Deluge: Threnody of Crashing Waves Review

Heya folks, Shaun here, and I’m back with our latest review, and the first review using my new weekend schedule. For today’s review, I’m covering a free indie visual novel called Deluge: Threnody of Crashing Waves by Leaves and Socah.

I wound up discovering this game a couple weeks ago while I was searching through the free to play section on Steam. I was in the mood for a visual novel at the time, and I was intrigued by the fact that it had Lovecraftian undertones in its story. I’m a big fan of Lovecraftian horror and the Cthulhu mythos, so I love trying anything set within it. I wound up being pleasantly surprised that the game used a mix between Christianity and Lovecraftian horror, which I’ve dubbed Lovecraftian Christianity, and that’s not something I come across very often, or really, at all except for in this game. The flood myth of Noah plays a large role in the overall story, but I’ll leave it at that because I don’t want to spoil too much of the story.

The story follows a young man named Abe who moves to a rural sea-side village with his father, and he is none too happy about it, being from the city. Early in the game he gets suckered into working for a school newspaper after meeting a woman named Ina, who runs the newspaper. He also eventually runs into another two women named Rika and Mei, and much of the first half of the game is building up their respective relationships together, as well as, the backstory of the entire town.

Things get a lot more interesting after the middle portion of the game, which is around 2h into it. The slow build up is pretty typical of Lovecraftian horror, so I wasn’t too bothered by the slowness of the story. It gets really interesting when Rika starts turning their conversations into premonitions, and it just spirals downwards from there. I honestly enjoyed the second half of the game a lot and it was pretty thrilling to read.

I will admit, however, that the main character of the game, Abe, feels a lot more like a background character than a main character. Largely because, more often than not, he’s simply dragged along through whichever path you decide to take, with little deviation from said path. I wound up romancing Rika because I was curious what kind of hell she would unleash, and I wasn’t disappointed in the end.

I will say that the game probably isn’t something everyone is going to enjoy, its slow pace early on will definitely be a deterrent for a lot of people. I wound up enjoying it regardless, but it also helped that I was both familiar with Lovecraftian storytelling, and that I’m also a fan of it. Overall, it was an interesting experience, and I enjoyed it in the end. I’ve decided to give the game a 7 out of 10.

Thanks a lot for reading folks, and I appreciate you taking the time to drop by. I’ll be back with more reviews soon, till next time!

Shaun