Once Upon a Hallow’s Eve – Visual Novel Review

To celebrate Halloween, I present a review of a 2016 freeware otome visual novel titled Once Upon a Hallow’s Eve. This visual novel was written and developed by Ran and fittingly released on Halloween day in 2016, exactly ten years prior to the publication date of this review. The title screen for Once Upon a Hallow’s Eve featuring the view-point protagonist, Cara Lee. In Once Upon a Hallow’s Eve, the player takes the perspective of Cara Lee (first name can be changed), a 20-year old woman who finds herself in dire straits after being knocked unconscious by a landslide while hiking with her friends. She is in bad shape as she trudges through the rain in the woods to a mansion out in the middle of nowhere, where she is disturbed by malevolent blue flames flitting about. Desperate, Cara begs to be let in. The residents of the mansion are three brothers: the 23-year old Viktor, 22-year old Vonn, and 19-year old Vern. After some initial reluctance from Vonn and Vern for unknown reasons,…