Mira – PC Review

Genre: Point-and-click fantasy visual novel
Developer: Too husky
Publisher: Too Husky
Release Date: March 25th, 2020
Edited by AlexKnight2005

Tales from old, legends that float across the world, and stories to keep the children in line, all have something in common. They echo with each other, but while one remembers, the other gets affected. Your destiny may hang in the balance of both. What will your destiny be?

Mira is a point-and-click visual novel that tells a story with Slavic influence that contains some puzzles and choices. It also has some choices within the story and a strong point in art.

As it is a visual novel, there will be a lot of reading, and some of the translations are off. It isn’t really an adventure because most of it is pretty straightforward, but the basic part of the story is easy to follow. Mira is the character you’ll be playing; she takes care of orphans in a house and shares the stories of old with them. The children themselves love to tell, as it is a fantasy for them, and a lot has to do with comforting and guardians who take care of children. A lot of the dialog will be click-through, and while it is a point-and-click game, quite usually, there’s only one thing to click, which is to move forward. There aren’t any other dialogs for random objects or the world. But there are some options in the dialog that have you choose between what you say, whether it’s a more nurturing or mean outlook on the situation you may get into. The puzzles in the game are few and are spread out rather thinly throughout the game. Depending on how a person feels about puzzles, the ones in this game are pretty simplistic. Either to not draw away from the story or to not frustrate the player in a casual experience. It is usually consisting of straightforward matching puzzles.

The story is a bit of a hit-or-miss in context. While it’s easy to understand the baseline of what it’s trying to convey, a lot might be lost to those who don’t know Slavic stories or legends. Not only does it contain stories from them, but many of the creatures and areas are based on these, making it harder to understand the secondary aspect of the atmosphere it gives off. Since it’s a linear path, there isn’t much that explains what’s going on, what’s around you, or what it’s even based on. No exposition except with the main characters you interact with, who explain other characters that only make sense in the context of the game’s dialog. This made it a bit harder to get immersed in the world they were trying to convey. But, many of the choices that can be chosen are usually based on what you feel is right in that situation and are used for more storytelling that they were trying to convey within the Slavic tales to make it more interesting. As this isn’t a telling of the legends, they play a major role gameplay-wise. More like a theme that was used to help with what they wanted to create.

The visuals are great. The art looks amazing, and it’s a hand-painted, detailed, awesome world that looks like it was a hand-crafted fantasy. The details on everything are just incredible, albeit they had to animate basically still paintings; it didn’t take away from the art at all. From the creatures to the background and small effects for lighting. On the other hand, we have very little audio. The music was soft, but there wasn’t much to convey feelings. Not that it needed it, but it also seemed like it needed a bit more because of how quiet everything was. There is no voice acting, so not having something to keep you inside the game besides what you’re reading makes it hard to stay focused, especially when you only have this linear story that isn’t too attention-grabbing.

Mira was great for the eyes, and the story with the gameplay is great for someone looking for something extremely casual. But it feels like it’s missing so much. With something that is very linear gameplay, no voice acting or strong sounds, and a story that feels like it’s missing half the context, it’s hard to enjoy it for what it is. The puzzles even felt like they were not really needed or padded for the game’s longevity, as they could be completed in under an hour. And that’s with reading all the dialog and making the choices with puzzles on the side.

I say it wasn’t horribly made; everything worked fine. It’s just a very short visual novel, but I wish there were more to it. I wanted to understand more and have more interaction; unfortunately, there was very little.

Pros:

• Amazing visual art

Cons:

• Incredibly short
• Hard to stay within the world it was built around

Avorok gives Mira a Drastik Measure of 6.3 out of 10.0 (63)

I’m on the fence; though it isn’t particularly good, it wasn’t bad either. The only disappointing thing was mainly the amount of total game time. I wasn’t too into the story, and there wasn’t much to get me invested. But those who may enjoy short visual novels with incredible art will probably enjoy this one. You can grab it on Steam for $9.99. For those who want something to pass a short amount of time, I’d recommend getting it on sale for a short story if it catches your eye.