Length: ~10-15 minutes

Background
Welcome to Fish Island is a VX Ace game by first-timer ErroneousAlyssa. Her DeviantArt is filled with nice-looking creations and she seems to be a fan of XP game Gingiva. The game looks cute, but when you download it and see its title screen, it's surprisingly a little scary.



See what I mean? So when I first played I was interested to see whether this would be a good or a bad game.

Story
A young dog sets out to help his little sister become well again. It's a pity though, since the faceset makes them look suspiciously like a cat.



Never mind that. So the young dog, with the coolest name ever "Missile", is instructed by the local doctor to go to an island called Fish Island where they are said to provide remedy to those who are very sick like his little sister Princess. To be honest, when I was playing the game, I forgot they were brother and sister and I thought that Princess was Missile's daughter. No matter. The game's dialogue is brisk and well-paced, and the characters are actually quite likable. Everyone in the game is an animal (almost everyone, that is), and it starts off with what is initially quite a sad prospect. The feeling of losing a loved one was really well explored during the first half of the game. I actually related to the main protagonist because of their plight.

But then things start to get a little more creepy as the addition of a new character appears in the house that you are staying at. Soon enough, things go AWOL indeed. However, that's about it. Many plot lines don't get tied up at the end and the whole thing just ends in a kind of mess. Honestly, it's like a story that gave up about half way through. It simply feels incomplete. Maybe it's because of the downer ending that makes everything feel like it wasn't worthwhile, but it feels like the developer didn't even care about her own story, that I was actually getting quite invested in. I would have liked to see this game elongated somewhat to include a more satisfying ending, but as it is, the plot points that led up to the ending are just ignored, and the character arcs are obliterated, and it just... ends without any ceremony whatsoever. Now don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of the abrupt ending, but I'm not a big fan of ending before the conflict is even explored.

But the developer has clearly pointed out that this game "wasn't anything extraordinary", but to be honest, it could have been. There were very many aspects about this game that had me caring about the plight of the characters, and it was very well written and even creepy and surreal. But as it is, the game feels incomplete.



Graphics/Audio
The game uses what I believe are Celianna's Farm Tiles, which are a bright and saturated palette of colours suitable for cute games. The sprites are cute, and crisply outlined. I believe that the developer drew some of them herself, and they are quite nice. The visuals are a juxtaposition of the cute and creepy that makes this game stand out in terms of tone. Plus, there is a reversed track near the end that is very well-suited to the scene. Overall, the game is visually competent except for the mismatched facesets that I talked about earlier.

Gameplay/Design
This game is a story-based game, and it revolves around quests and talking to different people in the right order. It's been tagged as a Visual Novel, probably because it contains only dialogue, no puzzles, and no combat. I'm fine with this type of game, and in fact I even enjoy them if they have a well-told story, as this one did.

But there are several bugs in this game, and what I deem to be bad design decisions, that make it quite frustrating to play. From what I encountered, they are not game-breaking bugs, but they're the kind that cause you to be able to move while cutscenes are playing. This is because most of the cutscenes are set to "Parallel Process" instead of "Autorun", and this means you can encounter bugs while in cutscenes like walking through doors and activating cutscenes twice. If the developer changes the game to use "Autorun" events instead of "Parallel Process", the game will be improved immensely.

Also, there is an interesting phenomenon that occurred when choosing endings for this game. I had a hard time finding the "true" ending of the game, simply because it felt like it wasn't the right thing for the protagonist to do. There are 3 endings, all of which depend on binary choices, and none of them are satisfying. But since I did not encounter the "true" ending which told me there were only 3 endings in the game, I started looking for an ending that didn't exist, namely dodging enemies until I could find a safe place. But there was no safe place. I felt like the game gave the false indication that there was another ending there, when all you had to do in the game to win was give up. That made me frustrated, and hampered my experience of enjoyment that I had had in the game previously.

Verdict
Welcome to Fish Island is a game with great prospects but poor execution of its ending, which sours the experience overall. It displays competent writing and promise, but fails to deliver because it doesn't finish what it started. Maybe if the developer became a bit more confident in their abilities to tell good stories (of which she certainly can) then she could polish this off and make it fantastic game. This game is full of potential, but it sadly squanders it, leaving unfinished a story for which I was admittedly becoming invested in.

I give Welcome to Fish Island a C-, or a 2 stars out of 5.