Nintendo Switch Critic Reviews

The Letter is an accomplished visual novel: a riveting tale of curses, ghosts, and tragedy, drawing on the traditions of Asian horror cinema and built upon an inconceivably complex web of branching, intertwined narrative threads. That’s a hell of a feat for anyone, let alone as the first project for a young indie studio.

The Letter: A Horror Visual Novel is a very good story, with an excellent focus on character relationships. The story uses the structure of the visual novel genre to deepen its quality. This is what a visual novel should be. It doesn’t have the originality of genre classics like 428: Shibuya Scramble, Danganronpa, or the Ace Attorney series. But it is an easy recommendation for fans of the genre, who are looking for more.

So, while the horror might be a little too much of a pastiche for its own good (it does go places sometimes, but a "haunted letter", Ring-style, is a shoddy hook in 2021), there's something very readable and enjoyable about The Letter. It's not particularly deep, but it's significantly better than amateur standard, the editing is clean, and you can just tell that this was a labour of love for the development team. It might not be an Otomate production, but this is of a standard that well exceeds most other indie visual novels.

As a whole, The Letter is an awesome visual novel. With a literal ton of dialogue, extremely well-developed characters, a deliciously creepy, slow-burning story, branching story paths, and an interesting relationship system, there’s quite a lot for horror fans and visual novel fans alike to enjoy. Unfortunately, the awesome story and stellar character writing is bogged down by the ceaseless grammar mistakes. Still, if you can get past it, I think you’ll thoroughly enjoy it.