July (Dreamcast, 1998)

Release date: Friday 27th November 1998

Platforms: Dreamcast

Published by: Fortyfive Co

Developed by: Fortyfive Co

Genres: Visual Novel

Story Drive📖 20/20
Accessibility🚪 20/20
Depth🤿 1/20
Challenge💀 1/20
Duration⌛ 10/20
Freedom🌎 6/20
Review Scores
3xB/A
Fouttaf Score
Dimension: 3
It's 1998 and Sega just released their newest system in Japan; the Dreamcast. July was one of its few launch titles, a visual novel with two main characters that are involved in the same intriguing plot. As usual with visual novels, their scope is limited to the story and the way it's presented to the player.
The Flair: B
Its interfaces, menus and dialogues may seem simple, but they're also pleasing to navigate thanks to the quality of the drawn characters and environments. We found the soundtrack really good too, with themes that successfully emphasize the mood of the particular moment in the story, especially moments of tension and intrigue. Apart from that, there are no animations or voice acting whatsoever, the game is just a sequence of texts and backgrounds with character drawings on top.
The Feel: /
As usual with visual novels, it's not feasible to rate any form of gameplay or mechanics.
The Fuel: A
Approaching the story with two such different characters - one who you know everything about pretty much from the very beginning of the game and another that gradually reveals his past and motivations - is a great foundation to make the spectator engaged in the short to mid term and it really works. The story starts out strong and features nice characters, and it keeps up the pace during pretty much halfway of the game, but sadly we found the conclusion too predictable and lacking of ideas, and quite below the the rest of the story's average quality. On the other hand, there's almost no story branching whatsoever. Obviously we didn't expect each decision to open a whole new alternate story, but there are really very few decisions that can actually impact what ends up happening. It's a nice detail that you can check every character you have encountered so far and on every chapter.
Decent
65
Classic Score
Conclusions
July is a decent visual novel that succeeds on delivering an intriguing story presented in a clever way, but ultimately underachieves due to its disappointing use of interactions with the player and an underwhelming conclusion to its well written story. Since the game was only released in Japanese, it may not really be worth the effort of translating every bit of dialogue in this case.
July
July (Dreamcast, 1998)
Badge Cabinet
Release date: Friday 27th November 1998
Platforms: Dreamcast
Published by: Fortyfive Co
Developed by: Fortyfive Co
Genres: Visual Novel
Trait Chart
Story Drive 📖 20/20
Accessibility 🚪 20/20
Depth 🤿 1/20
Challenge 💀 1/20
Duration ⌛ 10/20
Freedom 🌎 6/20
Review Scores
3xB/A
Fouttaf Score
Dimension: 3
It's 1998 and Sega just released their newest system in Japan; the Dreamcast. July was one of its few launch titles, a visual novel with two main characters that are involved in the same intriguing plot. As usual with visual novels, their scope is limited to the story and the way it's presented to the player.
The Flair: B
Its interfaces, menus and dialogues may seem simple, but they're also pleasing to navigate thanks to the quality of the drawn characters and environments. We found the soundtrack really good too, with themes that successfully emphasize the mood of the particular moment in the story, especially moments of tension and intrigue. Apart from that, there are no animations or voice acting whatsoever, the game is just a sequence of texts and backgrounds with character drawings on top.
The Feel: /
As usual with visual novels, it's not feasible to rate any form of gameplay or mechanics.
The Fuel: A
Approaching the story with two such different characters - one who you know everything about pretty much from the very beginning of the game and another that gradually reveals his past and motivations - is a great foundation to make the spectator engaged in the short to mid term and it really works. The story starts out strong and features nice characters, and it keeps up the pace during pretty much halfway of the game, but sadly we found the conclusion too predictable and lacking of ideas, and quite below the the rest of the story's average quality. On the other hand, there's almost no story branching whatsoever. Obviously we didn't expect each decision to open a whole new alternate story, but there are really very few decisions that can actually impact what ends up happening. It's a nice detail that you can check every character you have encountered so far and on every chapter.
Conclusions

July is a decent visual novel that succeeds on delivering an intriguing story presented in a clever way, but ultimately underachieves due to its disappointing use of interactions with the player and an underwhelming conclusion to its well written story. Since the game was only released in Japanese, it may not really be worth the effort of translating every bit of dialogue in this case.

Decent
65
Classic Score