Perseverance: Complete Edition is a visual novel for Nintendo Switch. More precisely, a collection of his three stories released as separate games over the past five years. They tell the story of two strangers, Jack and Karen, whose world is entwined with an impending apocalyptic event.
I like reading. Between games, he always carries one or two of his books with him. Visual novels appeal to me for the same reason. It’s a sort of escape with the added bonus of visual processing. Perseverance presents the gripping story of an average man named Jack who finds himself in the predicament of his own home while catastrophic events unfold around him. Karen, on the other hand, is a hired assassin and has her own problems. It’s an interesting interpretation of the Ending of Days genre, mixing the usual tropes with a fascinating human side.
Unfortunately, Perseverance has some complaints. First, there are many typos and grammatical errors. This is especially common in the first of three stories. It feels inelegant, especially for titles that rely heavily on words. I can forgive a few mistakes, but I finally stopped counting after seeing “jealous” for “jealous”, “conscience” instead of “conscious”, “wierd” instead of “weird”, etc. rice field. What’s even worse is that this isn’t even a new game. It took him five years for the developer to fix these issues. It may not bother everyone, but it’s clear to me. It smells of poor design. We all make mistakes, which is why we have professional proofreaders.
The simple user interface is generally good, with a top menu that provides easy access to functions such as saving and loading. What’s missing are some quality-of-life additions, such as a rewind feature and touchscreen controls. It’s not strictly necessary, but it dramatically improves the user experience. I love visual novels where you move forward with touch instead of pressing buttons. The game is more accessible when using handheld mode, a feature not available in Perseverance.
There are also glitches. When the credits appeared in one of the stories, I loaded a save point and tried another path, but the credits remained overlaid on the screen. This was a strange experience. Another very strange error was when I was able to choose a character’s name. From that moment on, I walked away from the drama because it became even more difficult. I tried different names, including going back and choosing a different one, but it made no difference.
Thankfully, if predictable, the story itself is interesting and engaging. You’ll enjoy the way the characters overlap in each story, and you’ll have plenty of opportunities to make decisions that affect the outcome. Most of the time they are superfluous or deadly. In the latter case, you will automatically go back to your last decision and try another option. This was a feature I appreciated as it didn’t require you to restart from the beginning or from a savepoint if you remembered to save manually. Colors and well-designed characters bring the story to life.
Overall, Perseverance: Complete Edition is a dark visual novel that packs three stories into one release. The typos and glitches are a distraction, but the solid story and clean visuals keep you entertained. A few more options are also very helpful.
