The graveyard shift at a dingy diner in San Francisco -- that's where MC's story begins. It's just another normal night, or at least it seems to be. 

...That is, until a certain mysterious customer stops by, bringing the dangerous attention of a few people with him. When it rains, it pours, and suddenly MC finds himself in the middle of a war he didn't even know existed... between vampires.

How does MC react to the dark, violent world that opens up before him? That's up to you!

GAME INFO

Name: Red Embrace

Developer: Argent Games

Date: February 16, 2018

Genre: BxB, Drama, Romance

(Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of this game for a review, but that doesn't in any way affect my rating. That said, as with all reviews, please take mine with a grain of salt as all of this relies mainly on my personal judgment.)

The game starts off with the main character, whose default name is Ash, coming in for work at a local diner. His boss, Troy greets him, and shortly after, a mysterious stranger shows up. Outside, he witnesses a shady dealing going on and decides to check it out, not knowing what he's getting into. Before he realizes it, he's already caught up in the middle of a war that he never should've even been involved in.


I found the basic premise to be quite interesting, even though it's something that has been used many times in all sorts of literature and media. Just take a look at Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series, which tells the story of a human girl that got in between a long-standing feud between, ironically, good vampires and vampires. That doesn't necessarily make it a weak point, however, and this game actually managed to make that somewhat oft-used plot feel quite new and exciting.

The writing was also pretty good, and there's a good number of choices littered throughout the game for players to be able to control the story to some extent.


The only thing that I can say I didn't like much about the script is how cheesy some of the dialogues were, which at times went overboard. It didn't happen often, but in the times that they did, I found myself sort of cringing inwardly. There's a personality meter embedded in the choices in Red Embrace, and the personality of the main character depends on that. I'm not sure if it's just because of the personality that I happened to obtain, but I guess I'm just not into protagonists who feel way too soft, at least for me.

Nervetheless, I did enjoy going through the game. Perhaps it helps that the characters are actually pretty believable and realistic, despite the fact that we're dealing with vampires here.

Dominic

I first went after Dominic, the mysterious guy at the diner. Right from the start, he's already intriguing as heck, but that's mostly because he really is meant to be a mystery. He's also a vampire, but his past was way sadder for me than the other guys.

When I first saw him at the diner, I thought he was the typical tsundere character, but as I played the game, I realized that he is a typical tsundere character. He seems to turn away at cheesy sweet moments, but he also has moments where he becomes quite aggressive. What a weird guy he is.

Although he may seem to have such a contrasting personality, I think he's really just a soft character. Ha! I knew that mysterious front was just a facade. Most mysterious guys in visual novels tend to turn out to be super softies or extremely shy characters, so there's no surprise here. I don't regret going for his route first, since I was absolutely squealing at the CGs.

Rex

Next, I tried to get Rex, the bad boy of the bunch. He's a rogue vampire, a rebel against the coven. Which is no surprise, considering that he only just recently turned into a vampire and hasn't fully accepted it yet, no matter how much he tries to deny it. He's pretty much the equivalent of your typical streetwise punk who pretends to be tough, and he acts and looks like one too, down to a T.

From the get-go, he already exudes an air of arrogance to him. And what do you know, he is one arrogant guy, extremely cocky and full of himself. He also tends to be a bit too rough and aggressive at times, but he can be such a soft sweetie once the two of you start getting to know each other better. My favorite line from him is this: "You say I'm crazy, but you've gotta be pretty crazy too, if you're striking around." Obviously, his humor is also on point, which is another plus.

And that's actually what I loved the most about him, because even though I hate to admit it, I have a thing for cocky guys with a great sense of humor and a soft side to boot. And I have to say, of all the three obtainables, Rex is honestly my favorite, both for MC and for myself. Hey, a girl can dream!

Isaac

The last obtainable guy is Isaac, the guy who was in a shady dealing outside of the diner where MC works. He's actually pretty high up on the ladder, with direct contact to Bishop, the leader of the vampire coven. And as a human, this makes his stand on this war the most complicated of them all.

I have to admit, I found him a bit unlikeable at the start, since he seemed like such a cunning fellow. He was also rather flirtatious, which I really don't appreciate, be it in real life or in games.

When I got to his route, however, I realized that he wasn't that bad, although he still seemed like the kind of person who would hide all sorts of secrets deep within. Much to my utmost irritation, I actually found him rather cute later on in the story. My opinion on Isaac matches the MC's perfectly: "I couldn't stand Isaac at first. I figured he was nothing more than a slimy businessman, out for his own profit and no one else's. But there's something about him, something I can't explain, that makes me want to stay by his side."

Oh, and I may or may not be a bit biased, but I also found Isaac's CGs to be some of the hottest ones in this game. Just an observation.

One of the very first things I noticed in this game is that the sprite art and the background art doesn't match at all. They're both pretty well done and polished to some degree, but they simply don't blend together well, at least in my opinion.


Art is subjective, but I actually really loved the art style here. The CGs are probably my favorite part of the whole game. I played through this game on auto-play, but I would pause on the CG scenes because they looked that good.

The GUI is nice and clean... and that's pretty much it. It was way too simple for me, and not in a good way. It also didn't feel that high-quality to me, at least compared to the other assets here. I honestly didn't like it very much, but it did match the vampiric theme of the game.


I found it strange that the text and the textbox were so big, at least compared to other games. Perhaps the devs were making up for lower resolution screens? I wish they had just made a different option for that though, if that was their goal.

The soundtracks used here weren't too outstanding for me, though I did like how powerful the piece for the fight scenes was. One other track that I liked was the one used for the 'sweet' or 'drama' scenes. It was pretty mellow, just like most piano pieces, and had a pretty bittersweet vibe to it. That was probably my favorite track throughout the whole game.

There were some sound effects in the background, such as cups being placed down on the table, people shuffling out of their seats, doors closing, etc. What I didn't like was how noticeable the looping was for some sounds, especially when there was no music in the scene. For example, in the diner scene where there was a sound effect of people murmuring and moving around the diner, there was literally a half-second delay before the sound looped again, which threw me off a bit since it was right in the first few minutes of the game. Once the music started, it was hardly noticeable.