Noctuary is one of those titles that I can absolutely appreciate, but will admit to leaving me scratching my head a bit. Among its brethren visual novels, it’s absolutely a stunner, with better-than-average character designs, artwork, and even translated text. The thing is, this isn’t just a visual novel with a deep story, some choices of consequence, and themes that dig a bit deeper than its peers. It also happens to feature some combat beats that undoubtedly add flavor, but in many ways feel a bit out of place.

The game’s story revolves around a pair of best friends named Fancia and Alina, who aspire to be Arborangers in order to save the world from the threat of darkness and creatures known as Darkritters. Little do they know that by embarking on a mission they weren’t quite ready for, they will unlock a chain of events and revelations that begin to make them both question everything they’ve come to believe… and working through the resultant conflicts will be laid at your feet with some critical decisions. With multiple possible endings you’ll need to carefully consider your choices and their potential consequences, for sure.

The other side of the experience, working in a very different direction, involves the game’s periodic combat segments. Given your ability to jump between the two characters, and the fact that they each have multiple attack styles to choose from, there’s more to it than you’d expect given how infrequently you’ll end up engaged with it. While later on this picks up, in general you’ll be working through very long stretches of story progression and character development before taking a break for a little action. This really makes the pacing of the game odd, and it also sort of falls into the trap where the action is just good enough that you wish there was more, but not so great that you can’t find faults with it. With attack bonuses triggering fairly often when switching characters, you can get to the point where combat can feel a little spammy as you go with what works, but it’s at least pretty fun at the moment, just not terribly deep either.

There’s no question that care has been put into this package from a production standpoint, but its ambition to include action-oriented real-time battles also in many ways weakens it rather than making it stronger. That does make it a more unique overall experience, but you’ll need to carefully consider whether it will be one for you. It’s really a visual novel first, with the combat being more of an afterthought. So if you’re thirsting for some action, it may leave you cold, but if you’d just like to enjoy the story and characters it could also be a liability. I applaud the ambition here, I just wish the overall balance was a little more even.