Ever Maiden ~Daraku no Sono no Otome-tachi~ Review & Guide
This time I’m reviewing something a little bit different than usual, Liar-soft's horror mystery yuri game, Ever Maiden. It recently got ported to the PS4 and Nintendo Switch, but I decided to play the PC version first. I’m going to avoid mentioning big spoilers, but I will summarize some things that happen in the first chapter!
The plot of the game focuses on the Puellarium, a school isolated from the outside world, protected by a dense fog and a forest of thorns. Many girls who study here have only one goal in mind, to become the ‘Ever Maiden’. What exactly the Ever Maiden is only gets explained later in the game, but it's known that the girl with the highest grades will eventually obtain this title. One day, one of the students find a mysterious girl sleeping in front of the school's gate who doesn’t remember where she came from. This girl is our protagonist, Alouette. Nobody from the outside world is supposed to know the exact location of the school. Who is this mysterious student?
To become a student here, one must possess the 'maiden aptitude', which at first seems to be the power to make flowers grow and bloom. Later in the game you learn that the students can create many other things with this power too and not just flowers (for example mannequins, clothes and even mechanical tools). The Puellarium is a very strict place and students can only create things that are within the school’s guidelines. Whenever something is created that doesn’t belong there, they don’t get punished but it needs to be destroyed immediately. There's also many other rules, like not touching each other, not going outside at night etc.
Alouette quickly gets used to these rules, but her curiousity sometimes causes trouble. After a series of strange dreams she accidentally breaks the curfew and discovers that the Puellarium's appearance changes at night. Crystals are scattered everywhere and the moment she touches them, she starts experiencing strange flashbacks, as if she has been to this school before. At night she also meets a mysterious student who calls herself Olor, who tells her about the school’s mysteries. Soon after Alouette starts going outside at night, she finds out that students can get ‘corrupted’ when their mental health declines. Once this corruption reaches a certain point, they transform and it’s not possible to return to their original form. Whenever this happens, Rook shows up to fight them. During daytime, Rook always pretends that anything that happens at night is just a dream, but Alouette knows the truth already. Corrupted students who they defeated are always found dead the next day. Other mysterious incidents also occur, like students suddenly losing their memories and strange shared dreams. Throughout the story, the main characters slowly discover the mysteries of the Puellarium.
This game is almost entirely linear and you only get some choices near the very end of the game. Occasionally, you’ll be able to select locations on a map, but the selected order doesn’t matter and you can access the next scene by visiting all locations. The pairings are also pre-determined, similar to the BL visual novel Uuultra C which I’ve also reviewed here. The only difference is that each pairing doesn’t have their own route, but most of them do have their own chapter in the main story. For example, after the introduction the first chapter mainly focuses on Macaw and Pavone, after that you learn about Robin and Canary and finally, Alouette and Rook. It's also possible for Alouette to end up with Averla if you pick the alternative ending, although it feels more like a ‘bad’ ending.
I couldn't really find a guide, but it was not difficult to obtain the endings because there’s only a few of them. You can see the choices/endings below, though beware of some vague spoilers!
Guide/choices
Choice 1: 彼女のために死ねるか否か (Die for her or don't)
頷く Nod > Averla ending
首を横に振る Shake your head > Continues Rook's ending
Choice 2: 最期の一言は (Your last words)
あなたを愛している I love you > Bad end
私は死んでいない I'm not dead yet > Continues Rook's ending
After that you can explore the locations on the map, but you only get a few turns. Make sure to visit the prayer hall (礼讚祈堂) first, which is where you'll find the next choice.
Choice 3: どこを調べるべきか (Where should I investigate?)
アドラーを調べる Examine Adler > Continues Rook's ending.
After that visit the sitting room (座学室) to unlock the prayer hall basement (礼讚祈堂地下). Make sure that you don't visit the clock tower (時計塔) without doing all of these things first, or you'll get a bad end. Running out of turns also gives you a bad ending because it forces you to go to the clock tower.
Impressions
I was surprised to see the whole game was just one linear story, but I thought it was a super interesting experience. This is actually the first yuri/girl’s love visual novel I’ve played, until now I never saw many people talk about them. This game’s only available in Japanese right now, but it also showed up in MangaGamer’s licensing survey (16th place), so I’m hoping it will get an English translation some day! I’m also a big fan of horror and tragic stories, so I really wanted to try it. Most of the romance in this game is a bit tragic because touching each other is not something the school allows, but the game does have a good ending, so don’t worry if tragic stories aren’t your thing. Ever Maiden is also advertised as a horror game, but I think it’s not necessarily a ‘scary’ game, it just gives you a feeling of uneasiness. At all times I felt like something was not right and that the school was hiding a big secret.
Every character is really unique and and they all have their own interesting personality. I personally liked the relationship between Robin and Canary. Robin spends a lot of her time in the library, so she knows quite some secrets about the school and wishes to escape some day. Canary seems like the type who obeys all the rules and is even instructed to tell Alouette of all of the school’s rules, but I really liked that she didn’t care about the rules if it meant helping Robin. By the way, I think it’s interesting that all of the characters are named after birds, maybe because they’re all like birds trapped in a cage (the school).
The art is something I can’t forget to mention either. The main artist is Ooishi Ryuuko, who's well known for some other visual novels like Shingakkou. Similar to Shingakkou, I think the art is very expressive and perfectly suits the theme of the game. The characters all wear the same school uniform, yet the colors and designs still make them look very unique. The flower motifs can also be found everywhere in the game, for example the main menu screen, the text box, background, clothes, CGs.... and so on. I also found it really interesting that whenever one of the characters was corrupted by the ‘evil’ seeds and transformed, they were usually surrounded by the flowers them or their partner loved the most. I think there’s a lot of symbolism I still have to look into, but for now I’m just going to look at the CGs once more and enjoy the art!
I do wish the ending was a little bit longer, because it mostly focuses on Rook and Alouette. It does answer all of the big questions, but I really want to learn more about the outside world... At some point most characters mentioned their hometown and family-dynamic and I just really want to know more...! The music is also really good, though there’s only a few tracks. I think some more variety would have been good, but that’s just a minor complaint.
