Despite how generally well-received the mystery visual novel genre is with some of the big names like Danganronpa and Zero Escape, there are not too many games that really try to go for this niche. The formula is fairly basic: involve some investigation, sprinkle in some dark mysterious overtone, have some sort of trial or battle, and repeat. Dark Auction is a new visual novel that actually seeks to do that, and captures some of the magic…while also falling short.
Players find themselves taking the role of Noah, a wayward college student sent to a mysterious castle to track down his father. Upon getting there, he finds his dad is part of a deadly auction that he loses his life in. Simply by being witness, he is now pressed into the events and has to do everything he can to get out alive. It’s unique, fun, and sets a good tone.
The plot and characters are the high point of the experience, which is good for a visual novel, and the writing borders on subtle, making it enjoyable. The characters feel real (mostly) and the revelations never feel out of place. Noah especially is a good protagonist, feeling very relatable between his honesty, and in how he lies to protect himself and gradually navigates the situation.
Here’s where Dark Auction starts to go off the rails, though. The writing in general is praiseworthy, and the general flow of the story feels natural enough, yet there is a huge problem present that only continues to grow: the story goes nowhere quick – and that is being generous. The setup all happens pretty swiftly at the beginning, and in the next several hours nothing too important really happens. Despite some dark undertones the pacing feels more like a slice of life…to its detriment.
It will easily be around four hours until players get to the first auction, where there is some hope of the pace picking up, but the auction sections feel half baked. In contrast to the fun of Ace Attorney reveals, or the wild trials of Danganronpa, here it’s mostly just fitting in some timeline puzzles. It’s okay on its on, but the overall pacing drastically needed something faster or more intense for the near glacial prelude.
It will occur in several stages where the player puts together the history of some past event with what the target remembers and other historical facts they piece together. One part of this that detracts from the plot is that the game takes place in 1981, but there is heavy reliance on a computer and internet-esque search feature that requires heavy hand-waving, yet plays a critical part in how ‘research’ is conducted on the case.
Ultimately too, despite the very sci-fi initial premise involving reading people’s minds, having memories encoded in DNA, dying if you lie to the mind-reading device and similar ideas, the overall plot as it starts to get revealed is very plain. This isn’t to say plain stories can be bad, but the narrative suffers from some degree of whiplash. It is not full-on cognitive dissonance, but it’s similar to if a story opens about aliens attacking Earth and the rest of the premise is about a kid getting an ice cream cone; it leaves readers with a very strong feeling of “Huh?”. Perhaps true to the game’s name, in the end its mostly about a kid at an auction.
The main issue with Dark Auction – and this is significant – is once the ‘real’ plot gets revealed a few hours in, there isn’t anything new driving it. The characters have their own stories, but short of players being interested in these one-off plots, there isn’t a driving mystery or compelling force forward. The story could easily be cut in half and would be much better for it. That is a big problem for a visual novel that demands a huge chunk of reading time. In the end, Dark Auction falls into a weird zone where conventional mystery players are likely to be put off by the heavy character focus and slice of life pacing, and those who prefer slower stories will not get into some of the darker overtones.
