Threefold Recital

East Asia has always been a fascination to me. I find the cultural differences intriguing—the way in which they live their lives, the exciting pop culture—and the exciting food and architecture. So I was pleasantly surprised firing up China-based Everscape Games latest game, Threefold Recital, to find I had entered an oriental-focused world mostly full of the things I find interesting from the lands of the east. 

This alternate world of Bluescales is one that has been created with much detail that by the end felt like a real place to me. The world-building and lore present here were frankly quite incredible, and at many parts of my playthrough I caught myself admiring the effort and work that went into creating this world. It’s made even more impressive as the developers have managed to capture this mostly through the writing, as although the visuals of the game are admirable, they never really show the trueness of this new world. 

What makes this world unique is that it is shared with humans by beastlings, which are an evolution of animals. An old tale that’s told at the start of the game states that this happened through decades of animals hanging around a human monk and a priest, listening to the stories they told. These beastlings took on humanoid shape, gained the power to speak, and have a mind of their own. Triratna, Taiqing, and Transia, the original beastlings to evolve, are our main protagonists, and we experience separate tales from each character before joining forces in the final act to stop an evil force from destroying the capital and the emperor along the way. 

These separate stories mostly involve you investigating areas for clues, talking to NPC’s, interacting with certain objects, and using each of the protagonist’s special powers. Each character has their own abilities and magic that opened up the gameplay in interesting ways. Triratna can see karma lines, and not only can he figure out who owns certain objects, but he can also cut those karma lines which often help to open up new areas. Transia can travel through paintings and can use body paint on herself to look like other characters, and Taiqing can enter a paper dimension to find clues, and create medicine through kilns that are scattered throughout the world. 

Some of these powers are set in mini puzzles that happily broke up the heavy text-based conversations. The biggest was Triratna’s karma line cutting, which evolved over time with many different elements, keeping it fresh and challenging. There are other examples in the game itself where the developers threw in as many different elements as they could. At one stage, a beat ’em up style fight broke out with accompanying health bars to a courtroom style game, where you had to highlight incorrect information and a rather tricky puzzle involving moving and rotating rooms. There are many other examples where the developer’s mixed things up which aided the gameplay to reach much higher levels of interest, which I welcomed with open arms. 

And when you add these gameplay elements to the imagination on offer through the writing, you do end up with a game that’s firmly planted in originality. I was impressed in how the writing portrayed this world and how different it is to our own but also how unique it is too. There are some truly memorable moments throughout when I was amazed at the creativity of the plot and what was happening. I was also taken aback by the way the story surprised me, often dropping big shock moments that I didn’t see coming. What made it better was that some were right in front of me and I didn’t even notice. This is most evident in the ending section of the game, with a shock reveal that I am still finding myself thinking about, days after completing the game. 

The writing also majestically interweaves the plots of each separate story into one for the final act. Nothing felt shoehorned in just to make a plot point, and the characters all meeting up seemed well thought out and natural. There are some translation issues in the text though, with some spelling mistakes and incorrect word choices, but overall it was decent enough to get you through. Threefold Recital is mainly a visual novel (even though it’s not tagged as one on Steam) as it is very dialogue heavy. You can’t skip over any of it either. You have to pay attention, as you will lose context on later things if you start skimming the text just to progress to the next section. Voice acting would have been very welcome, but I can understand the reasons why it’s not present, as it must be quite a budget-busting inclusion.

Luckily, the visuals on offer give your eyes a break from all the reading and give them something else to concentrate on, as they have been lovingly crafted, full of detail where necessary, and include small touches that really help to bring this world to life. The character models share this sentiment, with each one drawn beautifully in the game’s gorgeous anime style, full of individuality and likability. The same can be said of the backgrounds in the environments to a certain degree, as some did lack some detail that if they included a little more could have helped the player imagine this world better, but the strong writing mentioned earlier helps to negate these negatives. Sound design was also on point, with some strong pieces of music that fitted this world perfectly. Bringing some oriental-flavoured sounds was the perfect choice, though some do get used time and time again, which did get slightly monotonous after a while.

Verdict

4/5

I wasn’t sure what to expect coming into Threefold Recital, but I was pleasantly surprised by the game. It’s slightly too long for my tastes, and the reading does get overbearing at times, but it includes one of the most well thought out, original, interweaving stories I have experienced, and when you include the strong visuals and music, it’s a game that certainly shouldn’t be ignored.

Release Date
14th January 2025
Platforms
PC
Developer
Everscape Games
Publisher
Indienova
Accessibility
Dialogue box opacity, text speed, cursor speed, Transia walking sound (slithering or footsteps), reading assist (Chinese only).

Many thanks to the publisher for the review copy.