After spending 4.5 hours, I have finally completed reading the early demo of
Ryuusei World Actor. The demo is filled with foreshadowing and info dump so I need to write notes all the time, and my slow reading speed is certainly not helping in reducing playtime. It is mind-blowing that the official twitter account has confirmed that the "definitive" demo has 3 times of the content of this early demo, and it will be released in late May ~ early June. So the development staff boasting that the game is longer than 10+ volume of lightnovel is obviously not a bluff. If the whole game retains (or surpasses) the quality of this early demo, I would be more than pleased as it has already left a great impression on me.
Ryuusei World Actor has a twist in the hard-boiled detective story formula: a mix of cyberpunk world with fantasy creatures and races. The story takes place in Seventh Republic, a republican country built by seven races where they live equally (by concept) under the same government led by human race. Players follow detective
Ruka Hiryu and his rookie partner
Claris Zeinburg onto a journey, facing directly the darkest and violentest crimes inside Seventh Republic.
If you have read some of my previous posts in this thread, you can tell that I am reasonably (or unreasonably, depending on how you think) hyped for this game. Developed and produced by
DiGination (subsidiary of the media giant DMM), written by
Syougo Kinugasa (writer behind the VN series "Akatsuki no Goei" and light novel series "Classroom of the Elite") with art by
Akinashi Yuu ("Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate" from sprite, "Jinrui no Minasama he" from Nippon Ichi), we are looking at a team with great track records and backed by good funding. Actually, the development team is also shooting for the stars: they have openly stated that, in an interview published by magazine BugBug,
the goal of RWA is to become the best-selling VN of the year. In an industry where many talented writers have left to seek opportunities in manga and lightnovels realm and never look back, it is rare to see a successful writer return to his root and contribute to an ambitious VN project. Being a big fan of both Akatsuki no Goei as well as Classroom of the Elite, I really can't wait to read through this latest work from Kinugasa.
第七共和国へ、ようこそ。
Welcome to Seventh Republic
The prologue being titled "
The Country Hated By Sun (太陽に嫌われた国)" is pretty telling of the situation of Seventh Republic: sunlight is cut off by cloud that covers up the whole country, which is a result of weapons and magic used in a war in the past. People in Seventh Republic can only distinguish time through their watch rather than just simply, looking up the sky. This setting also fits a detective story perfectly: in our perceptions, criminals, perverts, dark creatures love lurking in the dark, and Seventh Republic always in night-time contribute to an unsafe and unstable atmosphere throughout the whole game. In-game background arts are drawn by
Rapt. They contribute greatly to create and enhance the cyberpunk nature of Seventh Republic:
In Seventh Republic, there are races and creatures that can utilize supernatural power, and they are called "
Magician" and "
Keeper". Magicians refer to those who are born with power. In the demo, it is revealed that エルフ (Elf) can control wind while ウィプス (Wisp) can control fire. On the other hand, Keepers refer to those who acquire supernatural powers through unspecified means and not limited to race. While the means are not yet specified, the demo reveals that humans, if they follow the legal route, must undergo strict examinations so that they are permitted by the government to wield these supernatural powers. There are also illegal ways to gain access to these powers, so both police and criminals can acquire these destructive powers through different means.
It is obvious that these Magicians and Keepers are going to be the main sources of conflict in the game. In the demo, a secret society "
Radiant Alliance (輝きの同盟)" is briefly mentioned and implied to be an extremely dangerous underground group who aims at "cleansing the country" by hunting down Keepers. I think it is a safe guess that this group of murderers is going to be the main villain of this game.
Ruka Hiryu, the asshole detective with hidden powers
Ruka is the kind of detective that will never get promoted: rude, unpredictable, hard to control, passive work attitude, and like spending his time during working hours in a café nearby. He is deemed as the problematic by high-ups, and eventually got assigned to Section 13, a division specially designed to house these troubled cops.
In many VNs, the male protagonist takes a backseat so that the heroines can shine. This certainly does not apply to RWA. Ruka is so mysterious that it is hard to not get interested in him. While he is often regarded as an inept detective by colleagues, it is revealed that he was a passionate cop in the past, and he is still investigating and implied that secretly eliminating people related to "
The Cult Incident (教団事件)", a massacre conducted by the Cult many years ago that are still nightmare to citizens in Seventh Republic. In addition, multiple scenes throughout the demo also implies that
Ruka is a Keeper who wield unspecified power but need to take medicines to control and relief the side effects. Besides, Ruka also has a
weird relationship with the boss of Section 1, Ikuta (who is a human supremacist so there is definitely some story here). Ikuta seems to fully comprehend the true face of Ruka, but he also seems to be the one who assigned Ruka to Division 13, whereas Ruka has expressed his hate towards Ikuta in multiple scenes.
Why does Ruka so emotionally involve with "The Cult Incident"? Where and how did he acquire supernatural power? What is his power anyway? Why does he need to take two types of medicine from time to time? What is Ikuta's motive to put Ruka in Division 13?... There are still so many questions surrounding Ruka, and I can't wait to find out the answers in the main game.
Claris Zeinburg, the unlucky rookie detective who seeks justice
Being the very first newbie who is directly assigned to Section 13 after graduating from police academy, and also ordered to become Ruka's partner on her first day stepping inside the police department, Claris has a rough start of her career. She is passionate, hot-headed, stubborn but also often slow to react and sometimes mixing up words. Basically, she is the direct opposite of Ruka, and being an elf, she can control wind to give her flying ability, so she is a valuable personnel in investigation as well as combat sequence.
While she does not have any big reveals in the demo, an image on the official website shows that she is directly related to "The Cult Incident". Maybe she is a survivor of the massacre? Only time will tell.
BTW, it is also worth noting that she has contributed a few funny lines in the demo. Here is one of them:
"I hope senpai will be hit by a meteor and died, and somehow the insurance money will go inside my pocket!
Komachi Shinomiya from transport division. She has too little screen time in the demo so I really have no idea what to write, but still, she is better than these two characters…
THEY DID NOT EVEN APPEAR IN THE DEMO! Considering the length of this demo, it is crazy that there are key characters who are not able to make an appearance. The two are Mell and Chiffon MacDougall. Personally I am very interested to learn more about Chiffon as she is casted by one of my favorite voice actresses, Yui Kusuhara. She is a poor セグイット (Segui'to? A human-like race that possesses superhuman physical strength) swordsman who works part-time at a fast food chain and is a neighbor of Ruka. I am very curious to learn why she will be involved with these police affairs of Ruka and Claris.
There are actually a few other characters in the game. Due to time and space, I would rather save them for you to enjoy their conversations with Ruka and Claris, which are very fun to read in-game.
Here is the end of my long write-up of this game. This must be the first time I wrote so much for a game. Hope you enjoyed reading this post. I will probably NOT play the next demo because it will make me too thirsty for the main game lol. BTW, a Day 1 purchase is a lock so see you again in Seventh Republic on July 26th! Till that day, I will go back and focus on playing Soukoku no Arterial and getting my hands on Tamayura Mirai, which is another VN that seems very promising in both art and story.
Edit: Fix some wordings and upload two Promotion Video.