Xblaze Code: Embryo (PC) Review

As far as visual novels go, this one is run-of-the-mill. There's nothing much to do besides pressing a button to advance the dialogue currently on the screen. This is where TOI comes in; acting as an app the characters use, players can invoke TOI to read stats on the various characters, as well as read news headlines, complete with comments left by various fictional users within the game's world. It's a fun way to incorporate some interactivity in an otherwise non-interactive game, and those wishing to dive deep into the lore are going to find plenty to read up on.

The story itself presents a lot of clichés and tropes commonly found in anime, but what the game lacks in originality, it makes up for in presentation. Characters are surprisingly emotive, and they aren't just flat cutouts standing around in front of backgrounds—the camera will shift to different angles, showing characters from the side or the back, their heads might move, their mouths always move—it's an animated visual novel. There is an unfortunate amount of graphical glitches, with aliasing and screen tearing being plentiful, but switching the game to 720 resolution fixes all but the text jaggies. The writing is also on-point; all of the voiced dialogue is in Japanese, but the subtitles are easy to read, make sense, and bring out the individual personalities of the characters.