With the creation of Ren’Py and Visual Novel Maker, western visual novels have been on the rise, some bad and some good. Now what category does Norilsk fall under? Well, from the two Steam reviews it has, I’d say it fall under the bad category.

Norilsk is an adult orientated Visual Novel. It centers around a main character who can pursue up to 4 different love interests (3 different girls or 1 guy.) At the end of the common route you can choose who you want to date.

Here’s a story summary:

After being abroad for 12 years Iosif returns to his home. Having spent most of his life going from place to place Iosif is excited by the prospect of being able to set down some roots. Iosif goes to a local university to complete his education. There he meets an old friend, named Lesya, who is eager to reconnect their friendship. Will Iosif choose to rekindle an old flame or will he find another fire burning in an unexpected place?

This visual novel will have a common route followed by 4 different choices the main character can -make. Each choice will effect who Iosif ends up with at the end of the novel.

From the two Steam review I read, the game seemed to be a generic mess that goes pretty much no where. Did I play it myself to test this out? Of course not! I’m not going to pay 10 dollars to play a game that looks like a complete cash grab. This seem like one of those games that didn’t even try to do anything special. The developers though process seemed to be, “Eh, Visual Novel Maker seem to have some already good looking sprite assets. All we need to do is write a simple story and hire someone to draw the sex scene, any otaku will buy it if we have sex scenes!” The feel of the game just doesn’t sit right with me, I could be wrong with the developers intentions but I just don’t see any passion that could have been put into this project. I’m not shitting on the developer for using free assets, I understand the struggle. As indie developers, you might not have a big company backing you or art talent, but that excuse only work for the people who actually try and cares. And let me be honest, I wouldn’t be surprise if the gay route was just thrown in there for being “different” points.

Would you by Norilsk? Do yo think this game is just a cheap cash grab? Am I being to hard on this game? Tell us in the comments below.