Title: eden* (PLUS + MOSAIC)
Genre: Visual Novel
Publisher: MangaGamer
Developer: Minori
System: PC
Release Date: 09-19-2009 (JP), 01-30-2015 (ENG)
A short story brought to you by Minori, the makers of Ef ~A Fairytale of the Two~, that centers around a dying planet and two people who remain on it.
eden* takes place in a distant future, where a red star signifying destruction looms over the Earth. The abnormal phenomenon it brought upon caused the world to break out in a war, furthering its destruction, until mankind reached the conclusion that evacuation from the planet was the only way to survive. Thus began a world-wide project to put most of humanity onto spaceships in search of another habitable planet. The brains behind the project are the Felixes, a group of genetically engineered superhumans with extraordinary intelligence and perpetual youth, whose sole purpose is to further the project. At the center of the development team is Sion, a Felix whose intellectual capacity surpasses even others of her kind, who are already at supergenius-levels compared to regular humans. However, despite being a highly important figure, Sion has never once been allowed to step out into the outside world.
Resistances that arise to oppose the project are silenced by a global military force, and Sion herself is under heavy guard by military personnel at a top-secret laboratory on a secluded island. By the time *eden actually starts, the evacuation project is nearing its final stages, and Sion herself is 100 years old. Haruna Ryou, a young warrant officer with outstanding military accomplishments and combat capability, is assigned to Sion’s laboratory as her guard. On the surface he is to stand outside her room and watch guard, but he is also tasked with getting rid of lurking undercover agents of resisting forces that want Sion dead and must be wary of someone who is communicating with the outside.
Oh, and all of the above is simply a backdrop.
The evacuation project is at its final stages with most of humanity already on spaceships. The project itself is planned out well enough that it can continue even without Sion, and the red star that will supposedly destroy Earth is just there, without any secrets to reveal. Ryou’s dangerous missions in his past military career are only briefly mentioned, and the people he was assigned to get rid of are dealt with off-screen. The setting had plenty of things going on that were mentioned only in passing, and the story isn’t even about the military at the end, despite its prominence in Ryou’s life. The “action” never gets “real,” and even the comparatively intense first half of the story has that ephemeral atmosphere readers of Ef should be familiar with.
eden*, at its core, is a love story between a man who has lost his purpose and a girl who has never seen the world that belonged to its inhabitants who she has spent 100 years trying to salvage. The military action in the first half is all for the sake of allowing the second half of the story, where the main pair make sandwiches in a house in the mountains. This is a story about two people who peacefully grow vegetables in a dying world where even the last of humanity is getting ready to evacuate into space. The latter parts of the visual novel are presented with a gentle calmness that one would not typically expect in a story about the world ending, concluding with a poignant ending that serves to evoke an appreciation for the transience of things.
Being a completely linear visual novel at a length that can be read through in 5-10 hours, eden* doesn’t require a huge commitment of time. The setting is expanded on enough so that the reader can grasp the current state of the world, but few things are explained in great detail or directly shown in order to advance the story at a decent pace. The main purpose of the narrative is to develop the main hero and heroine while providing the reader with believable circumstances, so even though there are a number of side characters, they are easily tossed aside once their roles directly relating to the central couple have been fulfilled.
Although you can certainly appreciate how the characters are created and developed, actually liking them is a different matter. While Sion is both refined and cute, knowledgeable and innocent, Ryou’s personality is terribly dull. It’s perfectly understandable how his character came to be, but he lacks the charisma that makes a protagonist endearing. There also isn’t much time where you can sit back and enjoy the side characters, which is not unexpected considering the length of the story, but I did take a liking to Lavie.
eden* is offered in both an all-ages and R18 versions, the latter being given the subtitle Plus+Mosaic. It’s appropriately named, for all of the R18 content actually happens in bonus scenes unlocked at the end. The main story contains no sex, and the bonus h-scenes are more like if-stories. Despite being bonus scenarios, enough effort was put into writing them that you get proper setup scenes and conversations that make them blend almost seamlessly with the main narrative were they to be placed in there. There’s a scene with Sion, as well as each of the three female side characters, making for four scenes in total.
The VN released as an all-ages work in Japan, with an R18 patch available on the same day. You aren’t missing anything important in the story by skipping the R18 (more expensive) version, but if you find yourself liking one of the side heroines then I’d advise getting Plus+Mosaic (which comes with a Steam key for the all-ages version as well).
The production values are worth mentioning, as there are an extraordinary amount of CGs for a visual novel of this length. This is expected from Minori, the eroge company that’s known for complaining about how costly it is to make eroge due to the CGs precisely because the amount of budget they pour into CGs is unthinkable for other companies producing works of the same length. There are loads of CGs and variations, even for minor scenes, and rarely does the VN stay in the standard paper-cutout-on-background form for long. Even then, extra effort is put into making these ‘normal’ scenes look a step up from other works in the medium, with eden* paying careful attention to lighting, sprite placement, and even employing blur effects to mimic a camera’s depth of field. Minori really brings forth the ‘visual’ part of a visual novel with its dynamic use of assets that compliment a scene’s flow. The quality of the art itself is high as well, with beautiful backgrounds, heavenly skies, and polished CGs. The -style- of the art may be up for debate, since they emphasize the youthfulness of bishoujo with large eyes and tiny mouth, but the men don’t look too good and it doesn’t lend itself well to variety.
Overall, eden* is a solid story at an accessible length for newcomers to the medium. It features a Japanese concept on impermanence, and should be an enjoyable story for those who know what to expect. Sure, it’s not groundbreaking or anything, and doesn’t have a lot of the “oomph” that most people like in their visual novels, but it does bring in a distinct atmosphere that chooses its readers. It works for what it tries to do.