TRIGGER WARNING: This game features various types of abuse, suicidal themes, self-harm, religious extremism, and other potential triggers which are discussed in the review.
Iwakura Aria is the latest in a long line of visual novels from masters of the genre Mages. Published by PQube, this is a daring step in a new direction for Mages, diverging from major properties like the Science Adventure series and taking a more subtle approach to a game that’s part slice of life, part yuri, and part horror in a strange combination of all three.
Iwakura Aria focuses on Ichiko Kitagawa, an orphan given a position as a maid in the Iwakura household in the mid 1960s. Ichiko grew up abused by foster parents and has significant personal issues. However, she’s a naturally skilled artist and her skills manage to get her noticed by the Iwakura family, who offer to provide her with room and board as well as a wage in exchange for her services. Imagine going from abject poverty and regular degradation to a life of service to aristocracy in a place more beautiful than you’d ever been before.
This is a visual novel so we’re of course not going to give away all the details, but not everything is as it seems in the Iwakura household and Ichiko has definitely stepped deep into a situation she is not even remotely prepared for. Aria herself is weirdly petite and pale and pretty in an almost unearthly way to the point where Ichiko can barely handle being around her. As she slowly gets used to her duties, not every detail seems to add up in the right way and it becomes apparent that something a bit more sinister might be going on in the background. Ichiko is also changing emotionally, finding herself as the story progresses and these two areas start to combine and merge in unexpected (and a few fairly apparent) ways as things get stranger in the Iwakura household.
The gameplay for Iwakura Aria is fairly standard for a visual novel. We’ve reviewed other Mages games in the past including Chaos; Head Noah / Chaos;Child (review here) and Anonymous; Code (review here) from the Science Adventures series and the fairly recent horror title Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club (review here) and their approach to visual novel design is always crisp, clean, and with a solid GUI. Iwakura Aria is no exception, with a clear, easy to maneuver interface and simply systems for saving, loading, and checking dialogue history. Oddly, there’s no option for touch controls here, which would have been great for undocked play, but Mages is fairly inconsistent with touch integration.
In line with the clean simplicity of the interface is the clean simplicity of the game itself. Iwakura Aria isn’t a kinetic visual novel by any means, but unlike other VNs, the branching pathways are extremely apparent and it’s almost always clear which choices are the right or wrong ones and how that will fit within the storyline. You’ll also get to explore the house for optional detailed information and some mandatory asides as the schematics come up here and there, but it’s all scripted. There are only a handful of characters in the game and as a result, character development is deep and detailed. Knowing the nuances of Ichiko’s personality allow you to make choices either normal and sensible or based on her prior history and only one of those will move the game forward and not end up in one of alternate endings. In total there are 9 endings to the game depending on your choices including a true ending, and 6 unlockable side stories, as well as art. That’s a fair amount of content. The majority of the dialogue and content is benign, especially at the beginning, which is what makes the end portions of the game all the more disturbing.
It’s ridiculously easy to find most of the endings however, based on clear shift points in the dialogue. That’s a shame, because Mages has previously made things a bit more challenging and this ease of navigation, even with no branch map, means that you know that things are really only going one way. That makes the true path of the game feel more like a kinetic approach to VN design than it should. That’s kind of ok though, because Iwakura Aria focuses heavily on subtlety, atmosphere, and abrupt shifts between the extreme and the mundane in order to shock the player. While Ichiko may be hard to identify with for some, her situation is surprisingly compelling, at least once things get going.
The gameplay is quite slow for the first couple of chapters and there’s a creeping existential dread lurking behind the subtle eye movements and clever dialogue of the characters. You know there’s something you should be catching but there just aren’t enough clues to really let you in on the secrets. All the while, we get to experience Ichiko’s innermost thoughts and innocent confusion as she navigates an impossibly strange situation with a fair degree of success. Her inner monologue builds Ichiko into a flawed but fascinating character who feels undeniably human. That’s some solid writing from Mages pulling heavy duty for a game that otherwise might bore you to tears (and still might for some). After all, this is a story about a maid who’s finding out what’s going on in the house and there’s a lot of mundane cleaning and other activities that drag out the storyline. When things really get going though, they’re so much more disturbing than you might expect that it’s honestly a bit hard to process. That trigger warning up above definitely isn’t for show and you will absolutely see suicide, abuse, and torture casually tossed about as you progress in the game.
That game wouldn’t have the strong impact it has later on without some incredibly design work though. The visual design in Iwakura Aria is unique and creepy. Aria is oddly inhuman looking with gigantic eyes and an oddly small body, and though you rarely see Ichiko, she’s a strange, mousy looking girl with an unsure half-smile that makes you wonder what she’s seeing that no one else is. She’s also an artist and the game uses her talent for some of the more interesting and dramatic visuals. Ichiko has a sketchbook where she sketches various objects and scenes of interest. You don’t control it yourself but you can look at it when you want. Most of the scenes of the game are static backgrounds with characters popping up in the scenes some of the time and featuring limited eye movements and well-synced mouth movements. However, occasionally the art style shifts to hand drawn black and white pencil art with a periodic splash of…red. The transitions from one art style to another and the way characters move in and out from the field of view create both drama and a sense of motion that helps fully immerse players in the story and adds an additional layer of fear sometimes as well.
But subtle and creative visual design isn’t the only thing Iwakura Aria has going for it. The audio design is first-rate too, with all dialogue voiced in Japanese and some outstanding voice acting. There are lots of subtle sound effects worked into the game as well, tiny ticks and noises and fully realized sounds that you may not want to here once in a while. These impressive sound effects complement the voice work extremely well, creating a much more realistic story that becomes more and more surreal due to its grounding in everyday sounds. The soundtrack for the game is also quite good, though the slow, relaxing music can occasionally relax you a bit too much and there may have been the occasional doze off during the early game thanks to a number of very well-made compositions.
Of course, every game has a few flaws. First and foremost among these for Iwakura Aria is that it’s a slow burn at the start. While there are a few odd undercurrents, there’s a strong sense of the mundane permeating everything for the first chapter or two and as a result, the pacing is a lot slower than it could be, which might be a turn-off for some players. Horror mixed with more than a smidge of romance isn’t everyone’s cup of tea either, so be prepared for a lot of heavy feelings on occasion throughout the game. Speaking of feelings, this is also a game with some themes so disturbing that they may make some players quite uncomfortable, especially when they start getting mixed in with religion as well. This is a very dark game, even though it doesn’t seem like it for the first few hours. Because it takes a long time to get to the stronger content, players that have triggers might not be expecting the shift in tone. Finally, the fairly linear quality of the main story doesn’t leave a lot of choice for players and while you’re given options, it’s pretty clear where things are going by Chapter 3 or so and it doesn’t feel like alternate route choices have the substance they should.
With all that in mind, Iwakura Aria is a unique offering from one of the best VN developers in the business. A new type of horror novel that feels almost Victorian even though it isn’t, some surprisingly complex character development, and some rather extreme scenarios make this an unexpectedly exciting game for an adventure that starts out with housecleaning. At $40 it’s a reasonably priced VN as well, especially for the premium quality of the audio, visuals and writing and there are plenty of hours of gameplay here, especially with the detailed descriptions, complex conversations and side stories of the game. Whether it’s on the go or at home, you’re going to want to work your way through the strange and flawed characters of Iwakura Aria in order to find out what’s really going on. As your horror grows, it’s harder and harder to turn away from this slow-paced game that only becomes more terribly enticing as you play. Be ready when Iwakura Aria releases this week on August 14th!
This review is based on a digital copy of Iwakura Aria provided by the publisher. It was played on a Nintendo Switch in both docked and undocked modes and played equally well in both. Iwakura Aria is also available for PC on Steam.
Nate Van Lindt has been a gamer since the days of yore (aka Commodore 64), and has played a bit of virtually everything out there. He's also an avid comic book collector, both vintage and current, and reads a fair amount of sci-fi and fantasy. On top of that, he watches a fair number of movies and TV shows as well. Oh, and he has a family, a full-time job, and lives somewhere in the urban wilds of Southwestern Ontario, Canada, foraging for old video cables and forgotten game soundtracks.