Rituals in the Dark Review (Yuri Visual Novel)

Note: I was provided a review copy of Rituals in the Dark by Marantana, author of the game's German translation.

Rituals in the Dark, published on Steam November last year, is the latest yuri release by ebi-hime, one of the most highly-regarded EVN developers. Those familiar with ebi’s work probably know that her history with yuri is as long as it is unique. Most of her games add unusual spins to the formula, or at the very least showcase her distinct writing style, very introspective and painfully realistic in its portrayal of human nature. This makes even the more conventional of her w/w love stories, such as Blackberry Honey (check out my review of it here) stand out through their pacing and often uncompromisingly painful plotlines. All this is usually coupled with strong attention to quality and general writing prowess, making her EVNs some of the best on the market when it goes to literary qualities.

                This newest project shares many staple elements of ebi’s style. Mixing long sections of NVL-style narration and retrospection with more typical segments of character interactions, it creates a slow-paced experience, focused a lot on the protagonist’s thoughts and feelings. At the same time, it might be one of the first cases where, in my experience, some parts of ebi's formula felt a bit bothersome, particularly because what kind of people the major characters turned out to be. It’s also the shortest and most minimalistic commercial game ebi has released since 2017's Sweetest Monster, in a way bridging the gap between her larger projects and the freeware games she was creating in the past. So, what are Ritual in the Dark’s main problems and do they fully spoil the compelling experience you’d expect from a VN by ebi?

The protagonist Aspen and her friends, Lakhi and Pippa, are very much ebi-hime characters – believable, but flawed to the point of frustration

 

Rituals in the Dark is the story of Aspen, a shy and unassuming teenager who finds herself at the center of unwanted attention after she finds the dead body of her elderly neighbour, Ms Leigh. A few months later, she’s coerced to enter the abandoned and mostly ruined house where she made the disturbing discovery, pushed into it by a game of truth or dare. There, she meets a strange girl that introduces herself as Althea. Borderline-otherworldly in her appearance and behaviour, she quickly dominates Aspen’s thoughts and soon after, a strange romantic tension appears between the two. All this leading to… not much, to be honest, at least in terms of romance progression, or plot in general. The game focuses a lot on building a slightly-unsettling atmosphere and exploring the protagonist’s personality, but if you expect a full-on, conclusive love story, you’ll probably be somewhat disappointed.

                While I personally didn’t find this minimalistic storyline to be a problem, there are things in its setup that I think are genuine issues. While ebi’s protagonists are quite often brooding individuals with low self-esteem, Aspen might be the most depressing one out of all of them, letting others push her around and constantly expressing how average and uninteresting she is. While her attitude might not be unrelatable or hard to believe, it doesn’t make for a very satisfying focus of the story. Also, her behaviour and way of thinking only changes a bit during the game – once more, fully realistic, but not exactly enthralling. What’s worse, I’d place Aspen’s friends, Pippa and Lakhi, in the same category of characters – realistically unappealing – with their obvious personality flaws and poor attitude towards the protagonist making them neither likeable nor particularly intriguing. While they show themselves from a better side later on, they are mostly plot devices that initiate the story and consistently spoil Aspen’s mood.

While Rituals in the Night is undoubtedly a yuri VN, you shouldn’t approach it expecting a full-on romance story – it’s quite vague and open-ended in that regard

 

Althea, as an eccentric “wild card” character, is definitely more interesting and has an aura of mystery to her, even after her true identity is pretty clearly hinted at around the midpoint of the story. Ultimately, though, there’s not that much of her in the game, considering how short it is (around 3 hours of reading) and what portion of it is taken by the prologue and Aspen’s internal monologues/things she does between the two girls’ nighttime meetings. We actually learn very little about her and the romance subplot, while definitely present, is in a way cut short before it can bloom into something really substantial. The rather open-ended conclusion leaves us with a few reasons to assume things will work out for Aspen and Althea, but none of that is actually shown to the reader.

                As a final story-related nitpick, I struggle to pinpoint a theme that would define Rituals in the Dark beyond its slightly-unsettling atmosphere and the creepiness of the abandoned house, excellently conveyed through both the detailed descriptions and the game’s visuals. The events it presented were pretty interesting on a moment-to-moment basis, but failed to leave me with a strong impression, or a message to think about. It’s kind of whimsical, existing for its own sake and while that’s not necessarily a negative, it sets this game slightly below most other VNs from ebi that I’ve read. The prose and dialogue are just as polished as effective as ever, just without the substance to make it all truly engaging and memorable.

DarkSin’s art and character designs make the game stand out and are undoubtedly high-quality, although they might not be to everyone’s taste

 

From the visual standpoint, the game is a bit of a mixed bag, although the main assets are very solid. Character art by DarkSin, the same person responsible for sprites in the aforementioned Sweetest Monster, is very stylish and has a mesmerizing quality to it, very fitting for the unsettling motif of the game. It maybe doesn’t work as well here as it did in the aforementioned title, a full-fledged horror story, and I imagine it might even need some adjustment from the reader if they’re used to typical anime art, but it’s definitely well-done, giving the character a lot of personality and a decent amount of expressiveness. CGs are not very numerous, but show up consistently-enough for a story this short. My main gripe in this area is the UI, because both the main menu screen and various elements of the interface simply look low-res and use an unappealing color pallet, more like something I’d see in a free game jam title than a proper commercial VN. It’s a minor thing, but one that managed to bother me through the sheer contrast with the other visuals, and the typical level of polish in ebi's projects.

                The music is appropriately climatic and used conservatively, often fading out in the more tense moments to give space for creepy sounds or similarly unsettling silence. This is a major positive for a game that relies this heavily on ambience and I see nothing to complain about in this regard. And in the end, nearly everything bad that I’d be able to say about Ritual of the Dark’s production quality are more or less nitpicks, while the problems with its narrative are more ways in which it failed to truly impress me, than crippling flaws. Many of the ebi’s VNs are still very fresh in my mind and will quite likely stay with me for years to come, as they showed me stories and characters that genuinely added to my understanding of human nature and the world we live in. As pompous as this might sound, it’s something that good literature is able to do and standard that VNs only rarely are able to achieve. Rituals in the Dark is a very solid game, but not something on that level – which is absolutely fine and considering the very reasonable, $7 price tag, I recommend everyone to give it a chance. After all, by any reasonable metric, ebi’s lower moments are still pretty damn good.

 
Final Rating: 3/5
 
Pros:
+ Unique art
+ Believable characters
+ Well-crafted, mildly unsettling climate
 
Cons:
– Somewhat unappealing protagonist and secondary characters
– Aesthetically below-average UI
– Minimal plot and story progression


VNDB Page
Buy Rituals in the Dark on Steam