Without Within Trilogy Review (English Original Visual Novel Series)

In the EVN world dominated by clichéd romance stories, titles by InvertMouse, a long-time indie developer from Australia, stand out in a few significant ways. Staying away from most common genre tropes and easily-marketable story elements, the games he creates often focus on topics such as friendship and struggles of everyday life, rather than grand tales of romance and adventure. The three short VNs in the Without Within series are particularly unusual and interesting in this regard, tackling themes of ambition, motivation and talent in life of an artist, in the rare setting of modern-day Australia and South-East Asia – all of this in a highly comedic style, but not without serious messages underlining the, most of the time, silly storyline.

                Another thing that makes these games interesting is their complicated development history. The first Without Within was a very short, freeware title, published in December 2014 as one of InvertMouse’s earliest works. The second, commercial entry followed nearly a year later, showing up on Steam in December 2015 and offering a much more substantial story, but in a very similar production quality and tone. The final game, however, didn’t release until mid-2018 – by this time its creator had a lot of more experience and technical prowess, which makes it a visibly different experience from its prequels. Still, with how short and thematically-consistent the three games are, I’ve decided to tackle them as a single package – the third part ends in a rather open-ended way, but with InvertMouse moving away from VN development, it’s pretty clear that the whole trilogy should be treated as a complete story and there’s little chance for any kind of continuation. So, what is Without Within series about exactly and what makes it worth your attention?

Vinty’s visual design is just as caricatural as her personality – this, however, doesn’t mean her story is nothing but a sequence of gags

All Without Within games follow the story of Vinty, a comically-unfortunate and unsuccessful calligraphy passionate, trying to make a name for herself within the somewhat obscure niche and struggling to keep her dream alive against the crushing pressures of everyday life, and various discouraging mishaps. Throughout the three WW titles, she is portrayed with a nearly constantly dejected, chibi sprite (the only exception is being her delusional daydreams, where she imagines herself as a star). This represents her hopeless mental state and feeling of inadequacy in comparison to the talented and successful calligraphers she meets in her adventures, particularly her idol and the biggest celebrity in the world of calligraphy, Excelia (she and all other characters outside of Vinty have normal proportions and are drawn with a very decent level of detail). Excelia herself is Vinty’s direct opposite – wealthy, incredibly talented and famous, representing everything she aspires to be at the beginning of the story, but also hiding a darker side that will make Vinty reconsider her priorities. This duo of caricatural, exaggerated characters are the main heroines of the series, acting as both counterparts and rivals for each other, bound by their shared love for calligraphy.

                The first title in the series focuses on the everyday life of Vinty, showing her usual struggles: ugly apartment, hostile landlady, unsatisfying job and hopeless attempts at selling her work on the streets, broken up mostly by her delusional dreams of greatness. The bitter comedy is accompanied by a few choices that will decide whether she can keep her goal of becoming a full-time artist alive, or be forced to give up on it (possibly crashing & burning in spectacular fashion in the process). It’s a simple, somewhat ironic game about motivation and chasing your dreams, and these themes will be the driving force of the story throughout the series. It doesn’t mean, however, that all three VNs are exclusively gag comedies. Without Within 2 follows Vinty on a government-sponsored trip to a calligraphy convention in Melbourne and mixes the humour from its prequel with travel-guide-like descriptions of the experience of leaving her hometown for the first time. This includes links to real live videos of various landmarks and elements of public transportation that show up in the story – these elements will either amuse you or bore you out of your mind, depending whether you find mundane trivia about foreign countries interesting (or possibly plan to visit them yourself and have a real use for all that information). It’s a bit of a strange mix and in certain ways kills the pacing of WW2 and 3 (that one takes Vinty to Singapore and Malaysia), even despite both sequels getting rid of choices and branching paths – if you want to enjoy them, you have to be ready for quite a lot of downtime and trivia between actual story developments.

Vinty’s idol and rival Excelia is a polar opposite of the protagonist and just as exaggerated – the setup that works fine for comedy, but can hardly handle shifts into a more serious tone

While the gag comedy and overly-detailed descriptions of Vinty’s travels somehow merge into a particularly slow, casual SoL experience that will not be to everyone’s taste, but is not objectively bad, the issues with this formula show up as soon as the games introduce serious drama. This transition first happens in the ending sequence of Without Within 2, when Excelia is exposed for vandalism of other calligraphers’ work and loses her reputation in the community, after which she is comforted by Vinty. The dramatic reveal and the heartfelt moments after it are not done terribly, but simply feel out of place due to the earlier tone of the game and the exaggerated features of both main characters. This issue becomes even deeper in Without Within 3, in with Vinty and Excelia go on a joint trip to Singapore, to solve the mystery of the “ghost” of famous calligrapher Kiki showing up in various places connected to her life. At some point the investigation transitions into a fully-fledged backstory segment for this character, who died of cancer at an early age before reaching her full potential, and her turbulent friendship with Tai, another calligraphy star.

                The story of Tai and Kiki is hands-down the best part of the whole series, showing a deep and dramatic tale that I never really expected to find in it. However, while it’s meant to have an important meaning for both Excelia and Vinty, helping them reshape their goals and attitudes towards life, it also showcases their flows as characters – both of them are, more or less, caricatures and by the point Without Within 3 was made, it was very hard for InvertMouse to give them proper depth without breaking up the whole formula. Especially for Vinty the conclusion is kind of unsatisfying – as the butt of every joke, she’s just as unfortunate and unskilful at the end of the journey as she was in the beginning, her only success being the fact of finding a bit more balance in her approach to art and competition. While not the worst possible payoff, it makes you wish for something at least slightly more hopeful and substantial.

The detailed descriptions of Vinty’s travels and locales she visits are occasionally interesting, but hurt the pacing of Without Within 2 & 3 significantly

When it goes to production values, each Without Within game was an improvement over its predecessor, especially when it goes to the number and quality of CGs, but they’re also very consistent stylistically. Vinty’s chibi sprite is always contrasting with rather detailed backgrounds and good-quality portrayals of other characters – none of it is ever particularly amazing, but solid nonetheless and especially the third game impresses with its sheer variety of visual assets, representing the many locales visited by the heroines. Also, all of the games feature catchy, energetic soundtracks, which honestly help to keep the slower moments of Without Within 2 & 3 reasonably entertaining.

                In summary, Without Within trilogy is unusual and sometimes contradictory, but I still find it worth experiencing. It rarely conforms to your expectations, telling a rare story about being a small-time artist without dishonest wish-fulfilment or tacked-on romance plots. Even its most dramatic and exaggerated moments are, in their core, mundane and painfully realistic, telling simple truths about life and struggles of an unsuccessful creator (which, in relative terms, might be the majority of people that ever attempt becoming one). It comments on our reality and explores real places rather than providing means of escapism, but if that is something you’re interested in when you pick it up, you most likely won’t be disappointed.

Final Score: 3/5

Pros:
+ Unusual story with interesting themes
+ Fun, humoristic storytelling formula
+ Well-stylized visuals and good soundtrack

Cons:
- Lacklustre character development
- Poor pacing in the sequels
- Inconsistent tone of the third game


VNDB Pages (Without Within 1, Without Within 2, Without Within 3)
Buy Without Within Trilogy on Steam