Sona-Nyl of the Violet Shadows Review – What Was Above Is Now Bellow

Sunday, August 3, 2025

Genre – Steampunk, Fantasy, Odyssey Play Time – 25 hours Developer – Liar-Soft Steam VNDB

A Stroll Through New York

New York is in ruins and all its inhabitants mysteriously disappeared overnight. The U.S. government claims they all died in a tragic engine accident and sealed the city off, but one young woman, Elysia Wentworth, is not convinced so sneaks in to uncover the truth by journeying to the centre of catastrophe, Manhattan. Bellow the city a girl named Lily wakes up and begins her own quest to reach the violet horizon and exploring the strange people and places of the underground. Sona-Nyl is the intertwining tales of these two women as they confront their emotions and memories through the colourful cast they meet and the locations within the city. Elysia and Lily are good pair of protagonist due to how well their respective personalities contrast and reflect each other and how they engage with their surroundings. The rest of the cast is similarly memorable as they struggle against the dangers of the underground and yet still manage to maintain their sense of cheer. From a visual stand point the distinctive grays of the surface ruins and the deep purples of the underground make it immediately clear where a scene is taking place and provide it with an identity. Throughout the narrative there is an extensive use of repetition and slow pacing which coupled with the frustration of the newspaper system make for a level of friction against the player. Is Liar-Soft’s high standard of writing and engagement enough to overcome these issues? Let’s set off for the horizon and find out.

Odyssey To The Edge Of The World – Narrative and Themes

Due to being an odyssey of two women through their respective versions of New York, the player gets to witness the various sights of this fantastical steam punk vision of the city and its people. This constant movement through what ends up being a large cast of characters and varied environments forms a core part of the lens through which it explores the lives of its two protagonists. Lily’s journey is all about her discovering her own emotions in order to decide her future while Elysia’s is about accepting what happened to her in the past. It is fitting then that each of them is assigned a version of New York which reflects them, Lily is given the bright and lively underground and Elysia wanders through the ruins on the surface. Despite the underground being a dangerous place where its inhabitants live in constant fear of turning into metal, it is a place filled with life and all the emotions of humanity as its people strive to make the most out of their remain time. Each area Lily visits generally focuses on one new emotion which Lily has to grapple with in order to become a complete person. This is everything from love to sadness to anger and seeing it acted out by those she meets and becomes involved with is how she is forced to admit to these aspects of herself. Watching her growth from an innocent girl who does not understand what is going on in and around her into a developed person who strikes out to make her own future is one of the most satisfying parts of the game. Up on the surface, Elysia only meets the remnants left behind by New York’s people and these are the only proof left they existed, placing them firmly as part of the past. So as the accidentally stumbles on them she is forced to think about her own past and the trauma responsible for the journey into this ruined city. Her developed is not as dramatic as Lily’s but is no less moving to see her wrestle with her demons. Sona-Nyl is a character centric story where these two women unknowingly intertwine with each other’s paths towards their respective towers and it is one where the journey and the memories are far more important than the destination.

Even in ruins New York is quite a spectacle

Liar-Soft’s narrative style has never had the broad appeal of other studio’s due to their extensive use of various flowery language and playing with the story structure. Sona-Nyl makes no attempt to change this limited appeal with its use of repetition and an overall slow pacing to progression. This use of repetition manifests of multiple levels, there is the basic repeating of similar phrasing throughout the story, the inherent repetition of the odyssey style and the overall structure of each new area’s story being nearly identical to one another. All these aspects are cleverly used to misdirect the player and subvert proceedings in a way which makes clear what themes and ideas are important. However, there is denying the risk such repetition brings since not all players are going to appreciate the stylistic choice and may instead find it boring and lose interest in continuing to play. Not helping this issue is the slow pacing of the overall narrative since neither protagonist is in any particular hurry to get to their destination. The thoughtful and internal nature of its narrative make a slower pace the natural choice to give the player a chance to get inside the heads of its characters, but alongside the repetition it can come across as the game dragging its feet. If either of these two things sound like deal-breakers for you then Sona-Nyl may struggle to grab you.

Turing Into Metal – Characters

Aside from the excellent pairing of protagonists, the wider cast is an eclectic mix of personalities from all levels and aspects of New York. Each area has its own mini cast with their own stories and problems and a few overlapping characters who repeated appear. This gives these characters the freedom to focus on their respective themes and ideas rather than having to worry about how they fit into broader relationship dynamics beyond their area. Having each group be visually distinct from one another, such as one made up of various styles of catgirls or the lavish costumes of the broadway performers, allows for them to be immediately memorable and communicate the outline of their personalities which is critical due to their limited screen time. It is through their interactions with Lily that they act as a means to explore a specific element of their humanity and reach a resolution. Their relationship with Elysia is a little different since they never actually meet her and instead she get to know them through what they left behind. This approach offers a new angle on their lives and a space where things which they would want hidden or cannot properly expressed can be explored. Despite their dire circumstances, each and every one of them still holds on to who they were before the disaster and tries to make the most out of their new lives. This commonality between everyone of them is something Lily struggles to understand at the beginning and how it reflects upon her brings out the hope each of them hold.

The inhabitants of the underground all have wonderfully over the top clothes

Mushrooms and Ruins – Visual, Audio and Technical

Contrasting visuals is Sona-Nyl’s favourite tool and results in an experience with clear dividing lines and an immediately recognisable aesthetic identity. The steampunk ruins of surface New York are a landscape characterised by a wide use of greys and other dull colours with the occasional splattering of dark rain. Each new image of the city presents the desolation it has undergone and the fate of the many people who disappeared here in the disaster. Despite the dour mood there is an element of resilience and hope in the objects people have left behind and they have a slightly brighter colour palette. The result is a space which feels like the inhabitants just left for a while and will be back at any moment. In contrast to this ghost town, the underground is covered in a constant purple haze and around every corner are giant brightly coloured mushrooms. Its use of vivid yellows and reds gives the bustling locations an otherworldly personality as if its people do not belong. This oddness is extended to how people look from their metallic body parts to their larger than life clothing and each place has their own variation of this artistic direction in order to make the player understand immediately what to expect from it. These clashing visuals help push along the narrative as it bounces back and forth between the two as the looming Manhattan tower gets ever closer.

Which of these is incorrect?

For whatever reason Liar-Soft seems to have an obsession with introducing strange gimmick sections into their game to varying degrees success. Unfortunately Sona-Nyl’s version of this tendency, in the newspaper system, falls on the weaker end. In this system the player is given a series of newspaper cuttings and must identify which part of the text is incorrect. This might sound simple enough but there are several layers of frustration which make these sections less than pleasant. First of these being the absence of any instructions about what you are expected to do. The game just puts them in-front of the player and they have to figure out the system on their own. Of course the player will almost certainly fail which results in a bad end a lot later on to the point the player may not link the two together and understand what they did wrong. Secondly, if the player fails any of the newspaper sections they fail them all so the most effective way to deal with this issue is to save scum. Obviously save scumming is nothing new for visual novels, but here it is so focused into such a small space it becomes very noticeable especially since the rest of the game does not demand it. To cap all of these issues off is the fact that the correct answer to these newspaper sections is often obtuse meaning the player will fail regularly even when they do understand what they have to do. This attempt at a gimmick creates a series of frustrating moments in what is otherwise a smooth experience.

Conclusion

Navigating the strange dual worlds of New York is Sona-Nyl greatest achievement as it constantly pushes its vivid visuals and characters through an engaging framework of ideas. The odysseys of Lily and Elysia perfectly reflects their different personal journeys as they grapple with their past and future. A contrast of colours and visuals helps this along as the greys of the surface and the deep purples of the underground make it clear where the characters are and how they relate to their environments. Living under the purple sky are the various inhabitants of New York who showcase the identity of each area of the city and demonstrate to the Lily and Elysia what being human means to them. All this is only held back by the frustrating Newspaper sections and the acquired taste of Liar-Soft’s use of repetition and extensive internal dialogue. These failings are not enough to eclipse this brilliant story of two young women in the ruins of a once lively city.

Verdict –

An odyssey filled with colourful characters and memorable representations of steampunk New York which form a deeply personal look at fundamental aspects of the human condition. Weakened somewhat by an irritating gimmick and its unwillingness to compromise on its artistic vision.

Pros -

+ Lily and Elysia’s journeys delightfully engage with what it means to be human both in terms of what we leave behind and where we will go in the future.

+ The colourful cast perfectly reflect the core themes of each area of New York and their own tales of their ordinary lives.

+ Contrast between the unforgettable visuals of the surface and underground versions of New York are a constant feast for the eyes.