Game Review: The Expression: Amrilato



The Expression: Amrilato is one of the more unique visual novels that I ever played. Developed by SukeraSparo, The Expression: Amrilato is a yuri visual novel that tells the story of two girls trying to learn how to communicate with each other while also teaching players the language of Esperanto.


The protagonist of the game is Rin Takatoh, a 17-year-old girl who finds herself transported to another world where Juliamo (known as Esperanto in the real world) is the official spoken language. Rin has no idea how to communicate with anyone, let alone how to get back home. Fortunately for her, she soon meets a girl named Ruka, who can understand and speak a tiny bit of Japanese. Ruka lets Rin stay at her home, and also offers to teach Rin how to speak Juliamo. As Rin learns more about the language, she finds herself growing closer to Ruka as the language barriers begin to break down.


One unique feature of this visual novel is that it occasionally throws quiz minigames at the players to review their knowledge of Juliamo. For anyone interested in learning the language, these minigames can be a nice way to review, and the visual novel incorporates them into the narrative pretty effectively, usually as Rin being tested or doing a self-study session. If you're not interested in the minigames, they can always be turned off in the settings without fear of being locked out of any story bits.


The characters and their interactions are fantastic. The game does a very good job showcasing Rin's helplessness in a world where she doesn't speak the native language. The relationship between Rin and Ruka is very sweet, and it's a joy to see their relationship develop as they begin to communicate more effectively with each other. Rin does have a tendency to mentally beat herself up a lot though, and it does get a little tiresome after a while. However, it isn't enough to make her unbearable to be around, and she really sells how frightening it is to be suddenly thrust into an environment where you can't communicate with anyone at all.


One thing I like about the game is how it uses the text to show Rin's growing familiarity with Juliamo. When characters speak Juliamo, the text will usually display the Juliamo alphabet. As the story progresses, some words will have English subtitles under them, presenting fragmented English that readers can use to piece together what is being said. It's a good way to integrate Rin's knowledge of Juliamo with the reader's own (assuming the reader is as unfamiliar with the language as Rin is).


Overall, I definitely recommend any fan of yuri to check out this visual novel. The story it tells is compelling and the game does a decent job in teaching players Esperanto through the narrative. I heard that SukeraSparo has released another yuri visual novel, and am crossing my fingers that that game will be localized as well.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book Review: Mythago Wood

Image
Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock is a book that immediately caught my attention from the moment I saw its summary. A labyrinthine forest filled with primeval magic? Entities born from old legends and fairytales? A place where fascination can turn into obsession and insanity? I was sold as soon as I finished reading the summary.   Mythago Wood is about a young man named Steven Huxley. His father, George Huxley, had been obsessed with the Ryhope Woods up until his death. George was convinced that Ryhope Woods was a place where legends and stories came to life, and he was particularly obsessed with the story of Guiwenneth, a warrior’s daughter who was rescued and raised by magpies after her aunt tried to take her for herself. Steven finds that his brother Christian is slowly starting to become just as obsessed with the Woods and Guiwenneth as their father was. When Christian disappears into the Woods to search for Guiwenneth, Steven soon begins to be drawn into the strangenes...
Read more

Book Review: The Ruins

Image
I remember when I was still in high school I had stumbled upon the Wikipedia page for a movie called The Ruins . I remember reading through the plot of the movie and noticed that it was based on a book. A couple years later and I finally got my hands on the book. The Ruins is a novel written by Scott Smith in 2006. It is about a group of four college students: Jeff, Amy, Stacy, and Eric. The four of them are on vacation and meet up with two other characters: a German named Mathias and a Greek that calls himself Pablo. Mathias’s brother Heinrich had run off to an archaeological dig site because he had fallen in love with one of the archaeologists and Mathias wants to bring him back. Jeff offers to accompany him and that is how the four end up going to the ruins. Despite several attempts to dissuade them, the six go up to the ruins only to be forcibly quarantined up there by several Mayans after Amy stepped on some of the vines growing there. Things get worse when Pablo fal...
Read more

Book Review: Tortured Souls - The Legend of Primordium

Image
On July 2001, McFarlane Toys released six action figures designed by English writer Clive Barker. Each toy was packaged along with a chapter of a novelette penned by Barker himself, detailing the character’s history and the world that they live in. This series of action figures was known as Tortured Souls and sought to convey what Barker described as ‘the use of flesh as canvas.’ The chapters would then be bundled together in a book titled Tortured Souls: The Legend of Primordium . Primordium is a city that is said to have existed before all other cities. It is a place of corruption and decadence, a place where the rich and powerful indulge in all manners of sins. An assassin named Kreiger kills a Senator on behalf of the criminal Duraf Cascarellian. However, Kreiger ends up running into the dead Senator’s daughter, Lucidique, who persuades him to try to strike back at the Empire that made his life so miserable. To do this, she leads him to the enigmatic Agonistes, an entity ru...
Read more