Sickness

I track branching structures in visual novels the same way I track tech trees in 4X games, so when a VN promises a protagonist whose central psychological hook is called the 'Sickness' and then consistently sidelines that mechanic, I notice. That is the core tension with Sickness by Zetsubou: the setup is genuinely compelling, and the follow-through is frustratingly uneven. The structure is a choice-driven visual novel with multiple routes and endings. Suoh Tesla, freshly orphaned and responsible for his twin sister Sara, murders his employer during a blackout and gets drafted into working for a mob boss named Karasu, graduating from debt collector to assassin as the story progresses. The branching lets you decide how Suoh spends downtime and how he approaches individual hits, and those choices filter you toward different female leads and route-specific outcomes. The word count sits at roughly 216,000 words across those paths, which is a respectable commitment for an indie VN at this price tier. There are 85 CG illustrations and 31 original music tracks backing the whole thing, and the overall audio-visual presentation is competent enough to stay out of its own way. Where the game earns its 90% positive Steam rating is in pacing and atmosphere during the first half. The setup is punchy, the crime-city backdrop has genuine grime to it, and Suoh as an amoral lead is a rarer choice than the genre usually offers. Fans who found conventional slice-of-life VNs too clean will find the early chapters satisfying. The problem is that the Sickness itself, an intrusive psychological voice that was clearly intended to escalate as Suoh sinks deeper into crime, never gets the dramatic payoff it deserves. It surfaces as background text and occasional nausea, then the story quietly moves on without resolving or even naming its cause. Critics and community reviewers alike flagged this gap, and they are right to. When your title is a mechanic, you cannot let that mechanic become decoration. The art is a patchwork production, drawing from multiple sprite and background artists whose styles do not always harmonize. Sprites are expressive but plainly styled; backgrounds do the job without reinforcing the grimy urban atmosphere the writing describes. It is a production reality common in small indie VNs, not a dealbreaker, but worth knowing going in. There are scattered typos, and pacing in the latter routes can drag as the story leans on Karasu praising Suoh's adaptability a few times too many, which has the unintended effect of deflating tension. From a decision-depth standpoint, this is not a VN where choices carry the weight of a Fate/Stay Night or even a Muv-Luv. The branches are meaningful enough to justify a second run, but you will not be mapping a decision tree on paper. Newcomers to the genre will find the structure approachable, and the dark subject matter, covering violence, crime economics, and moral deterioration without flinching, gives it a distinct identity among anime-styled VNs. Just go in knowing the back half underdelivers on what the front half promises.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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