About This Game The story follows Mariko, a seventeen year old who is on the cusp of graduating high school. She is the lone passenger of a slowly dying train station. As a practical young adult, she doesn’t see why her family couldn’t have just moved closer to the high school she is attending. She is rather embarrassed by the whole situation and the attention it garners her. She just wants to graduate and go to a university in the big city. However, life in the sticks isn’t all that it seems. While riding the train home, Mariko ends up at an unexpected stop, which changes her life forever. 7aa9394dea Title: When Our Journey Ends - A Visual NovelGenre: Casual, SimulationDeveloper:Afterthought StudiosPublisher:Afterthought StudiosRelease Date: 30 Jan, 2017 When Our Journey Ends - A Visual Novel Free Download when our journey ends - a visual novel. when our journey ends - a visual novel badge Charming. Delightful. I thoroughly enjoyed the journey!. Fantastic artwork and some wel done voice acting I especially like Hachiko's voice and a story that I certainly enjoyed 'reading' along and very lovely music. Kind of short but was worth the price as i will be back to go again for the art and music. Only a couple of choices to make but it is a visual novel not a choose your own adventure story .. \u201cWhen our journey ends\u201d is a fantasy Visual Novel about a girl that rides a train (where she is the sole rider due to the remoteness of that brings her to a station called \u201cMidway\u201d that lies in between the human world and the spirit world. And here is where I\u2019m going to stop talking about the story as I don\u2019t want to throw out any spoilers. There is a lot I want to discuss concerning the storyline and this time I will purposefully leave it as my 2nd to last category so there are no spoilers (Music and Audio will come last as it will refer to the story segment).Art - BackgroundsThe backgrounds are really beautiful, they seem to be hand painted with poster paint and they are fabulous. Clearly a lot of love and attention has been put there and the color scheme really gives a fantastic feel of a mix between nostalgia and fantasy. I really loved how the backgrounds were animated with things like snow falling, water moving and leaves being blown by the wind. I also liked the scenes in the train a lot, fantastic use of movement to give each scene a feeling.Art \u2013 SpritesI liked the people sprites, I think not having the typical anime style helped with the feel of the VN a lot. I liked how they had this mix of traditional feel but the fabrics looked very much like fabrics. Very nice touch. The \u201cspirit\u201d sprites I liked less, they were kind of freaky and rubbed against the feel of the VN. I think \u201cfantastical\u201d looking humans may have been better but I\u2019m sure it will be split opinions on this one. Duration and GameplayI went with I think was probably the most basic arc. Now I\u2019ve read the (current) other review out and apparently there are other hidden tracks. I read a bit of the \u201caftermath\u201d bit and that felt like a whole chapter in itself (incidentally you can\u2019t save during that bit so I recommend that maybe the dev fix that, I\u2019m sure the segment is short but sometimes people like me read VN\u2019s when we\u2019re in the airport and sometimes have to close our computers at a moment\u2019s notice). The VN was short following the most basic arc, around an hour and ten or so. Don\u2019t trust what it says above my review as I had to step out to cook my dinner and left the VN on so that tacked on at least 20 minutes to the game time. Not a lot of choices so I do wonder to an extent where these hidden tracks are, or perhaps each choice leads to a completely different arc. I somehow doubt it as my arc felt like I was getting everything right and that other arcs lead here too, but who knows? I may give this game another play through if I have time. But going back to what I was saying about the choices, it does feel a bit like it\u2019s a kinetic novel and that the choices just give you different levels of information, but don\u2019t quote me on that one and give all choices a go if you have time.UIVery nice UI, loved the whole train theme. I don\u2019t know if the text box taking over the whole window was necessary during narration as narrated lines rarely took up more than half the textbox (in narration mode) but in general very nice UI. Perhaps the font could be a tad bigger but I\u2019m really pulling at straws for that one.StoryTime for the big one, if you don\u2019t want spoilers please stop reading now.So clearly this is heavily inspired by Studio Ghibli\u2019s \u201cSpirited Away\u201d, the devs clearly don\u2019t deny this as it is the name of the first achievement. Now I feel like the inspiration for this is from the third act of \u201cSpirited Away\u201d where Chihiro takes a train to go and see Yubaba. The train scene is one of my favorite scenes in all of cinema and one almost feels like there could have been a whole movie in itself about that train and it\u2019s many fantastic destinations. I get the impression that this was the springboard from where the devs took this story. This is not a criticism, if anything it is one of the things that excited me most about this VN and I was really expecting it to somehow take off from there, which it did\u2026 to an extent.I don\u2019t mind when media takes inspiration from other media and builds on it. True \u201coriginality\u201d doesn\u2019t really exist as we must always pull inspiration from other art and build on it. When I started reading this VN I knew that they would pull heavily from \u201cSpirited Away\u201d but I didn\u2019t mind at all as I wanted that universe expanded on and in general I felt they did a pretty good job. The writing is solid and I actually really liked the concept a lot.The first and third acts are good. The first act set up the story and got me really excited for the adventure the MC would go on. The third act was a nice resolution and I must say it did give me a warm feeling inside. The middle, unfortunately felt very rushed and a bit formulaic. As I said earlier, it would have been nice to have some choices there or at least been given a chance to answer the riddles (they were quite obvious anyway). MusicVery nice music. The quality of the music production is really good! I can tell that the director for this game asked the composer for it to take inspiration from the musical score of \u201cSpirited Away\u201d (by Jose Hisaishi). I feel for one or two of the tracks it gets a bit too close to the soundtrack of \u201cSpirited Away\u201d to be just inspiration. As for the rest of the soundtrack, very nice melodic tunes that really set the scenes really well. I do feel that there should have been music in the final emotional scene (you will know what I mean when you get there). Oddly enough that bit was silent and that I found quite odd. I love the fact that some of the tracks hero the clarinet, an instrument that really has not seen the limelight much with the current trend in film\/game scoring. I tip my hat to the composer for that!ConclusionI\u2019m sure the developer is reading this so I have a message for you. You\u2019ve made a really beautiful game, well done! You should be really proud of yourself! I only write long reviews like this for games that I feel have potential to be really great and only have a few small flaws stopping them getting there. If a game is crap, I don\u2019t bother writing a review like this. You\u2019ve made a work of art and I can see all the effort and love you\u2019ve put into this! Again, well done!TL:DR Recommended even at full price, beautiful game.. Charming. Delightful. I thoroughly enjoyed the journey!. I really loved this VN and the story its loosely based on.On her way home from school, Mariko who spends her train rides alone (as she is the only passenger), gets transported to a magical world in-between the spirit world and human world. What's not to love? Pros- Beautiful art- Engaging story - Fun characters- Animated backgroundsCons- Kinda short- The extra stories were 'hard' to find (not really, but I wasn't aware of them and found them by accident)Conclusion: If this visual novel only had its main story to offer, I would have been a little disappointed. For its quality, it would still be well worth its price, but I felt the main story could have had some more user input, or at least a little bit more story to offer.The extras really give this visual novel a well-rounded story and while everything combined is still kind of short, I greatly enjoyed how this 'Journey Ended'.. Charming. Delightful. I thoroughly enjoyed the journey!. broken achievement. Fantastic artwork and some wel done voice acting I especially like Hachiko's voice and a story that I certainly enjoyed 'reading' along and very lovely music. Kind of short but was worth the price as i will be back to go again for the art and music. Only a couple of choices to make but it is a visual novel not a choose your own adventure story .. \u201cWhen our journey ends\u201d is a fantasy Visual Novel about a girl that rides a train (where she is the sole rider due to the remoteness of that brings her to a station called \u201cMidway\u201d that lies in between the human world and the spirit world. And here is where I\u2019m going to stop talking about the story as I don\u2019t want to throw out any spoilers. There is a lot I want to discuss concerning the storyline and this time I will purposefully leave it as my 2nd to last category so there are no spoilers (Music and Audio will come last as it will refer to the story segment).Art - BackgroundsThe backgrounds are really beautiful, they seem to be hand painted with poster paint and they are fabulous. Clearly a lot of love and attention has been put there and the color scheme really gives a fantastic feel of a mix between nostalgia and fantasy. I really loved how the backgrounds were animated with things like snow falling, water moving and leaves being blown by the wind. I also liked the scenes in the train a lot, fantastic use of movement to give each scene a feeling.Art \u2013 SpritesI liked the people sprites, I think not having the typical anime style helped with the feel of the VN a lot. I liked how they had this mix of traditional feel but the fabrics looked very much like fabrics. Very nice touch. The \u201cspirit\u201d sprites I liked less, they were kind of freaky and rubbed against the feel of the VN. I think \u201cfantastical\u201d looking humans may have been better but I\u2019m sure it will be split opinions on this one. Duration and GameplayI went with I think was probably the most basic arc. Now I\u2019ve read the (current) other review out and apparently there are other hidden tracks. I read a bit of the \u201caftermath\u201d bit and that felt like a whole chapter in itself (incidentally you can\u2019t save during that bit so I recommend that maybe the dev fix that, I\u2019m sure the segment is short but sometimes people like me read VN\u2019s when we\u2019re in the airport and sometimes have to close our computers at a moment\u2019s notice). The VN was short following the most basic arc, around an hour and ten or so. Don\u2019t trust what it says above my review as I had to step out to cook my dinner and left the VN on so that tacked on at least 20 minutes to the game time. Not a lot of choices so I do wonder to an extent where these hidden tracks are, or perhaps each choice leads to a completely different arc. I somehow doubt it as my arc felt like I was getting everything right and that other arcs lead here too, but who knows? I may give this game another play through if I have time. But going back to what I was saying about the choices, it does feel a bit like it\u2019s a kinetic novel and that the choices just give you different levels of information, but don\u2019t quote me on that one and give all choices a go if you have time.UIVery nice UI, loved the whole train theme. I don\u2019t know if the text box taking over the whole window was necessary during narration as narrated lines rarely took up more than half the textbox (in narration mode) but in general very nice UI. Perhaps the font could be a tad bigger but I\u2019m really pulling at straws for that one.StoryTime for the big one, if you don\u2019t want spoilers please stop reading now.So clearly this is heavily inspired by Studio Ghibli\u2019s \u201cSpirited Away\u201d, the devs clearly don\u2019t deny this as it is the name of the first achievement. Now I feel like the inspiration for this is from the third act of \u201cSpirited Away\u201d where Chihiro takes a train to go and see Yubaba. The train scene is one of my favorite scenes in all of cinema and one almost feels like there could have been a whole movie in itself about that train and it\u2019s many fantastic destinations. I get the impression that this was the springboard from where the devs took this story. This is not a criticism, if anything it is one of the things that excited me most about this VN and I was really expecting it to somehow take off from there, which it did\u2026 to an extent.I don\u2019t mind when media takes inspiration from other media and builds on it. True \u201coriginality\u201d doesn\u2019t really exist as we must always pull inspiration from other art and build on it. When I started reading this VN I knew that they would pull heavily from \u201cSpirited Away\u201d but I didn\u2019t mind at all as I wanted that universe expanded on and in general I felt they did a pretty good job. The writing is solid and I actually really liked the concept a lot.The first and third acts are good. The first act set up the story and got me really excited for the adventure the MC would go on. The third act was a nice resolution and I must say it did give me a warm feeling inside. The middle, unfortunately felt very rushed and a bit formulaic. As I said earlier, it would have been nice to have some choices there or at least been given a chance to answer the riddles (they were quite obvious anyway). MusicVery nice music. The quality of the music production is really good! I can tell that the director for this game asked the composer for it to take inspiration from the musical score of \u201cSpirited Away\u201d (by Jose Hisaishi). I feel for one or two of the tracks it gets a bit too close to the soundtrack of \u201cSpirited Away\u201d to be just inspiration. As for the rest of the soundtrack, very nice melodic tunes that really set the scenes really well. I do feel that there should have been music in the final emotional scene (you will know what I mean when you get there). Oddly enough that bit was silent and that I found quite odd. I love the fact that some of the tracks hero the clarinet, an instrument that really has not seen the limelight much with the current trend in film\/game scoring. I tip my hat to the composer for that!ConclusionI\u2019m sure the developer is reading this so I have a message for you. You\u2019ve made a really beautiful game, well done! You should be really proud of yourself! I only write long reviews like this for games that I feel have potential to be really great and only have a few small flaws stopping them getting there. If a game is crap, I don\u2019t bother writing a review like this. You\u2019ve made a work of art and I can see all the effort and love you\u2019ve put into this! Again, well done!TL:DR Recommended even at full price, beautiful game.
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When Our Journey Ends - A Visual Novel Free Download
Updated: Mar 25, 2020
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