Without a Voice

Genre: Visual Novel

Players: 1

.

Review:

Without a Voice, released in 2020 on PC and ported in 2025 to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, is a Visual Novel following Cassidy, a princess in exile, living alone in a cottage in the woods, who befriends a mysterious woman she meets in the forest named Elowen after years of isolation. Through their time together, and the choices you make, you’ll determine the path their friendship takes, with multiple potential endings.

I like both of these characters, though at the same time their choices frustrate me sometimes, especially in light of things you learn later in the story. Cassidy is bubbly and naive, but oddly bounces back and forth between humble and haughty. Meanwhile, Elowen is sincere and sometimes blunt and even callous, but also evasive when it comes to talking about herself.

The part of this story that most needs to work, the chemistry between these two characters, works… though depending on your choices it can take odd and unexpected turns. And the quality of the writing for the dialogue is overall superb. However, other elements of the story are less successful – I would really have preferred more time spent developing these characters, exploring Cassidy’s backstory, and taking more time with the ending, which has some poorly-explained elements to it.

At the very least, the presentation here is gorgeous, with painterly backgrounds, beautiful hand-drawn artwork for the characters, lovely instrumental music, and superb voice acting, especially for Elowen. There is one issue with the sound mixing though, with the music sometimes drowning out the voice acting.

One run through this game’s story takes under an hour, which is just fine for a game that costs $5, and you’ll likely want to play through a few times to see multiple endings, possibly with a walkthrough guide to assist in choosing the right options to see each ending. This seems especially necessary, since the game doesn’t mark options you’ve selected in previous playthroughs, nor does it distinguish between dialogue you have and haven’t seen when skipping dialogue.

Overall, I liked my time with Without a Voice, but I definitely feel like it could have used more polish, both in its story and its gameplay. Despite the flaws, I really liked these characters, and wish that their story had been better fleshed-out. But for only $5, I think what’s here is worth a look if the topic matter and art style interest you.

tl;dr – Without a Voice is a Visual Novel following the story of an exiled princess who meets a mysterious young woman after years of isolation. The presentation here is lovely, and the characters are likable, though some story choices seem odd, and the game overall feels like it could have used more polish. Still, for only $5, I think this is worth a look.

Grade: B-

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

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