Larxe1

Sorceress Alive is a game that tries to emulate a pattern similar to MLA. Introduce characters in a generic setting so that it is easy to understand for readers, also serving as an introduction to the world. Downsides of patterns like that is you really have to endure playing something generic for the best part to come. Sorceress Alive does that pattern well albeit with some glaring weaknesses, if those weakness were solved, I wouldn't hesitate to call this one of the best fantasy VN's I played.
I'll start with the weaknesses first.
It tries to create a story with a large scale. They build it up well, honestly the world-building is very good. What they failed at here is that there were just too few characters. In large scale VN's you would probably have a lot of side characters to create a living world. The world of Sorceress Alive would have been amazing if they invested more in creating side characters. Whatever side characters that should have been important went sprite-less and had no lines.
There was also an obvious lack of graphics, things like CG,sprites and more animations. Some scenes had CG that didn't need one and some scenes that needed CG's didn't have one.
Side-characters should have been used more, there was just so more unused potential. Interesting side characters appeared only a few times and there were a lot of scenes that could have been used for them. 
Alive route, which is the real game, had a lot of twists. I loved it and I'll say more on it later but sometimes they don't know the tone they want to do leading to varying tone shifts. The story keeps jumping over and over that it's confusing on what it's trying to be. I absolutely loved the tone in the first half of Alive but it changes in the second half. Not that I'm saying it's bad, I just liked the first half better. It really played like an Utsuge that would rip your heart every moment.
I guess most of these weaknesses can be explained by them lacking funding, I dont know, I'm just guessing here.
And now to the strengths.
The game has strong world-building putting aside what I said in the weaknesses. The history and mechanics is consistent which is a big plus for me as I love world-building. Usually isekai writers skimp on this and just create random interesting worlds without a logical history but it's different in Sorceress Alive.
I don't know if this part will be a strength to some people but I loved how the game dared into going into something people might not like. The heroines WILL show you hostility to the point of murdering you. It's not the kind of hostility played for laughs but real hostility with actual reasons that is heartbreaking. It doesn't hesitate to show the ugly sides of everyone when forced into a corner. In a certain event, I was shocked they went there. Considering most eroge companies have their heroines have angel-like kindness and there is always redemption for them but seriously what that certain heroine did was understandable but there was no redemption for that. Even with that, that made me love their character even more.
Kouki, the protagonist had me fearing at first since he can't use magic. I thought he could be useless but his intelligence was his real weapon. I would have preferred if he had a voice considering
The tone of the first half of Alive made me discover what I love and that is putting characters into extremely troubling situations and their attitudes. The tone was grim and was completely the opposite of  the happy-go-lucky Sorceress routes. It's absolutely heartbreaking and the perfect introduction to the world of Sorceress Alive. Although sadly, the tone became lighter in the second half but it still had it's own tragedies. It's filled to the brim with story and suspense that it was hard to bring down for me. A medium-high level spoiler
Alive, had short epilogues depending on the heroine you pick and then you unlock the true end after clearing one. The true end had my heart aching but it was the perfect end. (Of course, I liked Akina's end more considering she was my favorite heroine along with Yumi.
If I had to compare it to something, this would be an inferior MLA. Although it may sound like an insult, that is a big compliment for me considering MLA was also one of my favorite VN's.
I would rate Alive by itself, 9/10. My overall rating for the game would be 8.7/10 because even if I completely loved Alive, I still think that playing Sorceress was quite a hurdle as it is a generic Isekai. I would heavily recommend people to try this and just try to bare with the first part. It may be a generic Isekai but it's not complete shit. It had it's own moments. Probably too early for this but I feel this would be one of the must plays this year.
Now going to play Sugar*Sweet by smee for some light fun. After that I'm going to finish ChuSinGura or something. I usually play Serious and light VN's alternatively.
 
 
 

After ten years playing VNs, you would think I would have completely lost faith in them by now, especially considering just how many I've played (744 not counting most of the nukige, replays and incomplete/dropped ones).  Most VNs that aren't nukige are SOL-fests that exist solely to promote nostalgic fantasies about life in high school and getting into bishoujos' pants... not that that is an entirely horrible goal, but it isn't something I want to see five hundred times over.
The romance is usually puerile and has no relation to reality, the characters have all their hard edges filed away by the needs of the archetype, and drama is used solely to add 'spice' (like one sprinkle of pumpkin spice, not cracked red pepper) to an otherwise endlessly sweet and bland recipe. 
So how is it that someone who has experienced that much essentially boring and pointless repetition of the same scenarios able to continue to enjoy VNs, even if he can't stand meaningless SOL anymore?
At one time, it was a sense of duty, a belief that I was doing the community good by digging gems out of the piles of crap that are the SOL genre.  I also had a sense of pride that I made an effort of objectivity that I have literally seen no one else attempt.  I played games no one else bothered with because they didn't have the time or patience, and I did it because I thought someone looking at the games would want to know what they were getting into.
I paid a price in a growing sense of bitterness, of boredom, and of a sense that I was forgetting the reason why I began to read fiction in the first place.  I paid a price in people continually being trolls and trying to draw me into fights over my opinions on these games.  I had people start reddits and send me pms being sympathetic about the very conversations they'd started (yes that happens). 
I also had people who respected what I was doing, and I knew there were people in the community who benefited from the fact that I was doing it.  I watched VNs I had pushed get localizations and fantls (usually to my surprise), and I saw others that I had labeled as mediocre get hyped to a ridiculous degree.   I tried to get other people to help with what I was doing, only to find that, without a reading speed similar to mine, it was too much of a burden on their lives and ate up the time to read the VNs they wanted to read. 
The bad generally outweighed the good immensely while I was doing VN of the Month, and even after, I found that the after-effects of my years of playing games I wasn't interested in personally had left me with scars I was unable to feel while my sense of duty was keeping me going. 
However, I can say that I still haven't given up on VNs.
Why? 
The reason is ridiculously simple and at the same time profound (at least to me).  I love the medium.  For someone who likes an experience that combines the reading, visual input, and music without the need for a lot of input from the one experiencing it, VNs provide a unique storytelling experience.  Books are great for the imagination and can send our souls exploring across landscapes that exist only in our own minds, but VNs provide a more filled-out framework for those who don't necessarily have the imagination to fill in all the gaps on their own, without rotting the imagination to the degree manga and anime do.  I've been able to get people who had trouble reading books into VNs, then led them straight back to books and opened the world of imagination to them.  I've seen people who had begun to feel the otaku community offered nothing more to them come alive again after playing a chuunige or a charage.  I've picked up a random moe-looking VN and found a deep and compelling story that remains within me dozens of times.
In the end, it is moments, experiences like that that keep me coming back, believing in the possibilities of VNs even now.  It is the desire to find more such experiences that keeps me looking at new releases each month, and it is the belief that those experiences will never entirely vanish that keeps me from condemning the industry as a whole for the way it sabotages itself at times.