Code: Realize - Guardian of Rebirth (2014)

Like many, I'm sure, I got caught up in Playstation's announcement that they were going to close the PSN store for the Vita. Thankfully, it looks like they've reversed that decision (last I saw, anyway), but not before I spiked a number of released I wanted to own. And since I ended up spending full price on a bunch of visual novels, I figured I should actually put them to use.

First, a general disclaimer: This, as with, frankly, most VNs, has multiple endings depending on the choices you make. I am not an ending completionist. I'm generally happy to play (read? play?) through once and hope the ending I find is good. I suspect VN purists would take exception to that—especially as the "true ending" usually won't even unlock until you've found most (or all) of the other endings—but ending-hunting (even via a walkthrough) just isn't how I want to spend my time. (By way of anecdote, a long time ago I played through 999: 9 Doors, 9blah blah blah—my first VN!—and had a blast finding all the endings. But that worked because of the escape-the-room puzzles scattered throughout, reducing the repetitiveness. I tried redoing 999 a few years ago and sputtered to a halt after finding, like, half the endings. I no longer have the time or drive to adequately knock out endings in these things.)

Anyway, I really did love Code Realize: Guardian of Rebirth. Didn't know anything about it, aside from being a highly regarded VN, and as such found myself delighted by its well-known cast of characters pulled from literary history (Arsine Lupin, for example), its alternative history setting, its balance between the increasingly tense plot and romance, and a nice variety of conflicts to engage with and resolve.

Your character is young woman kidnapped out of an abandoned mansion. She is referred to as a "monster," one that multiple groups seem to want to get their hands on, including the British government. But not long after being kidnapped, Lupin swoops in and steals her away. From there, Code Realize: Guardian of Rebirth is a journey of discovery as she learns about herself, the deadly poison coursing through her veins, and the glowing stone in her chest that keeps her alive.

Helping is a wide cast of miscreants, and the first 2/3 of the VN can be viewed as assembling the team as they run into characters whose goals—while not identical to hers, or even Lupin's—share a similar focal point.

The overall flow of the story is good, with the only stutter at the very beginning as Code Realize: Guardian of Rebirth struggles to get its feet under it. Otherwise it does a good job of flipping between the endearing banter between characters and the action that steers the plot. The choices feel nicely scattered—I'm always down for MORE CHOICES in these sorts of things (spoiled, I reckon, by Choose Your Own Adventure books as a kid, lol), but there's also more here than a lot of VNs feature, so no complaints.

The Japanese voice acting seemed solid/typical, although I prefer to read everything aloud myself, so wasn't paying too much attention. The English translation featured a number of typos/errors, which was disappointing, but most of them could be read through OK. The artwork is strong, featuring a nice variety of locations, and while the images themselves are static, do give a sense of movement at the few points when something important is happening.

Overall very good. I got emotionally invested, and the ending I did find didn't disappoint.