The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood

Genre: Graphic Adventure / Visual Novel

Players: 1

.

Review:

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is a game with Graphic Adventure and Visual Novel elements released on PC and Nintendo Switch in 2023. This game puts players in the role of Fortuna, an immortal witch exiled by her coven to a small house on a rock suspended in space, feared for her skills divining the future with a deck of cards. After two hundred years of loneliness and despair, Fortuna makes a forbidden pact with a giant demon, a behemoth named Abramar, to free her from her plight. Shortly afterwards, witches from her coven once again start to visit her, rekindling old friendships and seeking Fortuna’s help with their problems.

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood has players making choices not only through conversation trees, but also through divination card readings. Players will actually be crafting their own custom deck of cards, and with each question they ask the deck, the card they draw to answer that question can be read multiple ways. Which of these readings you choose is entirely up to you, but Fortuna has a history of being extraordinarily accurate in these readings, so each of these choices carries a great deal of weight within the game.

Through the player’s choices both in and out of card readings, the player has what appears to be a profound impact on the game’s story, which follows not only the precarious situation Fortuna is in, but also explores the conflicts within her coven, and before long a contentious election where Fortuna may well play a role as a kingmaker of sorts (witchmaker?), or even possibly try to seize power for herself.

The story in Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood contends with large, heavy topics, such as justice and security, politics and friendship, acceptance and self-determination, immortality, life, love… yet despite the highly-philosophical nature of this game’s story, it is told in a deeply-personal, human manner. Each of the game’s characters have depth and complexity, their own dreams and desires. Even the behemoth Abramar, Fortuna’s most consistent companion through the game’s story, manages to be extremely personable and empathetic while still representing an ominous threat that makes it difficult to completely trust him.

The presentation here is very good, making use of 2D pixel art visuals with some really nice character art, and with multiple references to other games in a few of the elements players can use to craft the cards. This is backed by a great, subdued synthesized soundtrack with songs like Fortuna, The Arbiter, The Pithweaver, The Architect, The Peppermancer, The Sister, The Mentor, Illusion. This music does a wonderful job accentuating this game’s highly-contemplative and emotional plot.

There is so much I absolutely love about this game, but the one complaint I have about it actually pertains to the divination cards themselves – the game isn’t exactly clear about the mechanics at play when creating them, or even why you would want to expand your deck any more than necessary. There’s also an energy point system used for crafting these cards, as well as other things in the game, and none of this feels properly explained. I suppose this is in keeping with the game’s core themes involving meddling in cosmic powers you may not fully understand, but the lack of transparency here is frustrating all the same.

Still, overall I found this game to be an absolute delight, and one of the best surprises I’ve encountered this year. The story, characters, and writing here are all absolutely wonderful, crafting a thoughtful and emotional tale that does a great job of ensuring that you feel like you’re influencing this plot through your choices. While I may quibble over the lack of explanation of some of this game’s mechanics, overall this is a magnificent game that I strongly recommend.

tl;dr – The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is a game with Graphic Adventure and Visual Novel elements that puts players in the role of an exiled witch who makes a forbidden deal with a powerful and ominous entity, starting a chain of events that has her reading cards to foretell the future for others in her coven during a highly contentious time This game’s story, characters, and soundtrack are all excellent, and while the card creation elements are poorly-explained, this is a minor complaint about a game that not only weaves a thoughtful and emotional story, but makes you the one weaving much of that story. I cannot recommend this enough.

Grade: A-

.

This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2023 Game Awards:

Winner:

Best Graphic Adventure / Visual Novel – In a genre that values stories, no other game had me so absolutely hooked with its amazing story with big ideas and down-to earth characters and emotions. But what puts this game above and beyond is the way that players use the game’s central mechanic of divination card reading to influence the story in ways that make the player feel like they are truly guiding the tale down their own unique path through their choices. When it comes to Graphic Adventure and Visual Novel games, a well-told story you feel like you’re playing an active part in is pretty much the ideal every game in this genre should be aiming for.

Best Story – This game deals with some extremely large themes, exploring the meaning of existence, life, power, and so much more, yet it does this on a very personable, human level, with characters we care about. What’s more, this game puts the story in our own hands, letting our interpretation of the divination cards we read decide the direction of the story. While this year has featured some excellent stories, none felt as well-told, as important, and as tied to the gameplay as the story in The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood.

Runner-Up: Game of the Year, Best Card Game, Most Original, The “Wow, this game was way better than I expected!” Award, Best New Character (Abramar)

.

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Ben, Andy Miller, Exlene, Homer Simpin, Johannes, Francis Obst, Gabriel Coronado-Medina, Ilya Zverev, Jared Wark, Kristoffer Wulff, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}