Shiei no sona nyl refrain what a beautiful memories

Cross Horizon

Chasing 2D men

Shiei no Sona-Nyl

what a beautiful memories

I finished playing this game last week but due to work I haven’t been able to write anything about it… I absolutely loved this game! It’s part of a series called the “Steampunk series” created by writer Sakurai Hikaru and Liar-Soft. Although it shares the same universe as other works in the series, each game is a stand-alone story. I’ve finished the PSP version, though the original version is an R18 PC game (which I shall play as well), loosely categorized as a galgame but people see it more as a visual novel with boobies. Anyhow! This is a preview and there are no spoilers, you can still try it if you’re interested!

Let’s throw you the PV first:

Introduction

Literally “Sona-Nyl of Violet Shadows” (and let’s ignore that grammatical error in the title) 5th game in the Steampunk series. The name Sona-Nyl came from the book “The White Ship” by H.P. Lovecraft, and is used in-game to refer to the underground New York City. The game contains shout outs to many classic fantasy stories such as Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, and the Neverending Story.

Story

On Christmas day of 1902, 3 million people disappeared without a trace from New York City, leaving no bodies, nothing behind. The mystery of the great disappearance was never solved, and NYC was forever turned into a desolate, abandoned city.

It’s the year 1907 and a woman named Elysia Wentworth set foot in the city along with only the walking luggage she had invented herself ( I thought of Discworld… ). She had only one goal, to reach the top of the Empire State Building II on Manhattan island…

Meanwhile, underground, there was another NYC. But this city is perpetually under a violet sky, with mushrooms growing everywhere. The girl Lily “falls” from above into the city. With no memories, she felt she had to do one thing, to reach that tall building at the end of the violet shadows…

System

It’s a straightforward visual novel with a few choices. The choices don’t affect the route ( there’s only one anyways!) but if you don’t make certain choices, Elysia/Lily will give up on their journey and you end up getting game over!

At the end of every chapter, there would be a mini game where you have to point out the “twisted truths” in Washington Post newspaper clippings. If you don’t point them all out correctly, the correct choices in the next chapter will disappear and you get game over 😛 You get clues about the truth from listening to people in underground NYC. And when I say listen, you really have to listen to the dialogue. This game has a special trick up its sleeves, sometimes the spoken dialogue won’t match the words shown in the window! It’s not a bug and trust me there’s a good point to it. While I find it interesting, I understand that this is difficult for people who have limited Japanese abilities. You can always look up guides though…

After you clear the game, you can look at all the pretty CGs (there’s a lot! And the art is amazing), replay all the scenes in the game, listen to the music, etc. And for the PSP version you get to read the extra stories as well.

Visuals and Music

Absolutely A++++++++ The game first caught my eye because of its visuals. I love the pastel colouring and AKIRA’s art style. The music is mostly melancholy and jazzy which fit the mood of the game, there’s also a few battle themes. The opening and ending themes are by Rita, Liar-Soft’s diva who also did the OP/ED for Little Busters!. I LOVE the ending theme to pieces, but don’t listen to it now if you don’t want spoilers.

Characters – I’m only writing about the main ones and I’m not translating the whole character card (from the official site)

Elysia Wentworth

The woman who travels through the abandoned NYC with her walking luggage. She is the only character on the surface world. One of her eyes turned golden and the other is her natural blue colour.

Elysia is determined and mature, but she suppressed all of her emotions due to shock and grief over losing the person she loves in the great disappearance. Her journey through NYC has something to do with that person…

Lily The Stranger

A young girl who falls into the underground NYC. She has no memories yet somehow feels that she has to reach the tall tower in the distance.

Lily is innocent and curious about the things around her, and has a strong sense of morality, sometimes she can be quite stubborn as well. She starts out knowing nothing about the world except for the most basic common sense. As her journey continues, she learns more about people, their emotions and purposes…

A

He’s always right beside Lily, watching over her. He takes care of all of Lily’s needs (right down to bathing!) and he’ll do anything to protect her, calling her his “queen”. Lily gets a bit uncomfortable about him being so over-protective www

CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF he is not voiced by Ono Daisuke. I’m bothered by all the misinformation out there and how can you not recognize OnoD’s voice if you’re a fan? Though A still has a nice voice ❤

Mao The Cat

A cat-person who appears in front of Lily from time to time. She seems like she’s always having a good time, always laughing at others, and at Lily…

But it was never her intention to laugh, and she doesn’t want to laugh anymore…

Lucky Luciano

A man with a giant metallic arm. He also shows up sometimes to talk with Lily. It seems like he knows everything that’s going around in underground NYC.

He used to have a lover who’s living on the other side of the Wall (Wall Street).
Alan Akeley

Elysia’s tutor in her high school days and the person she loves. He was working in NYC at the time of the great disappearance, and disappeared along with the 3 million who lived there.

He’s a gifted scientist and a bit of a nerd, but a really nice guy who also loved Elysia deeply.

Thoughts and Why You Should Play This

So I’m trying to not put any spoilers here… but trust me when I say this game has a great story! I’m not sure what I should compare it to, but friends have told me it feels like Shinigami to Shoujo for them (and I haven’t played that one so I can’t say). Personally it’s like a mash-up of … MadoMagi/Evangelion/Princess Tutu for me, although I can’t quite say there’s a strong resemblance to those shows, just some certain parts and overall feeling.

The story is set in NYC so I guess if you live there it can be quite a fun game to play? But speaking of “fun”, the story is actually very heavy and depressing. The whole “violet” atmosphere contributes to that weighted feeling. But I wouldn’t say it’s suffocating because there are parts where it’s lighthearted and adorable, especially Lily and A’s interactions （*´▽｀*）And it doesn’t end unhappy either, perhaps bittersweet, but not tragic. Personally I’m fond of these types where it makes you depressed in the middle but finishes off on a heartwarming, hopeful note.

You can start playing the game without any knowledge of the Steampunk series beforehand. There are bits you catch on while playing the game, but there will be things you don’t understand if you haven’t played the others, but they don’t affect the understanding of the story, just some call-outs to veteran fans, I guess. Though I’m no expert on the Steampunk universe so I’ll just give the gist of things. The world is like a parallel world to ours, but people obtained advanced technology of steam engines, but as a consequence of burning too much coal, the sky is forever polluted and a grey colour. The oceans are black and poisonous. TBH It’s not a very nice world at all. In this world people who work with machines “engines” are highly regarded. There are some ambitious individuals who want to use mathematical formulas “cracking effect” to bend the laws of physics and do crazy shit (you might as well call it magic). And then there are people who have golden eyes who are like supercomputer humans and very special (but the author had never explicitly stated how people obtain golden eyes or what they can do).

Finally, you need a certain degree of Japanese knowledge to understand the story, because the author’s writing is sophisticated and uses a number of uncommon kanji. The writing style is also very poetic, verbose, and repetitive. It gets better if you get used to it, but I know some people can get tired of everyone saying things 4-5 times before getting to the point! I think this style is more for “feeling” rather than “reading”. But I love this game so pretty much everything’s perfect for me XD It’s even gotten me interested in the other Steampunk games!

P.S. A and Lily are just so adorable they give me more dokis than most of the otome games (*°∀°)=3 I mean just look at how precious they are:

I just love this pair so so so much (´Д｀)ﾊｧ… gonna put them away in my pairings hall of fame（何それ