Duskbound (Visual Novel)
Created by: nefferinthia
Genre: Horror/Otome
Duskbound has one of my favorite things which is when a yandere slowly grows more insane because he's in some sort of timeloop/ has to repeat things over and over again. The artwork and colors are really nice as well, fitting with the rather grey story that it's trying to tell. You can learn more about this game and other games at @nefgames.
The story starts out with the Pale One, who lives in a town in which it seems all of the people's life has been depleted, walking around like husks of what they once were. The pale one notices this but is unable to do anything, forced to live in this town day by day until she meets someone who seems to be the exception, having light in his eyes. Following this, she ends up going to where he lives, a giant manor where he invites her in.
While going on, the Pale One notices a bunch of portraits hanging on the hallways. If she asks about them, Vergilius will respond that they are all portraits of her. If she freaks out about it, she will try to get away, with Vergilius disappointed, believing that he's squandered this chance. He ends up knocking her out, until she wakes up strapped to a chair, with Vergilius painting a portrait of her.
If the Pale One goes along with it, Vergilius will end up bringing her to the living room and offering her tea. As they talk, she ends up confessing to him, to Vergilius's surprise. During this time, Vergilius reveals that he is indeed a vampire, and is overcome with his obsession for her, stating that he's extremely happy that she's confessed to him and that he's been waiting for this moment. He ends up biting the Pale One, however ends up turning into dust afterwards, leading to another loop in the cycle.
If she decides not to confess, she'll end up passing out and waking up chained inside of his room. Vergilius will continue to come into her room to ask her for her blood. If she asks why he doesn't just take it from her forcefully, Vergilius will explain more about the curse. He talks about how this entire town has been stuck in a timeloop, forced to live the same events over and over again. This has taken a toll on everyone in the town, leaving everyone but himself and the pale one in a husk like state, with The Pale One able to withstand it as she is pure of heart. He's not able to take her blood forcefully as when he tried it before, he still was not able to break the curse. The Pale One asks if instead she could drink his blood, thus leading to her becoming a vampire and being together.
If she doesn't ask and keeps on refusing, eventually, the Pale One will be able to kill Vergilius, thus letting her escape but also keeping her alone in this trapped town.
Once all endings are completed, the Pale One will end up remembering Vergilius and the other timelines. This will bring Vergilius a lot of joy as he is finally able to have companionship in this timeloop. Here, the pale one remembers her name (which the default is Mercy) and the two of them decide to venture out of town together to finally get revenge on the person who put them in this time loop in the first place.
Like I said before, I really love yandere stories that have time loops in them because you really get a sense of how they slowly spiral into madness having been forced to relive the same things over and over again as well as the tragedy of it all. The art style is very nice too, with more muted colors to not only show the kind of husks that the town as become but also the despair that Vergilus is feeling, not able to escape this loop. It's just overall really nice looking with the paler reds and darker blacks. I just like the way it looks.
I am kind of curious about the time loop though, Vergilius mentions that he was trapped here by another, but I'm not really sure what's preventing him (or even Mercy) from leaving the town. Supposedly, it's stated that it's dangerous to leave, however, I don't really see them ever trying or even any of the repercussions for it, especially since it seems like they leave the area pretty easily in the last ending. I'm also not sure what happens in the ending where Vergilius turns into dust though, since presumably he doesn't actually stay dead forever, more that in that time loop he is dead, and he comes back (at least from my interpretation) after the next day. Breaking the curse has to involve getting consent from Mercy or else something bad tends to happen and he can't lose control during it. Not sure why this is a specific thing, but it does prevent him from just forcing himself onto her over and over again during each time loop (though I imagine he does do this anyways). I'm not really expecting the game to answer all of these questions because it was just an otome jam game, but it might be something nice to expand on if this does get a sequel.
As for a yandere, Vergilius succumbs to basically going insane after going through the timeloops over and over again. Given that the only person he can interact with even remotely during this loop is Mercy, it only makes sense that he grows a really strong attachment to her, from painting her in various portraits to outright drugging her in some endings. Considering that the time loop always resets everything, Vergilius can basically do whatever he wants without consequence, whether that be drinking her blood, to drugging her to telling her what is going on, but I bet even that gets rather lonely at times, as he's the only one who will remember anything. As hard as he tries though, he went through a lot of failure when trying to get her to understand the curse, from having her run away, to having him drink her blood forcibly. Luckily at some point, Mercy does end up remembering things from her previous timeloops and the two do end up together to go fight off the one who caused this entire mess in the first place. A happy ending for the two, which is nice.
Overall, I think the game is pretty nice. I like the general art and atmosphere and it was pretty fun seeing Mercy and Vergilius interact with each other in this otherwise husk like world. I hope that we get to see more of what happens in these two's story.
