Review | Angels with Scaly Wings

LifeisXbox’s Angels with Scaly Wings Review | Time to delve into the world of strangely intellectual dragons being uncovered by humans as they are forced to be mixed together, therefore creating a rather interesting story that will have you questioning many things. Ultimately, your goal will be to investigate a series of unprovoked murders upon which dragons become the victims. Along the way, you will be given multiple opportunities to make decisions that will affect how your game ultimately plays out. Angels with Scaly Wings start you amongst the human world in which a discovery of a mysterious portal has been uncovered. As an ambassador, you are chosen as one of two people to enter as you find yourself in the unusual yet familiar world only to be met with your colleague who ends up becoming a prime suspect in the investigation; considering all of the recent events that show the probable motive of this violent act. Could this cause an unsettling rift between both worlds as trust is questioned? Create friendships and explore the possibility of relations with a mixture of outcomes to achieve. Developed by Radical Phi and published by Ratalaika Games S.L., Angels with Scaly Wings is a fantasy visual novel that explores a variety of topics throughout the course of the game to provide many routes for players to choose from.

VicciVulpix played Angels with Scaly Wings for five hours on Xbox One S. This game is also available on Xbox Series S/X, Playstation 4/5, Nintendo Switch, Steam, macOS, and Linux.

What we liked!

• Interesting narrative | The name of the game, Angels with Scaly Wings, I thought was quite mysterious as it only made me think the game was about dragons and didn’t give much more away than this. I must say, I had no idea the story would become a murder investigation that you end up being at the center of. It certainly added seriousness to the somewhat fun appearance. I was not immediately sure I would enjoy the drastic contrast between the two but it worked incredibly well and balanced the good from the bad nicely. It follows a fairly linear path so it’s not confusing or abrupt in any way to get involved with. 

• Range of characters | As you make your way through Angels with Scaly Wings, you will come across characters who all appear to not only look different in appearance but all have varying personalities. You’ll find some being friendly while others are much less happy to be in your presence. Also, the more free time you spend with specific dragons will determine whether they open up more to you. Everyone will make their own opinions because we all have our own views on how characters are portrayed. Each stood out in their own way and to my excitement, this did affect my story and who I wanted to get to know further.

• Replayability | Having the ability to witness multiple dialogue options and choices throughout Angels with Scaly Wings made me extremely happy as it allowed numerous routes to be chosen, leading to different endings and scenarios. It’s incredibly important that visual novels include diverse ways for added replayability as it keeps people interested and curious as to what they may have missed along the way. It has made me want to return so I can talk to different characters, choose different responses and view all endings as my first ending was neutral, implying there are positive and negative endings also.

Somewhere between

• Mini-Games welcomed | It always makes me smile when I come across mini-games in visual novels and Angels with Scaly Wings incorporated various ones that can be reached depending on what routes you decide on taking. Simple as they were, I find these always add to the interactive element of the game that compliments the narrative. It’s also nice to include them to give people small breaks in reading, which can sometimes be overwhelming. Some actually required you to use thinking with common sense and not just guess the solution. For me, as with most, there did not seem to be enough of them, which was a real shame. I did come across some points where I thought some could perhaps have been included but nonetheless, the ones I did play made me happy to see they were in the game.

• Adequate visuals | Visually, I was neither impressed nor disappointed with the appearance of scenes and characters in Angels with Scaly Wings. The character models varied as some of the dragons were pleasant to look at, both in still images and talking scenes. However smaller dragons and humans weren’t always given the equal amount of attention to detail that I did feel let down the game in places. The scenes looked beautiful and I also adored the range of facial features that were included to give you more of an emotional understanding in conversations. The colour combinations were bright and alluring most of the time. In my opinion, visual novels always need to have memorable and wonderful imagery. Angels with Scaly Wings was not bad but could have been improved in some areas.

• Audio | Another element of the game that seemed a little bland sometimes. The music did change throughout the game but this far from depicted what the scene showed. My criticism with this would have to be that it did feel a little on the dull side unless you really waited for the music to come to life and even then, it was not brilliant. The main menu was incredibly soothing to listen to and a couple of times I found myself opening the game and sitting in the menu because it was really peaceful. Sound effects have been added in short supply but did manage to show the depth of characters’ feelings and emotions when heard. A handful of the music was also on a short loop, causing unwanted repetition.

• Game length | I have played through Angels with Scaly Wings once, only achieving twenty-four of the sixty-two achievements and this took me approximately four hours, playing the game with the choices I wanted and reading all the text. This in itself tells me there is more to be gained by playing through again. For a visual novel, I found the length to be only a little too short for my liking but had more detail been included so the game stood out more, this could have been longer overall but this is purely based upon me feeling the game had more to explore.

What we disliked

• Romancing dragons | If I’m being honest, I was not completely comfortable or understanding of the romance options available to you within the game. It almost felt out of place and really unnecessary, not to mention a little unusual and I’m almost positive I won’t be the only one thinking this. Friendships alone would have worked very well as the plot is based around you helping the dragons catch a murderer. The somewhat ‘dating sim’ included when you had free time to choose who you wanted to spend time with was out of place; it really was not required and could have been replaced with increased detail to characters, the world, and plot. You either appreciate its presence or don’t and I was just not a fan in the end.

• Possible glitched skip feature | Once finishing your first playthrough, when playing through a second time, you will be prompted to skip text you’ve already experienced. This worked when the game prompted it but there were multiple sections I knew I had already read through that would not allow me to utilise the skip command. It was somewhat annoying as the feature was very temperamental meaning I was spending longer in places than I would have hoped for. Because of this, I had to manually click through the dialogue I had already seen. Obviously, this is far from being a massive issue; It’s just frustrating and makes the game seem quite tiresome.

CONCLUSION

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