JakeRaccoon

I was really looking forward to Komorebi, especially after the developer's previous game, Winds of Change, had such an impact on me. I even backed Komorebi on Kickstarter. However, I have to admit that Komorebi didn't quite live up to my expectations. The storytelling felt noticeably slower compared to Winds of Change, and at times, it even felt super dragging. While I understand that some players might appreciate this style, it simply wasn't for me. The main characters started off as fun and interesting, but their constant snarkiness began to get old pretty quickly. However, my main issue was the lack of dialogue options and meaningful ways to impact the story, which was a big part what made Winds of Change so good. For those interested in the dating sim aspect, it's worth noting that while you can pursue romantic relationships with all the main characters, the romance element felt super shallow. This was largely due to the limited dialogue choices available. Ultimately, it often boils down to a straightforward "Do you want to pursue a romantic relationship with X? Yes/No." Furthermore, it's important to mention that although the protagonist's gender remains ambiguous, all the romance options are male. The game was created using RPG Maker, and while that isn't inherently an issue, the technical execution could be more refined. A notable example is the apparent inability to exit the game while in full-screen mode without first switching to windowed mode or resorting to the Task Manager or other OS tools. There are certainly positives too. The voice acting is exceptional, even better than in Winds of Change. The artwork for both the characters and backgrounds are good, and the developer's unique writing style still shines through the leaves... Despite its flaws, the story managed to provoke thought in me and deliver surprises every now and then. At a certain part in the game, there's a hint that a sequel to Winds of Change might be coming in the future. Despite my minor disappointment with Komorebi, I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for it.

Winds of Change is a fully voice-acted furry visual novel with a remarkable story and characters but also with some flaws. For this type ****, the most significant part is, of course, the story. For the first hour or so I really wasn’t that into it. But I urge everyone to stick around as by the halfway point I was totally hooked. The whole thing from start to finish provided me around 15 hours of gameplay. There are couple of plot holes but nothing major. The story is something I could write multiple essays about but let’s keep things spoiler free and just say that the story is not perfect but especially towards to the end it’s brilliantly written and the dialog is good enough that I’m easily able to overlook these minor mishaps in the plot. You undoubtedly have to experience it yourself to understand what I mean by this. Like in many other visual novels, the primary game mechanic of the game is traveling to the next available location using the map. The UI is okay at best and having to move a cursor around the screen never works too well on consoles. Upon arrival to a new location, the next story bit takes place and a new location is unlocked. All locations come equipped with great artwork and there are multiple areas of interest that can be clicked to learn more about the environment or get some extra dialog. In most places there are some optional stuff to do. The player can engage in one-on-one conversations with their comrades, listen to (sometimes humorous) conversations other characters have with each other and also view short cutscenes of parallel events taking place elsewhere. These are all optional, but it’s highly recommended to play through all of them to have the full experience. In some later areas of the game, special heart-to-heart conversations can be had with the main characters. Those are very important if you wish to pursue deeper bond – or even romance – with your comrades. They also have some impact on the story. It’s not a dating sim by any means tho. Still, forming bonds and friendships with the main characters play a huge part in the game. I loved that but it might not be for everyone. But there’s also a plenty of action to take place, so really, it’s something for everybody. In my opinion, the most common pitfall for this type **** is that way too often I come to the realization that my choices don’t actually matter at all. I’m happy to report that in Winds of Change that never happened. There are about ten major choices that will impact the story and the ending heavily. Many of the choices are cleverly written and making the difficult calls really makes you feel the same burden that the protagonist feels. Getting emotions like this from a game is really rare for me so Winds of Change receives huge props for achieving this. However, especially towards to the end, there are multiple long cutscenes during which you’re rarely able to impact the story at all. There were multiple times when I felt I would like to do, say or ask something but was not given an option to do so. Personally, I never replay these kinds of games. I like thinking that every choice I make will be final. However, if figuring out how different choices affect the story and the ending is your thing, you can freely save and load at any time. The only thing I would wish for would be an ability to name your save files. That’s pretty much it. Some final thoughts I want to include: I very rarely get interested in visual novels and even less often in ones featuring anthropomorphic characters, or “furries”. Winds of Change managed to do something utterly amazing here. As a grown-up man I find this hard to admit, but I was pretty much shedding tears throughout most of the final chapter. Normally I never find myself getting emotional like that, but this game really caught me off guard. It must have been the combination of the beautiful, cleverly written story, amazing and well voice-acted characters and me completely being immersed in the world and in the protagonist I’m playing. And I now realize I haven’t even said anything about the music yet. Maybe I allow you to find out about that part yourself… Only bug I encountered was when my save file somehow got corrupted and loading it resulted in a black screen with only music playing. Fortunately, I could load the previous autosave and didn’t lose any major progress. Still, save corrupting bugs are something that should never exist in fully released games. My final verdict: If you have any interest in visual novels and can live with the hiccups mentioned, I highly recommend this experience for everyone. Even through the game is advertised as “Ultimate furry tale”, there’s absolutely no need to be a furry to be able to enjoy Winds of Change. If you happen to be a fur tho, that’s just a bonus and you will likely appreciate the game even more.