For those who are not familiar with the title, fault is a series of visual novels set in a world where fantasy and science have coalesced. The fault series is most noted for its methodical narratives that focus on human drama set upon a backdrop that borrows queues from both fantasy and science fiction. It has also been described as episodic in story structure, where each new part released tells a segment of an overarching plot revolving around run-away princess Selphine Rughzenhaide and her Guardian Ritona Reighnvhasta.
While this is the case for the mainline titles of fault, which has three games under its belt, the developers have also released spin-off titles that act effectively as prequels to the main story. Set before the beginning events of the first title, where in which the kingdom is attacked by foreign forces, fault – StP – LIGHTKRAVTE brings a new perspective to players who have experienced the ongoing series.
After multiple delays, fault Silence the Pedant will feature a whole prequel arc in itself, while the release of fault – StP – LIGHTKRAVTE strikes fans as a title that was put out as a small omnibus story that would preview what’s to come, especially in our current year, now that the anticipated prequel game has been in development for seven years.
This all comes with an air of confusion, as the developers currently have two games on their hands. One is Silence the Pedant, and the other is milestone 2 side below. While series fans have a little more waiting to see the continuation of the main story, fault – StP – LIGHTKRAVTE is another facet in the many stories told within the world of fault.
*This review will be going off the Nintendo Switch version of the game. Fault – StP-LIGHTKRAVTE is currently available on PC via Steam and Nintendo Switch.
▍A Glimpse into Life inside Rughzenhaide
Rather than focusing on the would-be duo protagonists of the mainline series, Lightkravte follows the story of a young man named Khaji Oberg. A son to a prestigious fruit farmer, Khaji aspires one day to be a painter despite himself living in a society where mana-enhanced technologies have enriched the lives of all.
Kind, timid, and somewhat bland at face value, Khaji can also be described as a bit of a sleaze-ball in how he ogles beautiful women as a means to improve his artistic skills to become a painter. He even begins the game imagining a bunch of ladies in his mind while helping out on the farm. Despite having the privilege of still being able to inherit the family’s fruit farming enterprise, Khaji seems compelled and almost conceited in his goals to “paint women and capture their beauty”.
Though starting off on a slightly negative impression, you quickly learn of the predicament our unremarkable protagonist finds themselves in. Living with his widowed father, Khaji faces the awkward decision making of declining to continue his family’s business as well as not being able to deliver any good prospects of succeeding in his own ambitions.
Through two separate real talks with his disappointed yet surprisingly supportive father, as well as his not-so-subtle crush and royalty friend Flora Serenhaide, Khaji comes to realize that he has hit a wall in his aspiration to become an artist for life.
Try as he might, he finds himself not being able to get the approval he so needs to set his life choices straight. Throwing the woe-is-me attitude around and seemingly too naive to find other ways of solving his own problems; Khaji is seen taking the support he gets from his surroundings for granted many times. Khaji’s character flaws can be somewhat aggravating to some viewers, but it is in his flaws that the game’s theme expands on.
The world of Rughzenhaide has been something that was mostly inferred or mentioned secondhandedly by other characters in the previous games. Due to the nature of the narrative of the mainline titles, the kingdom in which Selphine and Ritona first begin their story in Fault Milestone One has been a place of intrigue for series fans. Switching up the protagonist to an everyday man like Khaji allows for Lightkravte’s plot to be somewhat self-contained. The smaller-scoped plot also helps the writers to go into the minutiae of how the world operates.
▍A Plot full of Foreshadowing
While not going into spoiler territory, anyone experiencing Lightkravte must also understand its nature as being a prequel story. In layman’s terms, this means that some parts of the story build up to would-be plot points that seem like they don’t fit the confines of the immediate narrative revolving around our protagonist. This could also be argued as a necessary component of the overarching story of fault as a whole, where the story requires points of interest to continue on to its next title.
A bigger emphasis on world-building, along with character establishment through narration, does also mean that the game’s actual plot has a relatively slow start. This comes off as something the writers deemed to be a necessity, due to how much the protagonists’ own problems are ingrained in the world settings.
So with all the worldbuilding associated with the writing, it becomes slightly frustrating when most of the political drama and magical conflicts in Lightkravte mostly bounce off of the confines of Khaji’s story. Despite the plot’s insistence on a conspiracy-like underplot swirling beneath the surface, we, as the reader, won’t get to see the bigger picture due to who Khaji is in the end. A newly introduced average joe, trying to get his life together.
▍Encyclopedia Entries that Clear up the Lingos
The introductory section of Lightkravte also previews the significantly nuanced use of original vocabularies that peppers the script. From location names, and greeting phrases to things like indigenous creatures, the encyclopedia is where all is explained. The writing in itself does a lot of expositions through narrations (and sometimes Khaji’s own thoughts) to cue in on terminologies that make comprehension a tad easier to understand what’s going on in the story. They even went the extra mile in doing so, as for most instances where an applicable term is used in a dialogue, simply pressing the Y button pulls up the corresponding encyclopedia page explaining the terms accordingly.
While Lightkravte lavishly and rather verbosely explains the technicality of each lingo, players may quite easily be carried away by the sheer prominence at which these lore and world-building come up to explain themselves throughout the story. These terms are, for the most part, integral to understanding the plot, but some of the entries in the glossary boil down to trivial facts that don’t materialize or hold significance to Khaji’s story.
This may feel even more overwhelming for newcomers to the series, as the propensity of the writing to insist on using special words and explaining, can quickly feel like lore dumps that, rather than supplement the story, inhibit and distract from the reading experience.
▍Beautiful Visuals with a New Flair
Visually speaking, Lightkravte is certainly a looker. Incorporating beautifully rendered backgrounds that are then tweaked according to each scene, adds to the overall atmosphere needed for each story beat.
The storybook-like art is supported equally by the lively characters that all have bone-rigged Live2D-style animations that keep the overall experience accurate to how Alice in Dissonance describes their games as ‘Cinematic Novels’. Each separate animation breathes life into each character as they emote and strike poses according to what’s happening to them.
CGs don’t disappoint either, aptly capturing key moments in the story whenever necessary. Animations are also applied to some of the backgrounds to better immerse the player.
Interestingly, Lightkravte also incorporates a neat little gimmick in which you can slightly alter the perspective of the background through the game’s clever use of layers in their art. This can be done by shifting the mouse on the Steam version, or by tilting the controller on the Switch.
Also appreciated is the specific attention to the ambiance in each scene. The sound design present in environments like bustling city halls and lush forests, help to elevate certain scenes to a truly cinematic one. The actual soundtrack for Lightkravte is kept on the downside with a mostly gentle, easy-listening soundscape that sort of works itself to the mood of whatever’s going on. Nothing fancy, but enough tracks to change up the pace when it’s required.
▍QoL Features Leave Players Wanting More
All this to say, it’s rather baffling that Lightkravte doesn’t have any form of “Extra content” whatsoever. No CG gallery, no sound test, and no extra chapters. Hell, if you want to hear the soundtrack outside of the game you’ll have to pay extra for it, and that’s only available on Steam! Though more of a want than a need for visual novels in general, the lack of a mainstay feature seems odd, much more so seeing how the previous games offered players the choice. The aforementioned encyclopedia could be argued as an extra, though isn’t saying much as reading the glossary is more or less a requirement for first-time players.
Outside of the strange omission of a CG viewer, it struck me as odd that Lightkravte went through the effort of offering a chapter selection upon game completion, but did not infer or explain anything about what each part/chapter is about on said selection screen. This made going back to particular moments in the story cumbersome as the only other way to find chapters in the story would be to go through your own saves, presuming that you rotated said saves to anticipate such an eventuality. This feels incredibly shortsighted, in comparison to the overall presentation of the game, since something as simple as a thumbnail could have very well remedied this problem to a degree.
Though I praise Lightkravte’s use of music cues and folly/ambiance throughout its runtime, it must also be said that the game features no voice acting. Although the previous two titles in the series have established that this is the case, the now animated sprites definitely help in filling in the lack of audible nuances.
▍fault – StP – LIGHTKRAVTE has a Compelling Story, You Just Need the Patience
While it’s easy to nitpick on the parts the game evidently lacks; one must also remember how impressive it is that the game came to be after its reportedly troublesome production process that supposedly took the team at Alice in Dissonance 4 years (counting the spinoff title: Mhakna Gramura and Fairy Bell)to complete. Though fans of the series may raise an eyebrow at how Lightkravte released before the much anticipated Fault Milestone Two: Side Below, what is here is a fantastic short read for new and longtime fans alike.
fault – StP – LIGHTKRAVTE delivers a compelling story albeit with a slow start, all the while presenting its narrative with beautiful art that’s brought alive with the help of impressively emotive animation tricks. Though the lack of certain features may leave some players with a bad aftertaste, the overall quality of the presentation holds the visual novel together. As someone uninitiated to the series prior to reading Lightkravte, I’d be curious to go back and read the mainline games as well. Not to mention the direct sequel to this game, fault – Silence the Pedant coming at a later, currently unspecified date as of this writing. The game gets a 3.5 out of 5.