Tuesday, July 12, 2016

SA7: Silent Ability Seven - Review

 Game: [SA7: Silent Ability 7].
Genre: Otome game Visual Novel.
Developer/Publisher: Petit-Reve
Platform: PS Vita.
Official Site: http://www.p-reve.com/sa7/
VNDB: https://vndb.org/v16295
Release date: 2016-05-28

Decided to give another Petit-Reve otome game a try, skipped out on Goes! though.
In Goes! all guys voiced by female seiyuus which is nice in its own way but that game has an
uninspiring setting and after reading amazon reviews I decided to just skip out on that one all together.
On the brightside the heroine in SA7 is voiced so that was another reason to give
this developer one last chance before I probably decide to ignore them forever.
Which is exactly what I am planning to do, unless Petit-Reve decides to hire better writers and stop 
with trying to boldy go where no other otome game developer has gone before. 
Because sadly their games have all ended up being mediocre so far SA7 being no exception.

Anyway here's the OP!


 So one day when Yuki Ayaka walks home from school, she gets attacked by unknown.
The boys of Ark show up and save her, soon after it is revealed that Ayaka has an ability
 that can predict or more like see small bits of the future and so Ayaka ends up joining Ark.
Zero aka Rei is firmly against it but the others convince him, lol.
There also seems to be the element of a possible traitor... but the way they handled it was pretty bad
the whole setting takes itself lightly and not serious at all and not every route is worth it much like
otome game of the past there were only 3 route worth my time the rest felt like filler.


I based my play order off an amazonJP review this time since the person
mentioned that if you do Arthur too soon the rest might not be as interesting.

Recommended play order:
Eru(L) → Keel → Eiji → Zero → Arthur → Lead

If by some chance you are going to play this otome game, I recommend the same playorder.
Because Zero and Arthur routes reveal the most of the actual story and well
Lead's route was really enjoyable and a good way to end the game though
that might differ so might do Lead before zero/arthur.

Pro's
 - Voiced Heroine.
- Seiyuu cast,not much popular ones, its good in its own way.
- Art, its not bad and every guy had a kiss cg.
- Individual route is unique but some feel like omake.
- Common route + unique individual route.

Con's
- Mediocre story, nothing mindblowing.
- Too many routes, only two of them were worth it story wise.
- Characters are a bit stiff at times.
- Ending credits theme.

TL;DR start
Anyway SA7 tries the themes of secret organization, espionage and super powers
but as an otome game I feel it doesn't handle it well and that it doesn't take itself seriously at all.
Its hard to recommend this game to anyone but beginners but even then there are
better otome games I could recommend instead.

There was also no affection meter, to get on someones route
was basically to stalk him and if there is a choice that involves him select it.
It not hard once you know which spot the guy is at in town or you could just like use a guide.
The chart system is nice and all but a pain to 100% since it means selecting most if not all the choices.
Its nice but it just becomes a chore once you finish all the ends and you still have to go back for this.

I like the OP, Terashima's singing is really good but the ED was really out of place
like it was so cheesy, lol. I didn't like the ED at all, so I started skipping
 the ED after only two routes and I usually don't skip ED's.
Basically this game is lighthearted while somehow trying to be serious, though I did like how they
handled Tatsumi! except for the part that he's romanceable... that I didn't like.
Feels like they dumped all the moe onto Lead which makes it best
to save Lead for last to let's just say reward yourself with an adorable nerd!
Anyway most if not all the characters are average in terms of personality and the story doesn't take it anywhere new.


5/10
Its hard to recommend this otome game when it pulls off its themes in the most
mediocre way possible, its still possible to enjoy it but I'd wait till its on sale if you want
this game that much.
Also thats how I manage to enjoy their other game Soukai Buccaneers since I got that for 20$
but sadly I cannot use this same excuse with SA7, it wasn't worth full price.
I only liked maybe three routes in this game, Zero and Arthur are obviously the main guys
and for what its worth they had the better routes along with Lead.
Eru and Eiji's routes were boring and Keel's? why would I approve of a sixteen year old girl
romancing a 37 year old guy who even has a kid?! no no no no no no....
Even Murasame in Harutoki6 was handled better.
Not to mention the heroine was hard to relate to, I can't believe they let highschool kids into an
organization where they could get killed at night, she didn't even have that much training too.
This game took me three weeks to finish due to lack of interest, but its not that long at all
I just wasn't motivated to read more of a route at times because it just wasn't interesting.

SA7 will also get a trial/demo on Japanese PSN so if you want to try it out you can.

TL;DR end

More ramblings and possible spoilers after the jump.
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