It’s a promising prologue to a new visual novel series that’s still in development. The story follows the protagonist (no default name), who has power granted by the Abyss, but she struggles with the idea of fully surrendering herself to it, as she doesn’t fully understand what the Abyss is yet. Whilst trying to save a young mage fleeing an attacker, she is cursed with a spell that binds him to her, and it seems that the only way to break free is for one of them to die.

Information
• Four personalities to form.
• Can only play as a female protagonist.
• Four romanceable characters: 2 women, 2 men.
• Stats affect available choices.
• The player doesn’t build up stats; they’re simply chosen at the beginning of the game.
• About 4 hours to reach all romances and endings.
• Despite the discretion advisory for content, I found the game to be quite tame, and this is coming from someone who is fairly sensitive at times.
• You can support the dev via this game by buying the artbook.

Praises
• Font size adjustment available for more accessibility.
• CG gallery to hold that gorgeous artwork in.
• Codex for keeping track of lore information.
• Asexual representation.
• Racially ambiguous characters aren’t common, so that’s refreshing. (Even the protagonist is a bit curious. She looks white mostly, but in some illustrations, she looks a bit Asian too. Perhaps she’s supposed to be half?)
• Promising worldbuilding.
• Various dialogue about respecting others’ personal boundaries.

Complaints
• CG gallery doesn’t show all the variations of the CGs.
• It would’ve been better if at least one of the four romanceable characters had darker skin, as plenty of media already perpetuates that lighter-skinned people are more attractive.
• I feel like the town map is unnecessarily small. There aren’t that many icons on it at any given time, so it could be zoomed in, I think. The icons are small and I have to squint at them.
• Some read dialogue doesn’t skip like it should.
• At least two typos.

It was a lovely, short visual novel with gorgeous CGs, so yes, I definitely recommend it to those interested in this series in the making. I hope more romance awaits these characters in the future.

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While the game is still developing, this Prologue is outstanding and presents the game nicely. Sigh of the Abyss is a visual novel where you can customize the protagonist's name, and skills and even shape her personality based on her responses, she can either be indifferent, emotional, brute, or carefree. You can also choose before starting the game whether you'd like to romance men or women, and if you'd like, you can choose both.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2860217005

The story starts off when the heroine leaves her job late at night only to find a young boy being chased by a hooded man. It's up to you how you want to interfere or just watch the scene, either way, you'll be chained to this boy and here your story will begin on how to remove this bond.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2859542496

I can't stress how much I loved the artwork, the scenery, the character's design, and the details are so beautiful. The soundtracks are ok, unfortunately, the VN is not voiced but somehow I found myself enjoying it. The characters are likable, and each one of them has a backstory, you can either dig into it or dismiss it.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2859542117

Pros:
+Interesting story.
+Building the main character's personality and skills.
+Choices and consequences.
+Beautiful soundtracks.
+Beautiful character design and outstanding scenery artwork.
+Good character personality development.
+Manual save.
+Steam achievements.

Cons:
- Nothing

I highly recommend this very well-written prologue, and can't wait for the full game to be released.

𝐹𝑜𝑟 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤𝑠 𝑐𝘩𝑒𝑐𝑘 𝑚𝑦 𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑟 𝑝𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝐹𝑒𝑒𝑛𝑎'𝑠 𝐶𝘩𝑜𝑖𝑐𝑒

Sigh of the Abyss: Shadow Bonds ▪ Prologue is a gem I almost missed. That was really exciting! I can't wait to play the whole game when it's released.

Visually this novel is so pretty! It has not that kind of art style I often see. It's realistic, immersive, quite a pleasure to look at. All the characters are so alluring. Not a fan of GxG routes. Here luckily you can choose no romance walkthrough, romancing only men or only women. That's a great feature. Thoooough I'm still grumpy that I had to waste so much time in a futile attempt to get the last ach and a CG just to find out later I had to set romancing women as well. That was kinda strange as I got the ach for the other girl with no problem. I do hope this will be fixed. Everything was well-written, no explicit content, just hints though it was enough to stir my wild imagination :) But still despite not feeling uncomfortable even having to romance that girl I'd still prefer to get all the achs with my preferable choice of settings. Perhaps I've done smth wrong there but seriously I had FOUR attempts to get the last missing ach. That was annoying.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2849539968
This free \o/ prologue is rather short but the story already makes us long for more. What a fascinating world is depicted there. Mages, Abyss, spirits... I really want to learn about that place in a detailed way. MC is so mesmerizing herself and she is so pretty to boot. When her eyes turn purple and when she grins I can't take my eyes off her. That's rare. It really feels good to insert myself into that image. And with those character settings it's especially fun.

The prologue isn't long but with frequent variable choices the story has a great replay value. Quite often choices are divided into 4 groups according to the humor. I always believed I'm a bright example of a choleric type bbut in this story I didn't always feel like picking exceptionally that kind of choice. So during my first play-through I just made the choices I deemed ideal. Then I tried every specific type, every romance option. And it always WAS great fun. I really hope the whole story when released is gonna be even more captivating.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2842518063
Praises:
+no romance, romancing only women or only men, or both options
+achievements (profile features limited though for now)
+pretty art!
+MC is lovely, all other characters are quite charismatic as well
+very frequent choices
+captivating story
+free prologue
+a long warning list. But I llove dark stories, so it's a plus for me.
+a guide

Complaints:
--it was a must to choose romancing women to get the last CG and ach. I had to waste so much time to realize that :(
--typos (I saw 2 but still for a short prologue it's more than enough, one was even in the choice)
--saves are just TERRIBLE. I'm begging you, change them pleeeaaase in the main game. What you see is just a picture, no choices. So what's the point of saving if it's absolutely impossible to understand what's there. No way to name your save as well. With so many choices I'd like to see where exactly I stopped to replay that moment. It was such a huge flaw, it really made me sad. That's one of the reasons why I play visual novels—the ability to replay, to change your mind, to correct your choices, try out different paths. Here it's so troublesome. I even thought about writing in some notebook what which save slot actually meant to be able to come back to that part of the game but whyyy do I have to do it, it should be just in-game feature. Welp, it was such a disappointment, seriously. I want to cry how often I see well-written visual novels but either the lack of enough save slots or the way the slots are here... ruins the great part of the pleasurable experience. Especially when I do believe it shouldn't be that problematic to fix this technical aspect of the game.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2849548243
All in all, it was an unforgettable experience! Thanks for this free prologue. Malec, my handsome intense man, I'm looking forward to spending more time with you! <3

A nice enjoyable little prologue, really well made. Looking forward to the full game.

i got to kiss a woman in a free demo 10/10

Beautiful art , intriguing plot twists , unique characters . I was positively surprised and I hope to see more !

Shadow Bonds is an introduction to the world and characters of Sigh of the Abyss. It’s a promising prologue to a new visual novel series that’s still in development, with interesting characters, romance and story. It has excellent world-building that shows you a glimpse of a mysterious world full of magic and malice.

There's plenty of choices and subtle decisions that change the story and dialogue, with ways to change the personality of your character and make it your own. I love the artstyle of the game and the CGs are amazingly done. I think Alpheon and Malec are so charmingly romantic and they are probably my favorite romancable characters in the game. Sylas and Marané were also lovely, but not for me.

I love the story it's setting up and I simply can't wait for the release of the main game. This prologue is definitely worth playing.

Sigh of the Abyss: Shadow Bonds is a dark fantasy visual novel developed and published by Rascal Devworks. It's a prologue to the upcoming visual novel Sigh of the Abyss. (At the time of this review, there's no concrete release date.) You take on the role of a female nameable character who is gifted with magical powers. As you're walking in town, a young man, who is fleeing from a shadowy figure, runs into you, begging for help. Regardless of whether you help him, the shadowy figure places a curse on both you and the young man (who names himself Ornell, afterwards) such that neither of you can be physically away from each other. This curse will kill both of you unless you find a way to break it. I'll end my story synopsis here to avoid spoilers and all that.

As for the gameplay, Sigh of the Abyss: Shadow Bonds has multiple choices presented that determine the MC's and Ornell's fates as well as whom the MC can romance and/or choose to be friends with. At the start of the game, you can customize the MC with stats, allocating them so that she can have physical strength, high magical prowess, etc. Along with the choices, you may occasionally be presented with an emotion system. Basically, you're shown 4 icons, each representing a particular emotion, and the emotion you align the MC with will determine her personality and how she interacts with others. In addition, there's a codex system in which certain terminology is unlocked as you progress through the story. Of course, there are several CGs as well as Steam achievements. At the time of this review, though, Steam achievements won't count towards a user's global total until the game is out of "profile features limited".

Now that I've gone over the story and gameplay, I'll move onto my critique. Sigh of the Abyss: Shadow Bonds caught my interest pretty early on after I read the story synopsis. It doesn't hurt that I like dark fantasy (but I don't really read as much of it as I should XD). In regards to the story, I like how it starts off. You take on the role of the MC who's going about her business when a meeting with Ornell ends up changing things for the two of you. The overall tone is dark fantasy although there's plenty of adventure, some horror (there's a bit of blood and nudity, so be forewarned), and even a bit of humor. Although the story's length is short (well, this is a prologue to a bigger story, and it's free), I liked the ending. It leaves off on a suspenseful note, and I definitely want to find out what happens to the MC. As for the characters, there's a pretty wide range of them with varying personalities. Ornell is the foolish, but happy-go-lucky kind of guy who escaped from the magic guild because he no longer wanted to be forced to follow their orders. Then we have Alpheon, a fellow magic user who's immortal and a minstrel at a tavern. There are a few other characters as well. The MC can romance four of them (two males and two females).

As for the writing, I found it pretty well-paced. There weren't any huge time gaps or whatnot. The events proceed day-by-day. I noticed a couple of typos, but nothing to the point where reading the story wasn't enjoyable. In regards to the art, it's gorgeous to look at. It leans more towards the realistic side (perhaps with a bit of a watercolor feel) rather than the anime style that's present in a lot of VNs. CGs especially are well done, and I liked the map system where you can choose which character the MC can spend time with. As for the soundtrack, there are a few tracks, but there's a decent variety. Each track fits with the mood of the story and the events that occur.

Overall, would I recommend Sigh of the Abyss: Shadow Bonds? If you're looking for a visual novel with a good story that has a dark fantasy theme, I'd say this is worth checking out. It's on the short side, as it took me around 4 hours to 100% complete the game (getting all of the achievements and finishing the routes). However, it's a prologue to a bigger, upcoming VN (which I'm totally looking forward to), and it's free. ^^

If you found this review helpful/useful, please check out The Introverted Gamer.

This is a dark fantasy visual novel with some romance and interesting moral and philosophical choices.
It also is a fairly strong rpg for a visual novel, which is not always the case. I only did one play through of
this prologue, but I felt like my character not only got to develop something of a personality but also a
general power profile of my choice. It is minimalistically but succesfully done. Hard to say what the whole
work will be like, but the prologue was more well polished than many full games and hints at a very strong
story and game to come.

Very intriguing prologue which leaves you with more questions then answers! Hopefully we get them in the full game! I know I'm looking forward to it!

Also the fMC isn't some wilting flower and actually has sass and is capable which I like in my fMC's. The option to chose whom you can romance is nice and other customization, like name, skill points and how you respond is so very fun! Recommend it personally, plus it's free! What you got to lose?