In The Source you will embark on a trial that takes you back in time to ensure your place in a future utopia.

The Story
The year is 2750 and each year chosen members of Earth's Society begin a trial to enter Source City. You follow one pair, Joe & Eva as they traverse the trial and their relationship. It reminds me of the story behind The Hunger Games. The promise of Source City being a utopia where no war or strife exists and everyone lives in harmony.

The trial itself involves time travel. You travel to different destinations in pairs. The destinations are all set in different times in Earth's history before the fall of civilization.
In the first half of the novel you meet various people and encounter various events that set up the flip side of the story in the second half. Meeting characters in the first part and seeing the alternate side of the story in the second half. The second half really picks up speed and I found moves much too fast with the conclusion of the novel coming to a fast paced ending.

Visuals, Audio & Features
This is a visual novel and not a game as stated by the developers in their write up on the game's page but a kinetic visual novel (you make no choices in the game, it is simply to be experienced). It is fully voiced in English with well done voice acting and is a fully written story with original character art. A visual experience set to a haunting and beautiful soundtrack.

There are some game elements common to other visual novels that are more game-like such as save slots, text skipping, text speed, audio controls and display options.
Visually the backgrounds don't really mesh with the character art. The characters are hand drawn and have a style all their own, refreshing in the age of AI everything. But the backgrounds are polished and look like the style found in anime with clean lines, bright colors and cell shading. Also the backgrounds are always blurred out forcing the character art to "pop"out. I find this to be jarring honestly. The background looks great but you never really get to appreciate them blurred out.

Overall Experience
The story overall was very much like Hunger Games. The same story with a surprising ending that I won't spoil here. It was an interesting read but I am neutral on this review. The story starts off slow and then picks up pace and rushes through the second part, while true it takes an interesting flip to showcase the other side's perspective, it is too rushed. And the end to me was disappointing. No real sense of closure on what it all meant.
I do not dislike this game because it has its moments and the voice acting and music are very well done. The character art can be a bit rough but I enjoyed that it is hand-drawn. I just wish the backgrounds could be appreciated and not always blurred out for the entirety of the game.

Some may love the abrupt ending that leaves you with questions or some, like me, want a fleshed out ending to connect it all together. The people like me who want the latter half may feel disappointed in this game's ending.
It feels wrong for me to not recommend this game due to its many high points and parts of the story and build up that I was enjoying just because the end, for me, was unsatisfying. So I will recommend it with a caveat that now, after reading my review, you know what to expect and what not to expect. 🌸

Otome Lovers wishes to thank Octopuses for providing a free review copy for this game.

Review originally posted on Steam

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