Title: スカイコード
Developer: Mellow
Release Date: 31st May 2024
Age Rating: 18+
Length: ~15 Hours
Links: Official Website, VNDB
Following an accident one year ago, Yomiya Hashigo has struggled to attend school and frequently argues with his family. One fateful day he runs away from home and finds himself in a condemned office building.
On the building’s roof he meets her – a girl sitting staring at the sky, hand outstretched. However, the most unusual thing about her is that she has a single pure white wing sprouting from her back. It later transpires that this girl, aptly calling herself Tenshi, claims to be a fallen angel who is in search of her lost feathers in order to appease God and restore her other wing, thus allowing her to return to Heaven.
It also turns out that only people who have experienced strong negative emotions – such as feeling like they want to disappear or be erased – can see the feathers. And thus due to Hashigo’s unfortunate ability she asks him to help her out on her quest.
A fairytale-like story about an angel trying to guide lost souls, and a young man who himself is perhaps the most lost of all now unfolds.
Thoughts
Despite spanning an obscene number of companies, the only game I had played from the Mellow (formerly More) brand list was Sorakoi – a game that was 80% terrible yet 20% great, so I think you can understand why I didn’t rush to play anything else. That being said, May was a fairly quiet month this year and I have a real weakness for angellic heroines. Did Skychord live up to its fairly interesting premise?
I will say here that I wholeheartedly believe mental health is a topic that should be explored in fiction and, when handled well, can make for some compelling reading. Suicide & suicidal ideation in particular is one area in particular where there needs to be quite a bit of care to make the story emotive yet not going as far as romanticizing suicide. Sadly, the authors of Skychord have about as little finesse as a bull in a china shop. The game starts fine but by the end it feels like a trashy teen drama.
As mentioned, the game starts decently well and the twist in the common route is actually very unexpected and almost poignant – I felt the messaging here was okay but the game quickly goes downhill. While I don’t think mental health issues and suicide should be stigmatised, portraying suicide as almost a positive thing – in this game’s case using flowery language such as “escaping into the night” or “returning to the sky” and implying that by commiting suicide said characte is somehow freeing themselves or better off is not the narrative that should be pushed in my opinion. I know that eroge have the freedom to cover “taboo” topics and that is part of what makes them appealing but when the subject matter is one this serious there needs to be some consideration in the writing.
I also have problems with how religion is written into the game. I’m pretty sure the game uses Christianity for its religious themes but this goes against the game’s inclusion and glorification of suicide, which tends to be prohibited or at least heavily frowned upon in said religion. It also makes no sense for me that Tenshi claims to want to “Guide” the people who possess her feathers and yet she does nothing to help them, especially regarding their mental health. I mean there are other things that probably wouldn’t fly either in religious circles – such as an angel having pre-marital H, although those scenes just get worse in retrospect after finishing her route lmao.
Forgiveness or attonement is a major theme of this title and let’s just say that it wasn’t the protagonist who had the “right” to forgive and forget. Again, if going by the religious theme then no mere mortal should have the power to pass judgement on those who have sinned. And let’s be real the sin(s) in question are definitely beyond “oh they’re kind of a bad person” and straight to “this person is an actual criminal and deserves punishment”. The game treats Asuka fucking abhorrently in particular and I felt gross even going back to re-read some lines for this review.
Asuka deserves better!!!
The writing style of this game isn’t too bad. It has some parts where the writing feels interesting and as if trying to convey something but can be a bit pretentious. The super jumpy style of perspective changing also takes some getting used to.
Most of the characters are also okay. Soda/Yuki and Shinju/Shizuku were particularly memorable, and I actually thought Shizuku’s route was somewhat interesting.
If you’re here for Ame just be aware she doesn’t really get a route. More like a short ending, that you’d probably be happier skipping.
Whilst the artwork is decent, there’s not a huge number of SFW character CGs but there were loads of little background cut ins which was a nice touch. Some of the sprites looked a little stiff but nothing too major.
The one singular are where this game is obscenely good is in the sound department. The Op by Yumeno Yuki in particular is gorgeous but what really would you expect from her? There’s also 2 ending songs and an insert song. Of the three, I quite like the insert song “Cinderella”.
There is also a good amount of BGM tracks with decent variety. Most are somewhere between good and great. I particularly like “Ideal” and the instrumental arrangements of the vocal songs.
Conclusion
My Score: 3.5/10
Skychord is a difficult game to rate. You can see that the authors actually tried something a little different, a little more serious, and that deserves praise for effort. However, if you want to broach sensitive topics then you absolutely need the skill and/or care to do so without making a mockery or glorification of the subject matter which this game completely lacked. In short, the idea was fine, good even but the execution appalling.
Sadly, this did not really improve my opinion of the More/Mellow brand but I did buy some of their old games for 500 yen at some point so will play them eventually. If any are actually good please let me know!
I must say that I’ve had a bunch of underwhelming new releases in the past few months (maybe it’s just that nothing will compete with Unravel Trigger for me this year). Maybe I should be a bit more selective or is it time to spend more time perusing my backlog?
Thanks for reading!
Source
Shine