Suddenly an Ogre

Genre: Visual Novel

Players: 1

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Review:

Suddenly an Ogre, released on Nintendo Switch in 2024, is a Visual Novel that takes the form of a “Choose Your Own Adventure”-style story. Set in what appears to be a medieval fantasy setting, the player takes the role of an unnamed young man who must rush back home to give his dying unnamed sister a healing potion before it’s too late, with his journey made more complicated due to an encounter with an ogre along the way.

Yeah, you’ve probably already seen one of the major issues this game has – everything is so generic that it’s difficult to feel any attachment to what’s going on here. You don’t get a strong feel for your character, or the sister you’re saving, or the world this takes place in. At the very least you get some personality and a bit of lore for the ogre, depending on the story path you take, and maybe a bit of lore about this world’s afterlife, but a bit of info on the antagonist and a few fantastical elements can’t be the only noteworthy things present if you want to craft a good story.

And yes, this is only a $2 game, and one can’t exactly expect Shakespeare at that price, but I’ve certainly read short stories that had characters you could invest yourself in. I’ve written a few, myself! So it’s disappointing that no matter which story path I took in this game (completing multiple paths within a span of a few minutes), I felt absolutely nothing from this game’s story.

What’s even more disappointing is that if this one element were workshopped some, I might be singing a different tune right now. While the story itself lacks character, the writing quality is decent. There are plenty of branching points to make for different story paths. The art style here is also good, using a framing device of a 3D study with a book as its centerpiece, and the book’s contents containing the majority of the gameplay, side-by-side hand-drawn sketches depicting the story as you go through it.

I suppose I could complain about the sound – no matter what you’re doing in the story, it’s backed by somber piano music, which doesn’t really fit the more actiony scenes that story paths can take. And while the written story is narrated here, that narration is clearly delivered by an AI-generated voice, only adding to the game’s detached lack of personality. However, this last element I can forgive a bit more due to the game’s small price tag, as hiring a voice actor would just inflate the cost, and I suppose having a voice here is preferable to not having one.

In the end, I can’t really recommend Suddenly an Ogre. It has all the right elements to be a decent little “Choose Your Own Adventure”-style Visual Novel, but falls short when it comes to giving the game any sort of character, meaning that after you spend ten minutes or so and reach multiple endings in the game, you’ll likely feel no desire to continue, and feel like you’ve gotten almost nothing out of the experience. I suggest that you instead save your $2 for a better Visual Novel.

tl;dr – Suddenly an Ogre is a Visual Novel where players take the role of a young man trying to rush back to his dying sister with a healing potion, only to encounter an ogre on the way. The presentation and quality of writing is good here, but the story has no personality, leaving little impact after you reach multiple endings within the span of just a few minutes. Save your money for a better game.

Grade: C-

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