A major step up from Klace's previous game, Major\Minor. Let's just get that out of the way for those of you who're wondering.

Practically EVERY aspect has been improved - the character art is way better (there's ACTUAL different emotions for all the characters for starters), backgrounds aren't stock images, the music isn't stock RPG maker music either, the writing is far superior, and you do more than whack the enter key endlessly until a dual choice pops up. Oh and there's voice acting too - pretty much everything except the narration is voice acted. It's done by a great cast too - of note is Sean Chiplock, who seems to be really getting some steam as of late. But the other voice actors do a great job as well.

Also, if you're looking for how to subvert expectations and write decent plot twists, give this game a play. It does a decent job at setting things up, and then breaking them down. For example, you might think Purity and Corruption are nothing more than a simple morality meter, but halfway through the game it's revealed that the two extremes refer to which choice would go with either the Triumvirate or Rebellion's ideals. And those ideals are a bit more than "Well we're good/evil."

Characters are also done way better - the Heart to Heart system (and the Parallel Chronicles system too) helps with developing characters and delivering bits and pieces of their backstory in digestable chunks. Way better than Major\Minor's "I'm gonna spend the next 15+ minutes explaining why I'm this way" method of doing things. But I legit grew to care a lot about my comrades, as it should be. And when they felt pain, be it physical or emotional, so did I.

Joel Steudler's score is great, and was recorded by a legit live orchestra. My ONE gripe is the volume seems a little...low. In game it's pretty fine I suppose, but if you buy the soundtrack I'd suggest throwing the tracks into Audacity and adding some volume to 'em. Other than that, I enjoy the soundtrack a lot. You also have Fox Amoore returning to do the title song, and the original vocal track, Together, is great. You'll hear it during a key moment in game and it just really helps bookend the journey. Klace also went and got a couple of Beji Jackson songs again - he did "It's Good To Be Alive", which was heard in Major\Minor.

Speaking of which, you should shell out for the OST/Soundtrack. It's a great purchase, and you'll get tunes that ultimately went unused. Sure you can dig in the game files for the OST, but you won't get those unused tracks. Plus, Klace even went and organized all the songs by region/faction/etc. making it easier to find things.

Gripes? Well I do have some. The pacing just feels...too fast. Yes I get it, things need to happen quickly for one reason or another, but it at times it just felt zip line fast. Also good luck with keeping track of just how much time is passing in this game.

The worldbuilding left me wanting more. SO MUCH MORE. yes, characters will talk about things, yes Ulric will mention Mazeans eat lobster, you'll find out what those leaves on the title screen mean, and there's books telling you that Vivan feels Alarinthia is too barbaric and that people are okay-ish with The Triumvirate, but honestly? This left me wanting more.

Don't just TELL me that people are okay with the Triumvirate. SHOW ME IT. I wouldn't have known that the Rebellion was "slowly getting more support" if Damek didn't open his muzzle and tell me about it. And I understand that this is a small indie venture, but still. Also what's society like on Alestia? Are there nobles? A caste system? How large is this world anyways (that's another thing - good luck getting a sense of scale of things)? At one point you can "create an army of seers/monarch vessels" but apparently on Alestia an "army" means a trio. Alrighty then.

This game does a lot of "I'll tell you how this is going" but not a lot of "I'll show you how this is going". Though, to be fair, I don't play Visual Novels that much, so if this is simply just something that tends to happen in this medium, then forgive me for my ignorance.

You can also tell that people recorded their lines on their own and sent 'em in. Which is something that tends to happen, but when you wear headphones and play it becomes REALLY apparent. Just compare say...Zamira's voice to Fortaime's. Super obvious. So if that bothers you (it didn't for me - was just something I noticed) be wary of that.

As some other reviewers noted, it does seem kinda odd that Klace parades around the fact that the game isn't focused on sex while more than half the (predominatley male) cast parades around showing off their sculpted abs and pelvic lines. Granted it's LESS than what furries would typically do in their games.

Take Jasonafex's Amorous for example. Sets this premise of "finding true love" but really, the point is to try to sleep with whatever character you fancy. It even does the cliche "the apex of our relationship is the sexual encounter", complete with Jasona's trademark "animation" sex scenes.

Winds of Change on the other hand feels like it really WANTS me to get to know these characters and view them as more than delicious bedtime dinners. In fact the game really only makes it obvious that you sleep with one character and when you analyze why that is...it adds another layer to things.

Well, at least it doesn't do the whole "This is SFW but here's my character's uwu large bulgy wulgy". Y'know, the kind where you can tell what their - AHEM - "underwear loadout" is by how tight the undies are. Or the ever classic Talisrulz-esque "here's my female characters with their nipples that protrude noticeably through the shirt" and...

you know what low hanging belts and abs really don't seem that bad now.

So I think I've rambled on long enough. Long story short, this is a good game. And to normies that (for whatever reason) read this whole thing, or to detractors no, it's not getting off easy because it has furries. It got my INTEREST because furry, but it only KEPT it because I honestly liked it.

Heck I'll be honest, on my Let's Play of the game I've even gotten a couple "I'm not a furry but this is good" type comments.

So if I had to give it a rating (with 5 being average) I'd give it an **8** out of 10. Which on my scale, is pretty frigging good. It's a memorable game, but there's a few things that left me wanting juuuuust a little bit more from it. It's definately a game I'll remember, and it for sure raises the bar on fandom-produced visual novels. I think just about the only other thing that, as of now, rivals this game's VN production value is The Broken Horn's "The Crown of Leaves" (ALSO a good one you should check out).

Though to be fair, TBH aren't furries.

Anways this game is great you should check it out or at the very least download the demo, give it a shot, and change the future of Alestia today. 8/10, will def vote for in the Ursa Majors.

PS Fortaime is best boy debate me.

I am going to be honest here.
I first came into this game with low expectations (because I'm not a furry) and I thought it would be some sort of 'furry cringe' game.
The only thing that interested me was that it was choose your own adventure and I wanted to try something new.
(Oh and also because it was inspired by Mass Effect, love that game)

Boy how wrong I was (about the 'furry cringe' part)

This was a great game! I actually got interested and invested into the story, characters and the world around me.
This game legit changed my life.

Oh no, I'm not a furry now am I?

I like guys now 👍

Foreword: I have played Major/Minor before, so imagine my surprise when I learned that there was going to be another one. And image my surprise when I found the game to be surprisingly decent, at the very least during my first few hours. Understand that the Kickstarter raised about 30K while you are reading this.

Art:

+ The art is quite excellent, the characters and environment are all illustrated beautifully.

- Some art assets are re-used in scenes in which they don’t apply. I.E., a character that is frustrated uses the same asset as their genuinely mad reaction.

- The eyes are, oddly, the one thing that got really borked up. One character has crossed eyes when thinking, but otherwise have eyes that don't wander. Also, the eyes are absolutely soulless. Watch the trailer, and look at the grey pupils. They look like a doll's eyes.

Audio:

+ Voice Actors! A nice change of pace from most other visual novels. Having a voice behind the face definitely made the characters seem more alive.

- The Voice Actors have differing Mic qualities & distances, so one minute a character is talking in a perfectly crisp voice, and has a nice, loud voice. The next character sounds like he is farther away, and has a slightly worse mic quality. Not a real immersion killer, but an irritating aspect nonetheless.

+ Some voice actors really kill their delivery. Holy hell, they do a great job of making the characters come to life. Really, certain characters are really great. Namely, I found that the Voice Actors for Sovy, Howl, Damek, and Ulric did a pretty good job conveying emotion.

- On the other hand, certain actors are somewhat inexperienced. This is mainly comes across in the form of a grating voice, and this isn't helped by the insufficient voice actor direction. Certain written parts display a clear decision to emphasize certain spaces and words, but those are skimmed over by the voice actors. The inverse applies as well.

- The music is slightly generic. I'm sorry to say this, but during the majority of the game the background music is just straining to fill an auditory void. When it isn't flatly covering up the silence, it can overwhelm dialogue, as certain voice actors have their lines smothered by drum beats. And whoo boy, there are parts where there are vocals. And that feels significantly out of place, where there is little to no narrative set dressing to justify vocals, and for the most part the music is vocal-less.

- Also, a lack of sound affects to accompany certain actions really does affect the experience. A character might be rifling through papers on their desk, but the only thing that changes is the icon, which goes from a neutral pose to a thinking pose.

- The tone is somewhat smothered by the lack of dynamic music. A few seconds ago, your character might be looking at the bodies of slain comrades, and a somber tune plays, but the next moment a rather upbeat and jovial tune fills the environment, as you start talking about planning for future military encounters. Just a big tonal mishmash where music is sometimes applied badly.

Gameplay:

+ It actually is kind of nice to explore the world via an interactive map, and I quite enjoy the concept. It helps to make the game more of a game, and less of a film.

- However, a lot of the video game elements feel hollow. It could easily be replaced with a simple text box, rather than having the player search the screen for a few extra lines of dialogue.

Choices:

+ Some choices are actually pretty interesting. I don't want to spoil anything significant, but certain choices are legitimately interesting choices to make, and actually ask some questions about the player's moral code.

- The morality system is soulless. If you want to learn more, read up about why TellTale Games fell from grace, and the many games that advertise choice, but the narrative continues with little actual change.

- Also, dialogue choices have little affect on the narrative. You can try to imagine chatting it up with a certain character, but ultimately, the only possible situations are “be a ♥♥♥♥/downer”, “I don’t ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ care, neutral”, “An actually empathic response”, and “Let me ♥♥♥♥ you already”. And that is only in certain places. Otherwise, you are forced between the absolute ends of being a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, and trying to get into a character's pants.

Your Character Here:

- Your character is a hollow shell, with drastically boomeranging character reasons. This is because the writer writes down the main character's desires and reasoning behind a decision, so there is little left to interpret. So, you ultimately end up feeling disconnected with your character.

- Your character also has drastic developments with little narrative displays. We might see a line that says something like," We will train on the boat ride to XYZ." Then, your character is in XYZ a few scenes later, with a startling amount of development in the fighting area. Also, the transition between someone who has been trained to be a seer, and someone who is a trained sword wielder is a bit sudden.

The World:

- Sometimes, you can talk to a character, and really know a new bit of information, something significant to a future event. Some detail that really helps to redefine their character. This feels great, as you got to better understand that character’s motivations, in a way that was a result of your discussion choices. Then, your character is talking later, when there is a reference that alludes to that detail. Your ears perk up a bit, only to be let down as what was learned is blatantly injected later, or not even mentioned at all. This kind of ruins certain decisions, when the main character expresses no consideration about the facts learned through optional dialogue. While certainly not enjoyment killing, it does leave a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth.

- There is little to no way to distinguish a passage of time outside of what we are told. Although we travel the world, there is no way to tell the seasons, so it is hard to tell whether or not the story takes place in the span of a week, or the span of a whole month, or maybe even a year.

The Plot:

- Certain developments are a bit to foreshadowed. It would be a spoiler to mention any specific moment, but there are a lot of story developments that end up being non developments. In that, the reveal doesn't significantly impact your perception of other individual.

- The plot is lackluster. The main antagonist(s?) of the story only show up for a few scenes, but otherwise lack any sort of presence. There are little to no signs, outside of what we are told by our companions, that the world has been inexorably changed by the antagonist(s?). Some sort of interaction with non-essential characters would be nice, and their perspectives of living in each of the different main cities. Speaking of cities...

- Cities are oddly lifeless. There are only four main cities, One of which is off limits, and all are equally lackluster. There is little exploration into the life and times of the common citizen, and so it is hard to sympathize with the people there. A far greater issue is the fact that the lack of other cities makes the world seem rather empty.

Overall, I find that it isn’t a bad game, just a disappointing one. I can sense the intent behind the story and art, and the efforts do shine through, but they are bogged down by a metric ton of minor quibbles. Comparing this to Major/Minor, it definitely is a great improvement, and I hope to see the developer’s work in the future. It’s just that they might need to think a bit more about fleshing out their world, and adding life to it. If I had to pass judgment on this game, I would say that you shouldn’t buy it, or wait until a sale has come.

TL;DR : This game has great art, but an iffy story. Buy if you are truly desperate for furry content, otherwise look elsewhere for a solid visual novel, emphasis on the “novel” part.

Ill be activily updating this review as develment contiunes.

for his second game, its amazing soo far..

The voice acting is a step up over major/minor
The story line is a lot more intreging,
the added point in click (find hidden object game style) adds a little bit more to the title then just being a standard Visual Novel
Chooses MATTER.. like a lot more then it did in Major/minor, So much so I glad I have a habbit of saving all the times.. I must have reloaded a prevous save over good 6 times in wondering if I made the best choose for a first time run....

On that note expect a good 3-5 hours of reading, ect for the first ACT in the game.. took me about 4.3 hours to finish the entire first ACT with all steam achevemnts unlocked (im offically farming for the rest of the cards atm so please don't take my total game time at face value)

I also notice that the entire first ACT is not voiced over. no thats not a bug.. thats just early access telling you the game isn't complete and in this case the first ACT is also not 100% complete (voice over that is)

Warnning ::

The Game cards, emoticons, and backgrounds will be worth more then the acutally game, becuase furries... (and because of his first game, the steam flufff was/is worth more then the game it self..)

so far Furry/10..


quick update

All the above still holds true, on a side note

apprentlly you can get into a "relastionship" (who didn't see that comming in a visual noval, they all seem to do this) how ever, Im at the "current end of build" and still have not had the option to pick.

I have Ves,Pro and some one else on the loop with no option to choose (apprentlly you can choose allready, I personally havn't had that option) Its becomming uncanny to real life. /shiftyeyes.

**Spoilers, I guess**
Winds of Change is quite the anomaly to me. Usually after I play a game I can point at it and say that it's a good game or a bad game, and most people would agree with me. Somehow, the majority opinion seems to be that Winds of Change is a masterpiece of a game. This surprises me as this is one of the few games I own that have very deeply pissed me off. I'd like to take a short time to explain my outlandish opinion.
A while ago I was looking around on Steam and chose to buy Major/Minor based on gut feel. I honestly enjoyed it, despite it having some boring parts. I understood the same developer was making a new game and was fairly excited for the release, on which I bought it. Needless to say, my disappointment was immeasurable and my day was ruined. This game feels like the author took those parts of Major/Minor that sucked, were cliche, and boring, and then molded them together into a gross ball of grey puddy, and then stretched it all out to fit a game length.
Winds of Change is cliche and boring. Nothing exciting happens in this game. I'm going to summarize the plot here in 3 sentences. Spoiler warning if you care:
Psychic protagonist goes to rebellion base.
Ambush on base causes a search for more allies.
Together we defeat evil.
And that's it. It probably sounds like i'm leaving out details, but no. The phychic protagonist is just that. A protagonist who can see the future when the plot needs it. The rebellion is just that. Just a group of dudes against the evil overbearing power cause they're evil and kill people. The allies aren't exactly exciting either. It was clear from the first chapter that I'd eventually go to "the other continent" to interact with them. Just like that, this game is sooooooooo predictable. It's clear where your going to go a chapter and a half from now. It's clear what choices you'll have to make. As soon as a plot point is set up you know what's going to happen. What I'm saying is, the story as a whole is trite ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.
Winds of Change is a visual novel, and with that comes choices and decisions that are supposed to change the flow of the game. Lemme put it this way, none of the choices you make in Winds of Change matter. I fully understand that not every choice in a visual novel has to have some effect, but there is not a single choice in this game that has a significant effect. I would say there are 4 different types of choices in this game: dialogue options, informational text trees, main choices, and relationship choices. 60% of choices you make are dialogue options that all lead back to the characters doing the same thing. Information trees are just long strings of text of a character talking to you and you asking questions that the character answers with information thaf you already learned in the last information tree. I can get trying to flesh out the world by giving the player this information, but often these trees rehash on the same info over and over but you absolutely MUST check every option in case there's some new information. Winds of Change also likes to share info through books that can be found around the environment. Similarly to Skyrim books, they contain 1 or 2 pages on some random info about the world. Also like Skyrim, they're a pain to read so they'll likely be skipped. Back on track, the third type of choice is a main choice. There are about 2 per chapter and... do nothing. Main choices often just do what they say they'll do, or have some effect that doesn't pertain to the choice. Each of these decisions adds 10% to the "purity" and "corruption" stats on the save screen. Now these ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ do diddly squat. They give you the idea that what you're doing is leading to something, but that's not true. More on that in a minute. The last choice type is a relationship choice. You have the chance to romance every main character provided you make the right decisions during relationship scenes. And now what pisses me off most in this game. Every dialogue option and relationship choice has a little symbol next to it telling you the effect and stance that option makes. If yoh want to romance a character, pick the option with the hearts. If you want to take an aggressive stance, pick the one with the fist. If you want to become friends with a character pick the one with shaking hands. IT IS NO LONGER FUN TO PICK OPTIONS IF YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT IT WILL DO. It's not a challenge to romance a character because I know which option is the right one. It's not fun to follow my own path when I know which option the characters will like. And it's not like you have to pick between characters to romance, no. YOU CAN ROMANCE EVERY CHARACTER AT ONCE WITHOUT HAVING TO TRY. And the ending. Note: "THE" ending. One. Instead of culminating all your choices into give you a unique ending, Winds of Change chooses to go for a "modular ending" style. Every main choice you make causes a slightly different scene in the ending. Instead of "Hi! Congrats! We win!" It's "Woo! Congrats! We win!"
I'm going to move on before I get angry beyond measure. The voice acting. I was excited to hear this game was fully voice acted, most VNs don't have that kind of polish. Disappointingly, the voice acting varies from character to character anywhere from not bad, to god-awful. Some characters sound like they don't know where they are. They don't sound like they were given contexr as to what is happening but instead have to infer based on the dialogue. Some just don't even infer, they just read. And, as much as it pains me to say it, I don't think prefer the voice acting on.
With all that said, I do think this game has a fair bit of polish. Graphics look good, I haven't found any glitches, BGM was pleasant.
Regardless, I cannot forgive Winds of Change for scarring me like this. That sounds exaggerated but it's been a year since I've played it and yet I cannot get it off my mind. Dare I say, one of the worst VNs I've played. Major/Minor was better.
Winds of Change is not a good game. It is cliche. It is predictable. Your choices do not matter. The voice acting is sub par. The fun is taken out of making decisions. It is dry as ♥♥♥♥ to play. I cannot reccomend this game to a single person.
2/10
Arigato. Thanks. Gracias. Merci.

As the 2nd game made by Tall Tale Studios (that I know of) it certainly has improved a lot since Major/Minor as a visual novel.
Firstly it has all the basic functions that a VN should have (skip, auto, history log) that Major/Minor didn't have so at least it has no techincal issues for me to complain about again.
Secondly while having the characters as anthropomorphic animals still don't really do much differance than if they were human they do slightly more with it like how their ears perk up or droop :3
Lastly it has a more sprite models for expressions instead of the 1 sprite for every character.

Winds of Change has a fairly straighforward story. You are the chosen one and the key to end a war between the gods of the world and the rebellion. It's one of those stories that's about the journey and not the destination :3 And as all stroies involving war go you'll be facing a lot of choices that are neither good or bad in order to secure the best kind of victory.
With a focused story it gives more room for character bonding with possible romance but it's funny to me how there's only 1 female companion lol
The voice acting is on point aside from some very minor characters sounding like they don't have good mic recordings.

Overall it was an enjoyable story with some fun characters and a plot that's not too conveluted that I question what the main goal is XD

Never in my history of playing countless video games has one ever made me cry...but this game hit different. I cannot express how much I fell in love with this game and its adorable characters; truly one of a kind <3

This game is very obviously a labor of love, and there's a lot to commend, but ultimately it ended up being just too frustrating as an experience and I don't think I can recommend it. Specifically, the issues are in the writing.

Without spoiling anything, the game's premise involves an amount of future-sight, the MC having some limited oracular ability. This is described and utilized very early on, with plenty of hints being dropped for events to look out for later. I was excited about this, wondering whether this would be setting up the ability to change things, or if it would go the dramatic irony route, both of which can be very satisfying.

Instead, the MC proceeds to completely ignore the vast majority of what they saw, outright dismiss major revelations, and stumble blindly despite that gift of foresight. At a certain point, it's no longer dramatic irony, but rather enforced idiocy, and in a visual novel that's especially grating. Narrative agency is literally the only form of gameplay in this genre, and yet you're forced to make decisions and ignore warnings over and over, in a way that I found increasingly grating.

The music is fine, the voice acting is shockingly good, the worldbuilding clearly has a lot of thought and care which does pay off in some places, and the art is solid and consistent. Many of the characters are a joy, too, with lots of interpersonal moments that help flesh them out more. With all that in tandem, the game came very very close to being something excellent. Unfortunately, the one place it falls short just happens to be one of the more critical pillars.

A pretty epic visual novel, I gotta say.

In most visual novels, the only thing we players can interact with, is none other than a few options.
And usually, we earn some CGs as rewards. Nothing much more. (Except that story itself continues, which doesn't count as a REWARD in my opinion.
Yeah I got it, visual novels are NOVELs for a reason. The main point is to tell you a story, that's all.
But, should every single one visual novel obey this rule?

I guess that's why some game producers seek a new way.

And here we are. Winds of Change.

Yeah yeah, most of the time, we still just read whatever inside the dialogue box. No interactions until necessary.
And we still need to deal with a lot of options.
But this game have much more.

First, we have a world map here. Yeah, a world map in a visual novel.
Although I believe this is not unprecedented, still it's rare.
When protagonist's group wanna move to a specific location, you have to click that location on the map first.
While it seems not a big deal, you do *participate* in the story a little bit more, and understand a little bit more about the group's exhaustion of constantly traveling.
Also, through this world map, you can fast travel to any unlocked locations, and check if you miss anything here and there.

Secondly, you get to interact with these locations. Or should I say scenes or backgrounds here?
In your free time, you can click on anywhere you want. Inside the game window of course.
Clicking on some specific items will trigger a corresponding monologue, or even a dialogue. In the monologue part, protagonist gives you a small introduction and their opinions of this item. And in the dialogue part, some of your comrades will start to discuss this item.
Also, there are chances you'll find some BOOKs. Reading them is not necessary (excluding that you have to read a book twice to earn an achievement), however you get to learn this world better.
Every location will hint you about how many books in total here, and how many left.

And, besides the main story, there're several side scenes. Like the books, you're allowed to ignore every single one of them, or watch them one by one. Of course I recommend the latter, since you learn much more about the backstories.
There are mainly three types of side scenes in this game:

1. Comrade Conversations
   The most common type indeed. Almost every single location have at least one comrade conversation. I said almost.
   You'll find icons in the LOWER RIGHT corner which represent your comrades. Click them to start the corresponding scenes.
   Each comrade conversation only happens between the protagonist and ONE comrade. You cannot chat with multiple comrades in these situations.
   And comrade conversations can be divided into two categories:
   (1)Neutral Conversations. Just some friendly chats. You get to know your comrade's personality, or their opinions about something and someone. Although you could please or insult your comrades by asking special questions or giving special responses, they tend to forget it anyway, so no further influences.
   (2)Heart to Heart Conversations. Encounter one of these scenes, and you shall take it seriously, since it will affect your relationship with your comrade. Try satisfy them, and eventually you'll earn their loyalty. Or even love, should you wish to.
   Oops, there's only one female dateable. Try Major\Minor if you feel uncomfortable here LOL.
   
2. Party Banter
   Sometimes, two of your comrades may start chatting with each other.
   You'll find icons in the UPPER RIGHT corner which represent these two comrades. Just click on the icons. You knew it already.
   Since you're not participate in their chat, no options for you of course. Let the dialogue finish itself.
   
3. Parallel Chronicles
   While you're busy in one place, something may happen at the same time, but somewhere else.
   You'll find icons in the UPPER LEFT corner which represent someone not nearby. Click on the icons to learn what they are doing.
   Obviously, no options for these scenes either.

Thanks to these side scenes, the whole story is really much richer in content, and much more splendid.

The story itself is a classic hero's legend. Being the chosen one, you grow into a strong warrior, and lead a rebellion to overthrow the horrible rulers.

However, I do feel that the best plots in this visual novels are not anything about the protagonist, but the stories behind your comrades.
Just a personally opinion, please don't argue with that.

Another important feature which helps the player bending into the in-game world, is the voice acting.
Can't say every voices are 100% perfect.
But they do all fit the characters. And the emotions are accurate.
Listen carefully to the comrades or enemies' talking, and you'll get the feeling that you ARE the protagonist themselves, sooner or later.

Honestly, I still want a few beatiful CGs.
I know that protagonist doesn't have a character design yet.
At least we can have some special CGs about some major characters? Please?

And I have my reasons to use English but not my mother tongue here. No more explaining though.