Variable Village

Dark Gaia plays and reviews Variable Village by Kitten2021

*Before I begin this review, I just want to explain that the score I give this game may not neccesarily correlate with the standards of other RMN reviewers. There has been some discussion about review scores recently, so I thought I would make it clear that I am scoring this game based on the assumption that a 2.5 score represents a decidedly average game, where below average games would score below 2.5 and above average games would score above. Hence, in this review, a score of 2.5 does not neccesarily mean this game is bad; rather it suggests that the game is average.

Variable Village is a strange conundrum. I hardly ever have the time to play RPG Maker games (or even games in general) of late, so it's rather strange that, logging onto RMN today, I felt a strange compulsion to play something, and a brand new game listed on the front page, no less.
The game's developer, Kitten2021, claims that Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly and Silent Hill were inspirations for this game, and seeing how I can't resist a good horror game, I felt that I had to give this a go immediately. Ultimately, I found that Variable Village captures the surreal atmosphere of those games rather well, but it doesn't make a very good horror game (it isn't particularly unsettling), and there are some bugs that detract from the experience.

In Variable Village, you control a Japanese woman named Yumi, who awakens alone in what appears to be a long abandoned village. Yumi cannot remember how she got here, though she does remember that she was with her son, who is now missing, and so it is up to the player to search for the missing boy while solving the mystery of the town. The story that follows is decidedly of the supernatural variety, and while it is not particularly well written (there are some failings in the dialogue of the characters) it is serviceable and has a very Fatal Frame 2 vibe to it.
Kitten2021's writing in Variable Village is rather lacking, though it is done well enough that the story does at least flow in a sensible enough manner to keep you playing. There are mainly issues with the dialogue of the characters, particularly Yumi; what the characters say does not seem very natural. For example, one would suppose that Yumi, as a mother whose child is missing, is rather distressed and would focus solely upon finding her son, yet she keeps getting distracted with other things, such as noting that there are butterflies in the village or wondering what switches do. Indeed, after a certain cutscene involving a ghost explaining what is happening in the village, Yumi rarely mentions her son again, instead focusing on reversing the town's curse. In addition, some of the protagonist's reactions seem somewhat subdued for being in such a surreal situation (at one point, the player enters a catacomb with bodies, whereupon Yumi exclaims something to the effect of "what is this, a death chamber!? What the hell is this place? Oh well, better search the bodies...").

The gameplay of Variable Village is rather simple. There is no combat at all; the object of the game is to explore the village and collect items to use at a specific point. In this sense, Variable Village is not a survival horror game in the same vein as Backstage or my own One Night. It is paced very similarly to A Mirror Lied and Eyes Without a Face. This is not a bad thing, as like with those games, the atmosphere is immersive enough to keep you exploring, though some players may wish there was more to do in the game. There are also some minor gripes with the exploration aspect of the game, namely that the developer does not mark where the important items are, and one must instead search every object in the room that looks notable or they may miss something. A little sparkle or arrow marking the location of items would be a great idea.
There are some bugs present in the game that interfere with the gameplay; certain events (such as one where Yumi notices a gate and a switch) do not erase after being triggered, and crossing the tile containing the event again will cause it to play a second time. None of these instances break the game, though it is annoying to accidentally trigger a cutscene that has already been played. It breaks the flow of the game somewhat. There happens to also be one nasty game breaking bug: attempting to open the menu crashes the game with a "missing resource" error. Luckily, there is no need to access the menu in the game, but I assume the option to save is in the menu screen, so it renders the player unable to save.

Finally, the game looks and sounds rather good. The game convincingly portrays a Japanese village (using an official RTP add-on from Enterbrain) and there is certainly a very run down, forgotten look to everything. The game's music (which is more akin to ambience, actually) is reminiscent of the Fatal Frame series and is used effectively along with the visuals to create a very surreal, dreamlike atmosphere. Ultimately, the game looks and sounds a lot like Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly and the atmosphere of that game is captured rather well, though the game fails to be particularly scary or unsettling, so it really does not compare with other RPG Maker horror games. The Fatal Frame series actually managed to invoke genuine fear in me and there are some genuinely scary moments; Variable Village fails to emulate these aspects of its obvious inspiration.

Concluding, Variable Village is an average game that manages to capture some elements of its chosen inspiration but not others. It isn't a particularly long or difficult game, so those who enjoy games in this genre may find it an enjoyable way to kill an hour. Otherwise, there are certainly better horror themed games made in RPG Maker, so if you haven't played them already, you might be better off giving something like Eyes Without a Face or The Longing Ribbon a try.