Ame no Marginal -Rain Marginal- (PC) Review

Rain. It rhymes with pain. The world and story presented in Ame no Marginal -Rain Marginal- is filled with both. Two characters' fates shall soon entwine into one, forever changing their painful lives. The best words to describe the story and world presented to the reader are "beautiful" and "atmospheric."

The story begins in two separate timelines following two different characters, but soon it will be evident that these characters are connected by fate. One of them is a priestess living hundreds of years ago, the other a modern day worker, each facing different difficulties in their lives, leading to them just wanting to disappear from the world. Their wish is granted by the mysterious Rainy World, where time stands still and no hunger or aging exists. Neither does anything else, besides a little platform with a roof to serve as a cover from the never-ending rain, and an infinite ocean from which time-appropriate materials drift onto the shore. Ame no Marginal -Rain Marginal- does one thing beautifully: setting a powerful atmosphere.

The way the rain keeps falling and the world being in an eternal gray state creates a strong melancholic feeling that perfectly frames the themes of the story. The Rainy World is a place where people go to take a timeout from the world of the living. A kind of eternal and empty limbo, in between being alive and being dead. The feeling of eternity and emptiness is strongly enhanced by the rain, which always falls and perfectly embodies the brooding that the room is most likely to represent. Eternal, gloomy raindrops represent the teardrops eternally falling as one cries over the horrible cards the hand of fate has dealt. It's beautiful and creatively symbolic in a way very few titles succeed at delivering.

Another subject of great remark is the graphical style. Instead of relying almost solely on sprites to depict the characters, most of the pictures are drawn with the characters hard-drawn onto them, creating a living world in a way that's hard to reinforce with sprite graphics. Sprites have their place, but when every single scene/picture is drawn in its entirety, a whole different level of atmosphere can be given to each and every scene.

An area for concern, however, is that Ame no Marginal -Rain Marginal- is short on content. Overall there are mostly three characters interacting with each other throughout this short visual novel. Short is not always a downside however, and it clearly is not in this case, as the story delivered is beautiful, deep, and meaningful in a way that might have gotten distorted if it ran on for longer than it needs to. This is a game meant to be played through in one sitting.

If Ame no Marginal -Rain Marginal- in itself was not good enough to make it feel worth the money spent, it also includes Narcissu as a bonus, an addition that is by no means to be minimized in the overall experience for those who have yet to read that one. It has the same clever and beautiful story style filled with pain and regret, but in another kind of setting. A wonderful addition that only adds value to the original product.