Ruler by Default Review (English Original Visual Novel)

 

This review was originally posted on Fuwanovel Forums on May 25th 2018

Disclaimer: I was provided with a free review copy of this game by the developer. All opinions expressed here are solely my own.

OELVN scene is, for many years now, heavily reliant on crowdfunding, with many small and high-profile projects made possible through Kickstarter and, more and more often, regular contributions of fans on Patreon. While these methods of financing VN development created opportunities that wouldn’t be available to the developers in the past and brought us many memorable titles, they go with their share if risk and problems – weak safeguards guaranteeing the final product delivering on its promises or even being completed at all, being the most crucial one. Crowdfunded projects disappointing their audience, getting stuck in development hell or simply never coming to fruition are at least just as much a reality as they are in the “normal” game development scene. However, in these cases, the consequences are falling mostly on the average backer, who took the double role of the consumer and the investor, hoping for nothing more than a compelling piece of entertainment in return.

           For this reasons, I very much enjoy seeing crowdfunded projects overcoming extreme difficulties and delivering even when everyone pretty much forgot about them or stopped hoping for a positive resolution. Lately, we’ve seen the release and warm reception of AIdol – a game that spent more than half a decade in development, went through both a failed Kickstarter campaign and changes in staff, eventually being claimed by Ebi-Hime, originally only the writer for the project, and released under her name. Today, I’ll look at another long-forgotten project, Pistachi Studio’s Ruler by Default, successfully crowdfunded in 2014 and released on Steam on May 4th this year, exactly 3 years after the initial goal.

The game’s long development left many problems behind – the reworked visuals however made a significant, positive difference from what was presented in the early builds

 

Ruler by Default’s plot is quite a typical (comedy) isekai – an average guy, programmer fresh out of college, is suddenly sucked into a fantasy world and recognized as a new (evil?) Overlord. The title, once held by a God-appointed ruler of the entire realm, lost most of its significance after the disappearance of the previous Overlord and his kingdom was reduced to a tiny domain of a castle and its immediate surroundings, guarded by a handful of still-loyal servants. Having at least a full year till another portal to our world can be opened, our protagonist has to accommodate to his new role and decide whether it will be just a temporary settlement, until he can return home, or something more permanent.

           The initial projects of the game, as presented in the Kickstarter campaign and Steam Greenlight page, showed it as a dating sim with stat management and some elements of political simulation. The final version, however, turned out to be pretty much a pure visual novel, with only choosable conversations and dialogue choices influencing the plot and the “ruling” part of the game basically out of the picture. For the first 30 weeks of your stay in the new world, you’re able to interact with one of the 6 heroines each week (5 of them romanceable, the sixth one having a supporting role and most likely getting a full route later as a DLC), using an overworld menu. If you finish all the events connected to one of the girls, you’re immediately locked into her route and the game continues as a normal, mostly linear VN. The project's past design is mostly visible through some of the still present flavour text, such as stat checks and stat bonuses from certain events that no longer mean anything and will most likely be removed with patches.

The heroines are definitely the game’s strongest asset – they’re all interesting, well fleshed-out characters, even if the actual routes vary in quality

 

Whatever Ruler by Default might have lost during its long and complicated development, it very much makes up for with personality and a great female cast. The first characters you meet, immortal elf-like sorceresses Mori and June are not only quirky and intriguing, but also show some of the game’s biggest strengths – good visual design and well-drawn, expressive sprites. All other heroines are similarly distinct and for a game that takes around 10 hours to complete, surprisingly well fleshed-out, with their own secrets and interesting backstories. All the routes also contain a nice mixture of comedy and drama, being lighthearted much of the time, but also producing seriously touching and dark moments – Mori’s route being probably the best one in this respect, completely changing your view of the character and delivering some compelling romance. Other story arcs are not always this consistent and enjoyable when it goes to writing, but also none of them feels underdeveloped or not worth reading.

           The protagonist, on the other hand, is much more generic, without any clear characteristics beyond being a nice guy (and, at least in one route, he acts consistently stupid and naive, enough to be rather off-putting). Also, unlike the heroines, it’s debatable whether he shows much growth during the story – this might be one more casualty of the missing dating sim (and political sim) mechanics, as in the narrative he often seems like just as much of a dork in the ending sequences as he was in the opening ones and there’s little you can do to lead him in a different direction without receiving a bad ending. This also makes the whole “evil overlord” theme very thin and mostly a comedic factor and personally, while I definitely didn’t expect this to be another Venus Blood, the lack of legitimate “darker” paths was a bit disappointing.

The removal of the dating sim mechanics didn’t hurt the romance, but definitely affected the political parts of the narrative, barely visible in some routes

 

Just like the character sprites I was writing about earlier, other visual assets are very solid, not being very high on detail, but well-stylized an appealing to look at. The overall artstyle isn’t far detached from usual anime drawings, but also have enough personality to be memorable. The pleasant music enhances that effect, giving the game a surprisingly strong climate. The only things that slightly spoils it are the persistent technical issues, not major enough to be game-breaking, but very much visible – the constantly bugging-out backlog, combined with the inability to roll back dialogue, was especially irritating. The nowadays rarely-seen 4:3 aspect ratio also was something that took me some time to get used to and could be a major problem for some readers.

           Still, those were definitely minor gripes when confronted with the overall enjoyment I’ve had with this VN. I came to me pretty much out of nowhere, from an era long before I was even interested in visual novels and when it goes to storytelling, delivered one of the most fun experiences I've had recently. While it might be advisable to wait for some minor fixes, and possibly even the addition of June’s route, before you read it, for the modest price of 10$ it’s still a great catch. If you can, support the devs behind this project – against all odds, they managed to provide us with a fun, memorable title and I really hope that they’ll work will ultimately be appreciated.

 
Final score: 3,5/5
 
Pros:
+ Good art and scripting
+ Great cast of characters
+ Highly distinct, compelling romance routes
 
Cons:
- Bland protagonist
- A LOT of small bugs


VNDB page
Buy Ruler by Default on Steam