Kiss the Demiurge Review – Flowers in a Garden of Demons

Sunday, February 5, 2023

Genre – Yuri, Modern Fantasy Play Time – 6 hours Developer – YuriEureka Steam VNDB

Note – I did receive a review copy from the developer. A heads up if that fact might bother you.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

In most settling magic is normally a force for good and even when it is not, the protagonist is special enough to make the most of it regardless. This is not the case for Minori, magic took away what she held dear and ignited in her a zealous hatred of magic which has consumed her life. Such is the set up for Kiss the Demiurge the first game from YuriEureka, a Yuri centric visual novel developer, and it leaves a strong first impression with this aggressively negative presentation of magic. If there was a game which exemplified the idea of betting everything on the story then this game is surely the poster child with an initial visual presentation which might turn some people off. But does this whole hearted commitment to the narrative pay off? Let’s launch an infiltration of the Magic Club and find out.

In Pursuit of Magic – Themes and Narrative

Magic is at the heart of Kiss the Demiurge, both as a narrative and thematic element. It binds each character in the Magic Club to their past and not always in the way you first expect. They cannot live without it but it is a curse upon them that prevents them from accepting who they are here and now. It combines these strong thematics with a variety of character routes that reflected uniquely back onto Minori in clever ways. However, its narrative is not without issues which stem from its opening act.

Magic defines these characters

The single strongest element of Kiss the Demiurge is how it handles its character routes. All three routes are focused around the Minori’s core conflict related to her missing parents and each one of them approaches the issue from its own unique and heroine centric angle. There is a superb balance between the time given to Minori and the route’s heroine with the two intertwining to such a degree that a scene related to one often pulls double duty as an examination of the other’s motivations. Alongside the greater conflict are the smaller interpersonal conflicts between the pair and they act to both accentuate the bigger events and as a moment for the player to catch their breath before the next gut punch.

They are also not entirely divorced from the overarching conflict since the tension between the characters has not gone away and these smaller events sell its continued presence in their minds. At the same time they are light enough by comparison to provide a second of peace and levity to affairs so the story does not become too dire and risk the player losing empathy with these characters, and giving them a bit more humanity by mixing in some smaller parts of their lives. It also works as an excellent pacing mechanism through these points of low stakes which it uses to contrast the more important moments and contributes to the amazingly paced roller coaster of emotion each character route captures.

It is hard to agree with Minori's assessment of the Magic Club

Binding every part of Kiss the Demiurge together is the spectre of magic. It haunts all the characters both directly, with the members of the Magic Club, or indirectly, with the cast’s families, either way it circles back to the emotional core of each character. For these characters magic is an escape from something they don’t want to face and it provides a convenient excuse to pretend that they have some power over a situation they in reality do not. It is used by the narrative as a meaning of concisely conveying the themes of accepting the past and loving yourself through offering a negative example of them and asking the characters to overcome it. While what each character is attempting to obscure from themselves is different, they are all able to act as mirrors for Minori due to their common investment in magic and it helps sell the idea that no one is above the feelings these characters are struggling with. The deftness on display with how the narrative handles this thematic keystone is a sight to behold and works wonders to elevate the story to greater heights.

Selling the emotion of key scenes is one of this game's strengths

If there is one notable weakness to the story, it is in the short and rushed feeling common route. This is a problem since this part of the game contains most of the narrative set up for the three routes as well as most of the interactions designed to sell the group dynamic. While the basic premise of Kiss the Demiurge is not a complicated one, the lack of room given to presenting it to the player leaves it feeling underdeveloped and the transition into the character routes abrupt. In choosing to rush into the main routes, the game lacks the establishing pacing generally offered by a common route and does not properly account for any possible confusion it could cause. Adding to this lacking feeling is the surprising absence of many scene which sell the Magic Club as a group rather than just their relationships with Minori. This results is a strange disconnect between their supposed friendship as they tell it and what the player actually witnesses and once the character routes start it leads to a feeling that the heroines exist in their own narrative bubble rather than as a group. Neither of these issues are deal breaking and their brevity also acts to hide their flaws as the player will quickly move onto the meat of the game and forget all about them.

Magic Club Misfits – Characters

No matter how good a story's structure and themes are they are nothing without a set of character to make the player care. Fortunately the cast of Kiss the Demiurge fill this role with flying colours and form compelling bonds with Minori which both complement and contrast her personality and desires. This extends down to the secondary cast albeit to the weaker extent you would expect of more minor characters.

It is rare to have a zealot as the protagonist, someone so fixated on a single cause that they cannot see the absurdity of their words and actions. Minori so completely believes in her crusade against the evils of magic to the point at which she does not understand the damage she is doing to others and herself. At the same time this also gives us a peak into just how fragile she is with this purpose being the only thing holding her together. Her beliefs are so absolute yet so full of holes that the result is a picture of a uniquely human individual who has become lost from any source of happiness. It is in how she interacts with the members of the magic club where we can see the strength of choosing this kind of protagonist. There is a constant battle inside Minori between her hatred of magic and her burgeoning feelings for each heroine, between the curse of the past and the promise of the future, and as this conflict slowly tears her apart we get to see the truth of her motivations. This all makes from a strong protagonist to act as our eyes into this world and someone who is at once alien and familiar to the player.

Minori has some strange ideas of sin

When it comes to Minori’s love interests, the three members of the Magic Club, they prove to be just as strong characters as she is with each of them offering a different kind of contrast to her. We have the high energy Akane, the timid Chitori and the elegant Tomoko, they are all things Minori is not and this works to define them against one another while at the same time showcasing their personalities. Each heroine reflects something back onto Minori, it starts out as just personality flaws and ends up being their greater trauma. Minori is forced to face the parts of her she does not want to see through them just as they do through her. Their competing personalities lead to distinctly different feeling character dynamics such as Minori being the more assertive member in the relationship with Akane but the weaker and more dependent person with Tomoko. Their bonds are define their interactions and the events with excellently written banter to help sell the lows and highs in their lives.

Can you tell this is a Yuri vn?

Nobody is left out of good characterisation in Kiss the Demiurge and this is especially true for the secondary characters. Despite their relatively short screen time each one has an important impact on Minori and the heroines' lives with them being given key information or character development for the main cast. They are also wonderfully distributed by having only one or two be the focus for a route and this gives each one the space they need to shine while so preventing the narrative from being cluttered with unnecessary characters. It is this ability to balance the presence of characters which might be the single most astonishing part of this visual novel and allows it to weave in and out of interesting events with ease.

Achieving a Lot with a Little – Visual, Audio and Technical

These three areas are the points at which Kiss the Demiurge shows its biggest weaknesses and the constraints of the budget under which it was made. While it does still have some great elements in these areas, it is obvious that the game is not attempting to sell itself on visual or audio presentation and if you are going to play this visual novel it is going to be in spite of them and not because of them.

The quality of the art Kiss the Demiurge uses from its character portraits and backgrounds is easily its weakest aspect. The character portraits are awkward in their posing and lack overall detail giving them a slight feeling of being uncanny. There is also a lack of different expression in general, with secondary characters like Minori’s mother suffering from only having one expression making her appear miserable at all times even when she is supposed to be happy. If there is one benefit to the style of these portraits it is the choice to have none important characters be presented as indistinct black human shapes and how it helps communicate Minori’s state of mind with her fixation on a few people and her lack of care about anyone else. Backgrounds suffer from a similar lack of detail to the portraits but since they are not the focus of most scenes this impacts the player’s enjoyment to a lesser extant. Despite this issue they are effectively used by having backgrounds alter depending on the character action in a scene and provides the sense that the backgrounds and character are part of the same world rather than disconnected elements.

Black shapes represent unimportant people and really sell Minori's mindset

CGs are the one area where the quality of the artwork is noticeably higher and each one is an impressive in its beautiful use of colour and motion. While they are few in number over the course of the game, their infrequency adds to the impact they have when one appears on screen and allows the moments they accompany to stand out from the rest of the narrative. The choice of music is generally used to a similar effect but there is a noticeable lack of variety to it, so expect to hear the same tracks quite often. They are all suitable for the game’s tone and narrative and fulfil their function setting the mood and contributing to selling the emotions and events.

This is definetly the Ren'py I remember...

Kiss the Demiurge was made using the Ren’Py engine and this fact is immediately obvious since little effort has been make to change the basic appearance and functionality of its interface. Some menu assets have been custom made, most notably the main menu and the text box, and these do give the game a distinct feel when present, but everywhere else the clunky and blocky Ren’Py assets are obvious. This results in an amateurish feeling product when the player initially boots it up and whenever the go to save or change the game settings. On the more practical side, the game inherits all of the accessibility problems from the lack of broad customisation and strange quirks of the engine which a more polished product would have ironed out through extensive improvements to the core design. None of this is a deal breaker for most people who will play the game, but for those who it might inconvenience it is something to consider.

Verdict -

A cast of compelling characters and haunting themes define Kiss the Demiurge and come together to form memorable package which overcomes its flaws.

Pros

+Minori is a compelling protagonist filled with zealous fervour yet slowly falling apart at the seams and seeing how she reacts to the rest of the cast is always engaging.

+A strong casts whose moments of weakness and strength humanise them while simultaneous link them in a common idea of escapism from one’s own weakness.

+The heroines’ character arcs are perfectly woven into Minori’s own in a way which brings out a different side of her for each of them.