This review will cover both the first and second parts released of Schwarzesmarken (those being “Bloodstained Crest” and “Martyrs”).
**This story is set in Europe 18 years before the events of Muv-Luv Alternative. The first of the two-part game that adapts the Schwarzesmarken novels covers up to the events of Operation Neptune. While the second game, “Martyrs”, contains the events of the rest of the Schwarzesmarken novels, as well as new endings for each heroine.
Few visual novels have managed to keep me on the edge of my seat, anxious for what happens next, like Schwarzesmarken has.
I stumbled with this series of games under the recommendation of a friend of mine who is obsessed with the Muv Luv Universe. For context, I’m someone who prior to reading SM (short for Schwarzesmarken) didn’t give a read or had a clue about neither Muv Luv Alternative, or basically anything related to the universe the setting is supposed to happen in. So yeah, I came in to this story completely blind and clueless about the bigger picture. Despite this, the game does a good job introducing the setting with a 15-minute video explaining the circumstances. For those who are acquainted with the setting of Muv Luv prior to reading this, they’d probably find the video meaningless and repetitive, but as someone new to the franchise, I found it to be quite helpful, and eased me into the story relatively well.
Anyways, leaving the introduction aside, the story is seen from the POV of our protagonist, called Theodor. Theodor is a pilot belonging to the 666th Tactical Surface Fighter (TSF) Squadron, codename “Schwarzesmarken.” He believes in neither his own country nor its people, choosing to use his skills in order to stay alive as long as he can. He has a good reason to be like this: he was caught along with his adoptive family (insert orphan memes) trying to escape East Germany, and he believes all were killed but him. What we initially know is that he was brutally tortured, as well as heavily interrogated, making him a character who prioritizes survival over helping others, and someone who distrusts absolutely everyone.
I find Theodor, in comparison to other Muv-Luv-related MCs (now that I’ve read Alternative and the rest of the games) on the edgy side sometimes: In the first half of the game he is obsessed with self-preservation, to the point of repetitiveness, but under the circumstances he finds himself at, it’s quite understandable why he’d feel this way.
The Squadron he belongs to, the 666th, has a very good and bad reputation at the same time: Not only in East Germany, but also internationally. They have the highest BETA kill count in Europe, as well as always being able to accomplish missions, however, this is done so in exchange of a terrible cost, which is forsaking allies and ignoring any distress signal calls, which normally other TSF squadrons would respond to. Due to this, it is mentioned at some point in the game that the pilot survival rate doesn’t exceed the year after enrolling into the squadron, mainly because the missions the 666th executes mostly consist of hit and runs within BETA enemy lines (better known in-game as “Laserjagds”), all to destroy “Laser-classes,” which are dangerous to aerial units, in order to allow bombardments to occur and wipe BETA invasions into German territory. To give you an idea, you basically have to penetrate a BETA cluster, be surrounded by a bunch of those fuckers, kill the snipers, and then retreat before you get carpet-bombed. Quite metal, if you ask me.
I won’t delve too much into detail, because I’d probably write a bible, so I’ll talk about more specific aspects of the story, the UI, the characters, the music, etc…
First of all, I want to point out that these Visual Novels (both Bloodstained Crest and Martyrs) are a direct adaptation of the original Light Novels written by Hiroki Uchida, released chapter by chapter since 2011 in a JP magazine on a monthly basis, and later compiled into novel volumes by Kadokawa back in 2014. The novels cover the story with way more details than the games, and this is due to the fact that the visual novel allows you to choose 3 different endings depending on the girl you choose to follow, those being Irisdina, Katia, and Lise. The novels cover Katia’s story, which is considered to be the canon route, and they do so in greater detail than the games, which is one of the many points of criticism from Japanese fans when the game was launched back in the day. Personally, while I do agree that the visual novels were developed with a very big focus and inspiration from the anime, I find that the extra endings were a nice touch, especially Irisdina’s, which I consider to be wildly superior to Katia’s.
It’s also important to note that the visual novel reuses a LOT of content from the novels. Many of its CGs are directly extracted from the books, although they made an effort to upscale them, color them, and sometimes give them some cool effects, which is appreciated (Update: appareently the images were already colored from the magazine version, so they were simply upscaled). I personally don’t care too much about companies reusing assets like this, but I understand why this could be a point of contention for some people.
I’m going off on a tangent right now, but I want to stress that the story is super unique considering the universe the setting is placed in, and the general track record of Muv Luv games as a whole. This is the only Muv Luv verse game I’ve read so far that has a very grimdark setting, to the point where even the ending is not exactly a happy one (something I quite appreciate, not a lot of writers have the guts to write bad endings). Alternative is probably close to this experience, but SM takes it to the next level. My personal recomendation is to never get attached to any characters if you can (save for the MC because plot armor). This is also the only Muv Luv-verse title I’ve read so far where I felt like the BETA aren’t the only threat, but that humanity also poses a threat to itself (yes, I didn’t feel this same thing in TDA/TE, for example).
There’s also a common brought-up complaint from JP fans, which is the briefing sessions: While I agree that there’s a lack of images and animations in those, I wasn’t annoyed by the info dumps at all. I am more of a novel reader, so I didn’t mind reading all of that text. I can understand why someone who’s more used to visual novels wouldn’t enjoy these segments too much, though.
One thing I will give this game major flac for, after reading its side content, is that although the story can be appreciated as it is, it is a way, WAY better experience if you have read the novels/extra content prior, as the game sometimes ASSUMES you know context from the novels (which in a way I consider to be a failure in scripting).
Moving on to the characters, we have a very diverse cast that make brief or more elongated appearances throughout the novel. I appreciated the shared sense of overall dread, especially considering they all live in a surveillance state, but each had their own distinct personalities. I also appreciated the expanded male presence, which is not a common thing in visual novels. The girls are obviously the main highlight in general, but it’s always appreciated to have male characters besides the MC for once.
As for the most important characters: Irisdina, Lise, Katia, and Gretel are the ones you should be looking out for. To not give too many spoilers, Gretel is supposed to appear in future sequels of Alternative (Resonative and Integrate), but these games aren’t out just yet, so we’ll have to see what kind of role she and other reappearing characters (like Theodor, who happens to make a very brief cameo in Teito Moyu) will perform later down the line.
Either way, while all the girls have strong personalities and charm to them, the one I’ll probably give the most criticism in this entry is Katia, followed by Lise (even though Lise is my absolute favourite of them all). Katia is the embodiment of hope, and I felt that throughout the story she suffered severe plot armor issues, which is why I found her death in Irisdina’s route to possibly be the most impacting of them all, making her someone I appreciated way more once that happened (funnily enough, only when she dies she becomes one of the best characters to me). Still, I feel like she should’ve 100% died in the main route, because characters like her rarely, if ever, survive in stories and settings like this one. Lise’s main issue is that she’s completely obsessed with her step brother, and I feel like they kind of botched her route quite hard (the ending sucks). However, she is definitely one of the most interest characters in the cast, and I’d argue she’s the main antagonist of the series, leaving aside the obvious big bads. Irisdina is okay, not much to comment about her. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a good character, but I feel like she’s lacking compared to other personalities in the game.
Speaking of villains: though there’s a bunch of them in this story (which is good, because having a “big bad” as the only villain in a story tends to be underwhelming) the ones that matter are Axmann, Beatrix, and Eric. Those 3 belong to the Stasi, which is the opposing faction to the NVA (MC’s and 666th’s affiliated faction, the Eastern German Army) who wants to rule East Germany. I appreciated how they didn’t pull stops when it came to their sadistic ruthlessness, though I would’ve appreciated it if they added some actual honeypot / gorey scenes like they did in the novels (which explain these with great and gruesome detail, might I add). An interesting point to mention is that Axmann’s age is changed compared to the novels. In the games he has to be in his late twenties, early thirties, while in the novels Axmann is a 50-something year old dude. I kind of understand why this happened, as they wanted to make a young Axmann for the anime and the game since it is more common to have that “young ambitious person” trait-like character as an antagonist, but in my opinion I felt like the Axmann from the novels was way more terrifying and imposing. I must say, though, the voice actor for this character absolutely nails it in the game, and I ended up finding a new appreciation for his reimagination. In fact, I could probably apply this to everyone in the cast. The voices in this entry were absolutely marvelous and blew my expectations away.
It’s important to mention that the protagonist is partially voiced, only in very important scenes, or battle scenes. I would’ve liked a full-voiced MC, but this was incredibly refreshing to see, and I appreciated this a lot!
Now, let’s jump to the UI… I gave this visual novel a 10, but I based this rating on story and characters, because that score would’ve definitely gone down if I had to factor the UI into the equation. To put it shortly: it’s terrible. The customization options suck (especially the sound options, which ruin the good quality of the overall audio the game has), and there’s a severe lack of customizable aspects. The auto mode is pretty much broken, and the skip option is… not well developed, in my opinion. They cherry-picked the CGs of the novel you can access after you complete the game. Why?
I didn’t like how the soundtrack isn’t accessible after you complete the game either. I get that they do it for sales, but come on, now.
Speaking of the soundtrack, absolutely marvelous. It reminded me a lot of another soundtrack from a WWII documentary I watched ages ago, called “Apocalypse WW2,” the soundtrack conceived by Kenji Kawai. It definitely helped the setting a lot, and I could tell that whoever composed it (update: Evan Call, the same guy who worked on other age-related entries) was definitely a fan of the series and knew what he was doing.
Okay, I’m pretty sure I already wrote quite a bit, so I’ll leave the review here. Maybe I’ll write something more elongated later down the line, but my point has been made across.
If you’re looking for a story with not only the classic Muv Luv mecha vs BETA stuff, but also something with more intense plotline besides the battles, and Communism memes, this is it.
As complicated political intrigues take place beneath the shadow of the BETA advance, is the real foe alien, or man?
PS: I write this excerpt as I paste this review I made ages ago (badum tssss) on vndb. I actually had the chance to give the original game script the writers in Age had back in the day a look, and I must say that I am VERY disappointed by how much content was cut from the original release. Many maps that were in the books don’t appear, many scenes that were meant to be animated are just black backgrounds, many scenes straight out removed from the game. Overall, something that could’ve been an even better experienced was ruined by the lack of funds. Incredible.
Anyways, see you another day with a different game review. I actually have the Tsuriotsu games queued up, so might as well.
Bee
Translation is Tiring 
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