You wake up surrounded by freshly dead bodies, and their blood flows freely down your skin. But what happened to them? Did they kill one another? Did they kill themselves? Why? And most importantly…who are you? Sigh of the Abyss, developed and published by Rascal Devworks and published by Wings, is a dark fantasy visual novel. Set during the Renaissance, you play as an Envoy, a half-mortal half-monster born from a bloody ritual.
After you awaken, two women, Sylas and Maranè, come to your rescue. You know right away that you didn’t lose your memories—rather, you had no memories to lose. You were born the moment you opened your eyes, as an Envoy. As the two women take you to their safe house, you’re quick to learn that you have powers through body, mind, and soul. You are to bring the Darkest Hour forth and destroy the False Sun. Now all you have to do is figure out what that means. And thus, your story begins.
Let me start off by saying that this visual novel exceeded well beyond my expectations of length. It took me at least fifteen hours to get through one route, and I consider my reading speed above average. There is so much story in Sigh of the Abyss, and the content itself did not disappoint.
Sigh of the Abyss has a captivating beginning. While there is not much you know, you aren’t completely in the dark, either. You were born of a ritual, and now you have powers. Literally. You’re given seven skill points to allocate between physical prowess, shadow magic, and enthral mind. Were you given superhuman strength and agility? Are you able to manipulate the very shadows that roam the world? Or can you break so deep into the minds of others and mold them into your own personal puppet? It’s entirely up to you.
Eventually, you’ll be given choices where you can use these skills. They’ll be locked or unlocked based on how many skill points you allocated. Personally, I appreciate the lock feature. Instead of having to guess whether things will go wrong because you don’t have enough, you just won’t get to use that skill.
Going back to the smaller things, in the setting menu, you can toggle whether to show which dialogue options up a character’s approval or disapproval. There are romance choice toggles where you can choose between romancing men, women, both, or neither. Whatever is toggled off, that gender won’t flirt with you. I love these small things so much. I personally like to know what my dialogue choices are doing, and if someone wants to enjoy the story without the romance they are free to. That person will never be me, however, so I will be diving deeper into the romance later.
Though you can choose your name, you cannot choose your appearance or gender. You’ll be a beautiful woman throughout this playthrough—and I do mean beautiful. The art style in Sigh of the Abyss is painted in a Renaissance kind of way, which perfectly depicts the time period the game takes place in. The characters are all eye-catching and their slight change in movements when going through dialogue set the tone. Between in-depth descriptions, stunning backgrounds, and immersive sounds, it’s difficult to feel like you’re not there with the characters.
Like is true for every visual novel, there will be choices for you to make throughout your playthrough. Some of these choices are based on your humor, aka your personality. There are four different humors, and while I’m not sure the personality type affects anything other than how you respond, that’s not a bad thing. I’m not a fan of having a forced personality, so I appreciated this system. While a lot of the choices are smaller and don’t change much, they allow you to give yourself the kind of personality you want. Does deciding between holding the door open or going through it first change the outcome of the story? Well, no. But it’s still nice to have that choice. There are other non-personality choices that do matter, so keep that in mind while playing!
Now, onto my favorite part: the romances. In Sigh of the Abyss, there are five romance options for you to choose from—three men, and two women. Each love interest is beautiful with their own, distinct personality, and while I wanted to explore them all, I went with one of the women, Sylas. As I mentioned before, this game is lengthy, so I only got to play through one route. While I can’t speak on the others, the romance with Sylas was magnificent.
This game isn’t fully voice-acted, but the voice-acted scenes truly do shine. Sylas in particular gave such a memorable and emotional performance. Every emotion was present in her voice, from the anger to the heartache to the pure, unadulterated love.
At first, I worried that the togglable romance tokens I mentioned earlier weren’t working. It felt like I was getting close to Sylas and making her blush and flirting with her, but none of the options were labeled romantic. But then they slowly started to appear, and I came to appreciate that I couldn’t flirt with her right away. It made the romance and developing relationship feel more natural. I also love that as the main story progresses, after you’ve locked in your romance, others still comment on it. While my romance with Sylas developed quite smoothly, I do wish there was a way to track where you are with each character in terms of romance and approval. There were instances where I felt…pushed toward another character, romantically. Some dialogue options wouldn’t have the romantic heart next to them, yet when I clicked them, a tense, romantic description occurred right after. I had to go back a few times. It also felt a bit weird that I only spoke to a few people twice, yet the romance options still came off so strong. Apart from the romance aspect, I would have loved to see more in-depth friendship opportunities. The characters are amazingly written and complex, so it was a shame to not be able to hang around them more often.
Another thing to note is that the segue to the endings is quite simple–again, this is not necessarily a bad thing. You are warned that your choice will determine the ending, and each option is obvious. Still, I went with what I perceived to be the correct ending and was satisfied with how much was left. Lastly, I will say that sometimes during my playthrough, I felt that while I tried to stay on one path, my character would often go against that in her dialogue options. But it all still tied together nicely in the end.
Sigh of the Abyss is a visual novel I’d had my eye on for a long time, and finally getting my hands on it was well worth the wait. Its stunning visuals, emotional voice acting, unique plot, and unforgettable romance routes will have me picking it up again and again.
Inanna played Sigh of the Abyss on PC with a review code.
