I had seen some advice about Winter’s Empty Mask that said to push past the initial half hour or so because it gets better. This is so veryI had seen some advice about Winter’s Empty Mask that said to push past the initial half hour or so because it gets better. This is so very true. The first half hour or so isn’t bad but also lacks any choices at all so it can be a long portion. It serves to get you used to the battle system and to setup the main story. Also as the advice stated, it does get better. The story and characters had me interested. There was a decent amount of choices and unlike some games that makes you choose who to go after I actually had trouble choosing here. Character depth was a strength of the game as it spent a good amount of time introducing you to their backstories and details although in a few cases more could have been needed. The game shifts viewpoints a few times switching who you’re playing as but it does so in a way that wasn’t confusing at all. I want to say that I wish there was a way you can be friends with both female protagonists but I admit I can’t see a way to make that way work logically, if there was a route that had that end I couldn’t find it. There are some faux choices that led to instant death but, while I usually dislike these, the one I encountered felt like a natural end that made sense so I didn’t mind. The battle system used was decent although the turn is time based which I would have preferred to scrap that feature. I feel that turn based should have no timer, save that for a real time battle system. I will say that some of the art didn’t match the story. There were times where it was supposed to be snowing heavily but there was no snow in the background, characters that were supposed to be wearing gloves were not. These are small things but it all goes towards presentation. I also felt that the end with Reika was sudden. The game ends after the second date and although there is an epilogue after the credits it still felt like a lot of unexplored story left. I think more backstory could have been added for RED and how they got the powers they had. The art was fairly good, especially the eyes of the characters.
I played Winter’s Empty Mask on Linux. It never crashed on me. There were no spelling errors I saw but several grammar errors such as “why do not we go” instead of “why don’t we go”. The game supports manual saving whenever you want and has 21 save slots. Alt-Tab worked.
Game Engine: Ren’Py 7.0.0.196
Graphics API: OpenGL
Save System: Manual
Disk Space Used: 636 MB
Overall Winter’s Empty Mask was a solid visual novel. It had a slow start but settled in. Many of the issues I found were small but small things add up. I finished my first play through in 2 hours and 35 minutes. In this time I encountered two of the possible endings. I paid $4.44 CAD for the game and felt that was a fine price. It currently retails for $17.49 CAD which I feel is a bit steep. Upwards of $10 would be my limit. I recommend trying the demo for those who are interested.