I have not played the full game, but I gave this one a try since it was free on Steam. I have to say, I was surprised by how selfish the characters are!

Anyways, the review: this is a visual novel with a lot of beautiful imagery and settings that draw you into the landscape. The primary characters are Elisa, a stunning and young innkeeper; Prince, a selfish aristocrat who is actually dead-broke; and Merchant, a greedy man with a love for all things money. There is a fourth character, the Knight, but his role is so minor - I assume he has a larger role in the main game. As you select dialogue options, the personality gauge will rise or fall depending how sweet or sinister you are. It is an interesting concept and your replays will allow you to continue boosting or dropping the meters. There is a secondary component, in which you gain a specific trait icon - these don't seem to last in the next playthrough.

Once you played through once, you can select specific chapters in the flowchart to begin at a specific point as well as utilize the Skip function (although this function is rather sloppy and you don't see the text). You can also Save up to four slots, view the gallery for gained images, and listen to collected songs. The gallery has three pages, which I assume is for the main game.

The story itself was pretty boring - primarily about the Merchant buying the castle from the Prince while bothering Elisa at her inn because they are both in love with her. The Prince thinks Elisa will love him for his title and the Merchant thinks for his money. The Knight is a woman-hater, which makes for some awkward dialogue depending on your selection. Elisa is not heavily expressed in this Prequel, but she seems like she knows what she is doing... I'm not fan, I have to say.

While I found the story boring and the characters meh, the execution of the visual novel was pretty great. I really liked the personality gauge and reading through the Codex as you play through. The imagery was really beautiful, I liked how they included both characters up-front as well as within the setting. I'm not sure if this was a enough to play the main game though.