Developed by Mojiken and published by EastAsiaSoftDivination is one small visual novel set in a world cyberpunk from the stretch graphic fascinating. We have faced the adventure on our own Nintendo Switch and we are ready to share our impressions! Ready to face ours review? If so, take the runes and let’s see what awaits you …
Divination: a world of chaos
There plot Divination is fascinating and deals with challenging topics, such as suicide. It is not for nothing that you also read a warning before you even start playing, which warns you of delicate topics. Life and death are fundamental elements of the whole narrative, together with the man-machine relationship and morality. Each action has one consequence and this must always be kept in mind. But let’s talk about the mysterious protagonist … who are we? We are the “divinerWhich, literally speaking, is composed of two robotic arms.
You read that right, the identity of the protagonist, its material and philosophical “essence” will be questioned by its “clients”. Because yes, the “diviner” will have to deal with different subjects (four to be precise). Each of these has one request looking for an answer and our job is to provide it to you. A curious note is also the payment, coins or favors are not accepted, the only thing the protagonist wants in return is to listen to the last dream made by the customer. A singular but intriguing element that helps you immerse yourself in the lore and cyberpunk world that involves the entire production.
But here is already the first sore point. The plot, as well as the world in which it is set, is fascinating, but it deserved to be explored much more. The game, in fact, almost seems to be a (nice) prologue and its duration is too low (you will probably be able to finish the first run in less than one hour). A clarification, we talked about “prologue” but the plot of Divination is complete. The narrative cycle closes but the desire to discover more, to understand more, is very high.
Gameplay: Read and merge runes
Divination is one visual novel entirely in English (no subtitles in Italian), easy to understand and that manages to carry throughout the short narrative arc. There are no locations to visit, but the whole game is set in what appears to be your “divination office”. The interaction with the four customers is very limited, you can listen to them and once you get to their question you can decide to deepen their request or proceed directly with the runes.
The runes they are the most interactive element of the whole production and consists in choosing in which sequence to place them. Depending on the composition, a drawing. First of all it will be up to us (as a player) to be able to imagine and predict what sort of response the representation may represent. You can also decide to change the order several times and therefore the final result. Once you have chosen a representation, share it with the client and proceed with the plot. This is the structure of the whole work, which will end with one of the endings possible.
Basically, Divination has two types of “final macros”, Including that “True” which, we are sure, you will hardly be able to reach immediately. In any case, we suggest you relive the experience several timesexperimenting different combos of runes and see how the plot changes. Consider that each run can last even a few minutes thanks to the possibility of skipping. You can also decide to start directly from a specific customer, bypassing the dialogues and selecting the design of the runes from a practical menu.
Graphics and sound
GraphicallyDivination has style. The color palette works and gives a certain identity to the whole product. Clients have few animations, but enough for storytelling. Unfortunately the quantity is small but the base is very good. Even the music tracks they work fairly well, accompanying the adventure in an unobtrusive and pleasant way.