A Clockwork Ley-Line Trilogy Review

A Clockwork Ley-Line Trilogy Review – A Mistifying Mystery

Sunday, January 8, 2023

Genre - Mystery, Fantasy. Playtime - Roughly 20 Hours Each, 60 In Total Developer - Unison Shift: Blossom Steam VNDB

Three Ley-Lines Shall Reveal The Truth

Creating a trilogy of games is an ambitious undertaking and one where so many tiny things can go wrong and ruin the whole package. It needs a glue to hold it together and keep the player invested in the long term, sometimes this is a grand adventure or a world ending threat. A Clockwork Ley-Line chooses an overarching magical mystery to hold its games together while it focuses on telling episodic stories which feed into each individual game’s themes. The stakes are decidedly more personal than many other trilogies, but is this to these games benefit or does do they collapse under their own weight? Let’s begin our search for Mists and find out.

Prepare for a strange ride

Granting Wishes At A Price – Themes and Narrative

The structure of these games is their most distinctive feature with a focus on episodic narratives which each correspond to a route in a ladder style visual novel. An overarching mystery sit behind these cogs and makes sure they are not just a series of unconnected incidents. However, having so many interconnect parts does cause some unwanted friction between them.

At its core A Clockwork Ley-Line is a monster of the week narrative. Each chapter is a different episode in which our heroes must uncover the identity of whatever Mist (magical artefact) is terrorising the school and put a stop to it. Of course this is just the basic formula and the game has a great deal of fun with how it establishes and resolves the Mists and makes full use of the secondary characters who get pulled along for the ride. This approach emphasises the character stories and how they play into the main cast’s arcs by relating them to their own personal weaknesses or by having them personally invested in the outcome of an investigation. Cleverly A Clockwork Ley-Line varies the tone of its episodes throughout the whole spectrum, some are comic and others are tragic. This ability to switch suddenly is utilised add a degree of unpredictability to what the player will experience next and how it will end in order to keep the formula from becoming stale. If there is one problem with this episodic approach it is that in the final game where the overarching narrative takes centre stage, the structure of individual stories can feel a bit redundant when everything one of them just flows directly into each other with little to idenify between them.

Mist incidents are always a fun suprise

Attached to each episode (except the last one of a game) in the first two games is a side route exploring a character in a romantic context. Together these form the ladder structure of Ley-Line and give it the much needed space to present the player with more in-depth character studies. The focus afforded by this structural choice allows these routes to have the ability to communicate the more mundane aspects of the world, how it links our characters and in particular how its effects the protagonist, Koga Michiru. It does help that the romances are all handled quite well with suitable build ups and believable bonds between each one and Koga and there is an effort made to make every heroine of their relationships noticeably different.

On top of this is the fact each route in the ladder is optional, meaning a player can skip them if they just want the main plot or pick and choose what they want to appear. This prevents these routes from killing the pacing of the central story while providing the player with a sense of agency over the fate of the cast. There is one glaring flaw in these routes and it is that some are strangely redundant or come off as unnatural progressions of the relationships in the attached episode. The most problematic example of this being a route in the second game which is invalidated by that game’s ending plot twists and the route adds nothing of value to any character involved. However, these routes are the exception rather than the rule and the overall quality is good and engaging.

Another day in the life of the Bureau

There is a question which hangs over the trilogy and binds it all together. Who are the Night Class and where did they come from? It is a suitably weighty one with a lot of parts to the final answer and revelations are provided to the player at an even pace to keep them hanging on every scrap of information. The grand reveal and resolution at the end it both climatic and cathartic with every narrative tread coming together in a way which reflects back onto the characters’ journeys to get here. There is one problem and this is way the mystery is paced across the three games. Very little of importance to the main plot happens in the first game and what there is can be found concentrated at the end and the story only feels as if it gets going in the second game. While there are a lot of important character moments in the first game, it is difficult to shake the feeling that it could have been trimmed down and merged into the second game for a shorter playtime.

Student By Day, Magical Problem Solver By Night – Characters

To investigate a mystery you need a team and clients with problems to solve. A Clockwork Ley-Line puts together a strong cast to fill these roles and relates them to one another through their adversities. However, these games do not have an entirely even approach to the presentation of their characters.

Ushio and Koga are the highlight of these games

The central cast of Ley-Line are the members of the Bureau for the Investigation of Special Affairs which starts out as just Koga, Kotarou and Ushio and, while it does expand as the games progress, these three carry the emotional heart and soul of the story. Their initial relationship is a somewhat rocky one with Koga and Ushio often rubbing each other the wrong way and Kotarou having to act as a mediator between them. Seeing them come together as a skilled team and overcome the Mists they face is one of the highlights of the trilogy structure of these games. The later additions to the Bureau all further the group dynamic by forming connections to the original three and are used to bring out their flaws and strengths. Chemistry is the greatest asset Ley-Line has and it makes use of it cleanly with the main cast.

To have a mystery to investigate there must first be clients and this is the type of character most Day Students fall into. They are each introduced in an episode, come into contact with a Mist, have their problem resolved and then only make minor appearances afterwards. This is a fairly standard approach for a monster of the week formula and Ley-Line knows this so it makes sure to spice up these characters through the bonds they form with the Bureau and how its members grapple with the consequences of the Mists. Each one of the Day Students have been created as a pair to the Mist which effects them and their personalities in some way relate directly to what the Mist offers, since in universe they are drawn to those who desire their powers, even if they do not know it. These dynamics act as the main appeal to each episode and humanise this supernatural conflict which might otherwise seem distant from reality.

It is a shame the Night Student never get the time they needed

It is when we reach the Night Students where the quality and consistency of character presentation begins to drop. Despite being the focus of the overarching narrative thread, they are only really present in the first game before they fade into the background during the second game. When they are presented to the player they often fulfil the same purpose as the Day Students in being clients for the Bureau. In this role they excel and provide a slightly off-kilter version due to their inherent supernatural situation which creates uncertainty about how much of what they say is the truth. This makes them being dropped like a stone in the second game such a shame as it would have been interesting to see how this remixing of the client/Bureau dynamic could have taken further. The choice to reduce their presence is even stranger when you reach the third game where all the plot twists about the Night Students are revealed but they are not there to react to them and feel underdeveloped compared to the Day Students.

Clockwork Design – Visual, Audio and Technical

When it comes to the design of these games’ systems and assets there is a consistency to them that allows the three games to appear as if they were made at the same time. This philosophy means each game shares the same overall strengths and weaknesses in these areas and a player who has an issue with one of the will have an issue with all three games.

The Night wonderfully remixes the Day

Visual direction is one of Ley-Line’s most striking aspects. These games have the ability to form a spectacular divide between the magical and mundane parts of the setting through their use of colour, backgrounds and even the Mists. The mundane is much as you would expect from a visual novel of this genre and consists of the expected symbols of school life those familiar with the medium have come to expect. It is only when placed against the altered yet beautiful magical world and items that its role as a mirror becomes obvious and the contrast becomes clear. The magical world is one of strong and permeating colours which seep into everything, transforming what we know into new forms with regular patterns being prevalent throughout. Each Mist perfectly encapsulates the feelings embodied by this idea of magic. They are at once majestic and at the same time acting as agents of chaos who represent the wild and dangerous side of magic if not properly controlled. Together these aspects form a duality but not one without subtly and elements of one visual style can still be seen in the other showing how the two are interlinked.

On the flip side the music shows the problems with having similar assets in each game, they become overly familiar and stale. Ley-Line’s soundtrack remains mostly static over the course of the trilogy with each game adding one or two new tracks. The quality of this music is high but a lot of it is standard in composition and in line with other games in the medium which means it lacks the identity present in the visuals. That is not to say there are no standout tracks and those added by the second and third games are some of the best of the trilogy. However, this leaves the majority of the soundtrack being forgettable and ultimately the same from game to game creating a feeling of repetition that damages the overall experience.

The soundscape is too similar between games

For the most part Ley-Line follows the industry standard when it comes to technical polish and features. We have the normal suite of unlockables, customisation options and in game interfaces. The only aspect in which Ley-Line deviates from the norm is in how it treats its unlockable side stories and their relationship to one another. These stories are a small collection of what if and after story style narratives and they are structured in such a way as to form their own small thematic package distinct from the main game in its complete focus on the romantic elements of the games. They have a set a pattern for unlocking but there is enough flexibility to allow the player to experience them with a degree of freedom and they rely on their consistent ideas to hold theses stories together.

Verdict –

This three part mystery blends episodic storytelling and a grand narrative seamlessly into an intriguing visual novel which play to the strengths of both approaches.