Ignis Avis Venatio includes many genre and is probably best described as supernatural/fantasy/slice of life Visual Novel. I'm honest with you guys, I played it just a few months ago, but I already can't remember a single thing about the story, only that I felt like falling asleep out of boredom, and I'm sure I even did fall asleep for a few minutes. It's always a bad sign if something simply fails to be rememberable after such a short time. That only happens with titles that are neither good nor bad enough to be actually remembered in any way. I don't know about you, but that's how it works for me, at least. So, if you expect to read a fleshed-out review, I'm afraid I have to disappoint you. I can't tell you much about the story or characters anymore because I simply can't recall anything except for the beautiful visuals and the fits of sole boredom that got a hold on me more often than not, but I would like to warn you that you probably won't get anything out of reading this paper-thin story, except for admiring the gorgeous artwork. This is not a hidden gem, even if it may looks like it at first glance.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1532337902

The text is displayed as a wall of text instead of a classic text box. You probably know that kind of text representation already from the highly acclaimed Higurashi Series. One might feel overwhelmed by the amount of text since there is simply too much to read at once before it goes over to the next transition. I already disliked the wall of text in Higurashi, and I only started to read it attentively after installing the PS3 Patch, which transforms the wall of text into a classic text box. However, the Higurashi Series is more than a decade older than Ignis Avis Venatio, and what many people seem to accept when playing Higurashi due to the good plot, as well as the hype, is probably more difficult to achieve for a relatively new Visual Novel like this one. The text presentation made it even more difficult for me to follow the shallow story, and I lost the desire in it quite soon.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1531085791

Admittedly, I'm kind of biased since the art is absolutely stunning, and that always catches my attention even if the story is not that interesting to begin with. I think it's not an exaggeration to say that this is one of the most beautiful looking Visual Novels here on Steam. I mean just take a look at some of the CGs; if those aren't beautiful then I don't know what actually is. Some Visual Novels that lack great storytelling can still convince me and are able to leave a positive impression on me when the graphics are beautifully illustrated, but the story has to be at least a bit intriguing for that to happen. Sadly, the artwork is the only thing that kept me going, otherwise, I would have just skipped through the whole game. I was hoping that the plot would show some kind of improvement over time, alas that did not happen. It's nothing you haven't seen before and especially if you've watched your fair share of shounen anime, Ignis Avis Venatio is probably going to be a tedious experience for you as well.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1538033427

There are just too many aspects that make it impossible for me to truly recommend this Visual Novel. Missing features like a voice over, a user-friendly interface or a gallery are just a few honorable mentions that would doubtlessly turn it into a more enjoyable experience, but first and foremost Ignis Avis Venatio is lacking a captivating story that would make it worthwhile to torture yourself with the amateurish writing that is far off from being well written.

Probably one of the worst VN out there. You just want to slap the protagonist constantly and nothing makes sense. It's sad to have to read such a terrible writting while the art is stunning :/

https://youtu.be/0AGv1nkK3_E

The main protagonists insistence on being insufferable makes them hard to not only play as but care about. The UX choices using the entire screen to show text disrupts the images and readability.

I didn't enjoy the story very much.

TWENTY BUCKS FOR A GARBAGE E-BOOK!!!!

Ignis Avis Venatio is not a game, it's an e-book that's been dumped on Steam masquerading as a game. As a visual/interactive novel, this doesn't feature any notable gameplay, it's just a lot of clicking through badly written dialogue that would never have been accepted or published in print, which poses the question, "How did something this badly written end up on Steam?". When someone hoping to become an author is unable to get published in print, they spend $100 and dump their high school fan-fiction onto Steam, under the guise of a game.

This e-book was slapped together with the godawfully bad RenPy Visual Novel/E-Book construction kit, so just like no professional writing took place here, no professional game development took place either, it's just a product of filling out templates in the construction kit.

The writing here is particularly bad, as the "author" figured he could probably just write his own anime/manga plot and become a superstar by dumping Ren'Py garbage at ludicrous prices onto Steam, which is for games, not E-books. It's hard to follow the terrible writing but you're supposed to be a whimsical magician or something... look, there's just no understating how badly written this is.

Visual novels/e-books are tedious at best... imagine the best novel you ever read, be that Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy or 2001: A Space Odyssey or Twilight (if you have terrible taste in literature), but then translate that to a format where the words dribble out and you have to click your mouse every time you wanted to read the next sentence, instead of just turning the pages. You'd think it was garbage. Mind you, at least here there's more text than usual displayed on each page, which improves readability for the E-book... something that the tiny handful of people who tried to read this actually complained about. I mean, I know some people have bad taste, but I didn't realise it was that extreme.

Now imagine that experience, but with much worse writing (because if these guys could write professionally, they'd be published authors and this would be on shelves in bookstores, and they wouldn't have to pay Valve $100 to self-publish this on Steam), and you have your average Steam e-book.

One of the chief problems with failed authors polluting Steam with non-game E-books is that E-books can easily just be presented in a web browser... there's no justification for charging money on Steam for what might as well be a webpage. We don't spend thousands on buying a gaming rig to spend money on Steam for something Chrome or Firefox could do.

The poor quality of this E-Book is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak reader number was only 3 readers. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only reader activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 100,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality E-Book is to be expected.

Ignis Avis Venatio is relatively cheap at $20 USD, but it's not worth it. Given the defects and quality issues with the E-Book, coupled with the unrealistic price, this is impossible to recommend. For comparison, the $20 asking price for this E-book could get you actual games like "Frostpunk", "Deep Rock Galactic" or "7 Days to Die". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this. You can get better quality books and comics for free online or from public libraries, or from bookstores for a fraction of the price of this "game". Steam isn't a comic book store, neither is it Netflix, it's for games. Your gaming rig is not a Kindle. It's impossible for me to recommend things to PC gamers that aren't really games.

$20 for a crap E-book... Jesus wept.

It isn't much, but I wrote a blog post about this game in formal review format here:

https://kapodaco.blog/2018/08/16/a-long-overdue-review-of-ignis-avis-venatio/