Autumn’s Journey is the latest visual novel by Ratalaika Games, developed by Apple Cider. Find out if this tale is worth your time in our Autumn’s Journey review!

Auralee, an aspiring knight from the farming town of Berri, stumbles upon something unexpected during one of her patrols. After a rather inelegant introduction, Kerr states he’s really an Earth Dragon. Whether he likes it or not, Auralee is now involved in his mission to regain his dragon form. Along with some help by a fellow dragonkind named Ilmari, their journey begins..

 

The story of the game centers on Auralee, a young girl that wants to become a knight, with her mother being a renowned knight herself. As she returned to town after her patrol, she stumbles on someone with strange ears, who is sleeping near a tree. When he finally wakes up, she finds out that he is not from the heavenkind race (humans)… he’s actually an earth dragon from dragonkind that’s been transformed into human form and can’t change back by himself! Auralee will help him reach an altar to retrieve part of his powers back, and they’ll eventually meet up with Ilmari, another dragonkind sent to assist them on their quest.

Being a visual novel, the game is mostly about the many dialogues that you read. In fact, there are close to no choices to make in the game, so you’ll have approximately ten decisions to make for a whole playthrough! Since the game has multiple endings – three in total – you’ll likely be doing some additional playthroughs to get them all during your cleanup runs.

 

Visually, the game features some nice backgrounds for the varied locations you visit. As for the characters’ animations in the front, they have a lot of nice details and often change depending on the character’s expression or mood for what’s happening at that particular moment.

While I’m not the biggest fan of visual novels, I can find myself appreciating some from time to time, but there’s one thing they need to do to make things interesting for me: choices. If it’s only reading text, I’d rather read a book or watch a movie for a nice story. Unfortunately, with the limited number of choices this game has, this one is not one of my favorites. The story focuses on the relation between the three characters, and I have to say that one thing they did well is creating each character’s persona. They each have their own traits of personality, making them stand out from each other. For example, when you first meet Kerr, the earth dragon, he’s so arrogant that you can’t help but dislike him.

 

As for the trophies, this is your typical game that has an easy Platinum to obtain. All trophies but the ones for the three endings are obtained simply by playing the game. Once you’ve finished the game once, you can go back to give it another go, skipping dialogue that you’ve already read as you try to unlock the other two endings. There’s also the option of using a guide to speed things up so that you can add a new Platinum to your collection in as little as 15 minutes!

Autumn’s Journey has some fun characters, but the rather bland story and lack of interactions makes for a game that might be worth your time only if you’re looking for a quick Platinum to add to your collection.

Disclaimer
This Autumn’s Journey review is based on a PlayStation 4 copy provided by Ratalaiaka Games.