’t amazing, is serviceable and feels more refined. The music remains noticeable, where it captures your attention during the scenes. There is still a lack of voice acting but this isn’t a huge dealbreaker.
The story takes off in a direction that you don’t expect, and in a way that’s good. In other ways, it just feels so random sometimes when the game ends up with a plot that’s self-contained and not really pushing the overarching plot forward. It is interesting to see the other side of Selphine, since she was introduced as an overly positive character. Cute and nice, yes sure, but practically useless. That changes completely in this visual novel but the way that she achieves this with, is questionable at best.
Similarly, Rune has some crazy strengths of her own. She’s still not great with communicating and interacting with the world, and there are funny moments where she’s clearly out of her comfort zone in terms of understanding what’s going on. Other than that, she can feel superfluous to the current events at times.
And finally, Ritona is the one that carries the group and pushes them forward. She is the one that plans what to do next, and she is the sharper one that does the commonsense thing of being wary of people, especially strangers that approaches you. While this doesn’t get them completely out of harm’s way, again, the events of the story can feel out of place. There is a sense that the writers don’t know what they are aiming towards. We are introduced to new things that supposedly creates new mysteries, but it doesn’t come close to start answering the previous questions.
A lot of focus is placed on seemingly mundane scenes of the trio enjoying the adventure of experiencing new things together. So much time is spent on exposition and supposedly setting up the later events, but the payoff never quite makes it seem worthwhile. Seemingly important characters show up but even with all the exposition, you don’t really appreciate the importance of them either as they do not do anything of significance in the current story.
However, there are some positives, such as when Selphine takes charge, and satisfyingly gets information out of the other characters. It felt like finally, some real action takes place, and this isn’t a contrive happy place after all. Sometimes you must get your hands dirty and get information out the brute force way. The game is quite a bit more violent, bloody and some dialogue is cruder than the first game. It’s not overboard by any means, and is much tamer than most other games, just that it contrasts against the first game which had none of these.
The visual novel’s length is very similar to the first one, under three hours if you have high reading speed. More like 4-5 hours if you read slower. There are no choices at all, and the game does admittedly have a lot more CG scenes, and the artwork is beautiful. After you finish the visual novel, there’s no further reason to continue as nothing new is unlocked.
Overall, if you liked Fault - Milestone One, then you will like Fault Milestone - Two. It is bigger and better, in pretty much all ways. However, if you didn’t like the first game, then this one won’t change your mind. The plot still feels overly contrived, and it is too easily distracted. With the overarching plot in the background and the high sense of urgency, the characters are dawdling too much. Then the visual novel has the gall to end on yet another unfinished business, so that the ending feels too abrupt.
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