There were few EVNs in the last few years that I’ve seen seriously hyped up by other VN fans and brought to my attention through multiple recommendations and positive reviews – particularly beyond titles by a handful of relatively well-known and respected creators such as ebi-hime. The game I’ll be writing about today, Soundless -A Modern Salem in Remote Area-, is one of such exceptions, enthusiastic opinions about which intrigued me to a major degree, even though it ended up being two years before I finally picked it up. And this is not where the curious and unusual things about it end: this freeware visual novel was released in late 2017 by a small circle under the name of Milk+ and is heavily influenced by the denpa subgenre of horror – one reliant on distortion of reality and chains of bizarre events, true meaning of which is usually hidden under multiple layers of mystery. It mimics extremely well the visual style and climate of the early 2000s’ Japanese games, offering a now rarely-seen call-back to parts of visual novel history highly nostalgic to many fans. And thankfully, there’s a lot more to it than just the interesting stylisation and riding on memories of the past…

Soundless is not an experience for those faint of heart, but is more about psychological abuse and social exclusion than plain violence

Soundless offers a multi-layered story and some of its themes are impossible to talk about without major spoilers, which I’ll do my best to avoid. Most of the main plot, however, consistently revolves around Mercy, an ostracized teenage girl living a miserable life in an isolated village led by a strange religious cult. Her apparent mental illness, involving various hallucinations and delusions, led her to being embraced by the community as a mystic, however, when a certain chain of events turned her visions dark and disturbing, she was proclaimed a curse-bearer and started being perceived as a danger. Abused both by the village’s “clergy” and the children in her school, she suffers through incredible pain and loneliness – until a new holy woman, appearing in the village after the tragic death of the previous one, shows her kindness no one was willing to offer for years. All this, however, is just a surface of a very dense story, taking many unpredictable turns and slowly revealing the meaning behind various developments and subplots. Then, the last missing parts of the puzzle are provided through bonus content, uncovering the final set of mysteries connected to the game’s setting and crucial characters.

Soundless’ most immediate themes are those of mental illness and social exclusion – we observe the whole story through the distorted lens of Mercy’s mind, which warps the reality around her in a disturbing fashion. She’s not really an unreliable narrator, but one that filters the world through a layer of dark delusions and deeply-internalized identity of a cursed person, who deserves being excluded due to her impurity. It’s an excruciating study of scapegoating, in a way more disturbing than the witch trials the game’s title references through its long-term and systematic nature. It’s not a story of a violent incident, but an ever-growing spiral of abuse targeting a person stripped from their human dignity and protection connected to being part of the community. Mercy is an outcast, but is also necessary as a symbol – a personification of “the other”, a visible threat cementing the unity of other villagers under their religious leader. The game approaches this topic in a detailed and gruesome manner, before it shifts to other, similarly disturbing issues.

Soundless doesn’t shy away from using strange visual effects and distorting the story to represent the protagonist’s mental illness, but it's hard to accuse it of prioritizing form over substance

Writing in Soundless can be only described as excellent. Above all, the game excels at creating a dense, depressing atmosphere of entrapment and hopelessness that dominate Mercy’s life. Following her struggle was disturbing and captivating at the same time and when I was expecting the story to reach a predictably-grim conclusion, it struck me with a serious of surprises, most of which I didn’t even vaguely anticipate. Other major characters, such as Delilah, the heir of one of the prestigious clergy families, are interesting and believable enough to give the story proper depth. From the title, one could easily expect Soundless to be just a tale of faceless mob prosecuting a defenceless girl, but Mercy’s tragedy is very personalized and reflected in her interactions with crucial members of the community. Most of them also have roles to play in the plot’s sudden turns.

If I had to complain about something in the context of Soundless’ story, it would be its final chapter, focusing on what can be described as light yuri romance between the protagonist and Auma, a holy woman newly-arrived in the village and insistent on ignoring Mercy's status as a pariah. While it has its own set of themes, it feels fairly disconnected with the flow and tone of the previous story segments. It’s also where the game's denpa stylisation kicks in the hardest, with whole segments presented through strange collages and child-like drawings, coupled with heavily distorted dialogue. While I don't think it was bad by any definition, it was hard for me to adjust to the new direction of the story and I enjoyed it less than everything that came before it. It also underlines the fact that Soundless is probably not for everyone – between its disturbing moments and sheer weirdness and confusion that occasionally kick in, I can easily imagine some readers finding it pretentious or overbearing.

The yuri subplot which develops in the latter half of the game is probably one of its weaker parts and evolves into a really strange and confusing direction

Presentation-wise, Soundless truly feels more like an early-2000s Japanese doujin than a modern VN, despite being made in Ren'Py. The photographic backgrounds, the style of the drawings, NVL text display and even the UI just scream “old Japanese VN”, and if someone showed it to me as an obscure fan-translated title, I’d have no reason to doubt their word. This mimicry is not just kitsch imitation though, as Soundless really captures and spirit and thick climate of the better VNs of that era, while telling a really original and impactful story. It’s also far from being stale or unimaginative, mixing various techniques (like full-colour and sepia drawings) and artstyles depending on what fits specific situations. The relative simplicity of the presentation leaves a lot of space for the excellent prose to do its job, while the minimalistic music and creepy sound effects further enhance the overall climate. In this, it reminds me of another title I’ve read recently, Nitroplus’ Phenomeno – just with a much more robust story and many more things to say.

As it’s pretty clear by this point, I enjoyed Soundless a lot and consider it easily one of the best horror EVNs I’ve read so far. For such a small (6-8 hours of reading) game, and one so simple from the technical standpoint, it’s an impressive storytelling achievement and stands out from most VNs in its category. It was obviously crafted with a lot of care and the authors improved upon their initial work with the 1.2 and 2.0 versions, the latter published a year after the initial release of the game. As a free title, I see little reason for any VN fan to not give it a chance – unless the denpa horror formula is really not your thing. And if it is something you particularly enjoy, this game is an absolute must-read.

Final Rating: 4/5

Pros:

+ Engaging, multi-layered narrative

+ Great sense of tension

+ Effective handling of multiple dark themes

Cons:

- Tiny resolution and (purposefully) clunky feel