Genre: Early access adventure visual novel
Developer: Indra Studio
Publisher: Indra Studio
Release Date: July 11th, 2024
Edited by AlexKnight2005
Enelia: Dawn of Madness is a Visual Novel in Early Access from Indra Studio. Only Chapter 1 is currently available to play, but at least four chapters are planned for the game, along with minor and significant gameplay improvements. The world of Enelia is inspired by shows such as Avatar and Stranger Things, both of which were amazing. Before even playing the game, just the artwork shown on the Steam page had me drawn in. While the style is not what most associate with visual novels, which is the manga style of Japan, The vibrancy of it is pleasing to look at nonetheless, but I will go into more detail about that later.
Anyway, this review will focus on the first chapter, and once all the chapters are released, I will update it to reflect the story overall. So, let’s talk about the world and overall lore of the game first. Starting out, you feel like you’re in some whimsical world akin to Alice in Wonderland. The characters remind me a lot of what I would think Changelings from World of Darkness TTRPG would be like. The world is full of vibrant colors with something sinister and dark lurking underneath, much like the real world. In the story, you follow Enelia as she doubts her place in the world and wants to live a better life. You interact with a host of characters through the first six episodes, which comprise the game’s first chapter.
The first chapter is called Secrets of Narius, and the following episodes are in order: Rising Hope, Madness Within, Dark Secrets, Great Invention, Alley of Shadows, and New Beginning. The characters are fully voiced but only in Russian. The text in the game, however, is available in English and Russian. Honestly, I am surprised by how well-written and wonderful the game looks. I played several visual novels by Russian-based developers, and they all were far from the quality of this game. So, kudos to the developers of Enelia for going the extra mile and elevating the bar for Russian-based developers of visual novels.
The game does has some horror elements, but they are more Cthullu-like than serial-killing demons or spirits. I discovered some jump-scare-like events through my first play-through of what’s available, which took me about an hour and a half to run through. The game does a great job of introducing the madness underlying the world as the story progresses through the first chapter. It is done well enough that I can wait for all the chapters to be released so I can discover the whole story of the game.
That being said, the game has a great story, vibrant, beautiful graphics, and lore I want to delve into. The Russian voice acting can be jarring if you’re not used to hearing the language like me, but it’s well done. As stated at the start, it is in Early Access on Steam, but the price is decent at 6$, and the game is an excellent addition to the collection for those who dont mind venturing outside the Japanese realm of visual novels.
