Viola: The Heroine's Melody releases on February 17!
Just two more weeks until you're able to play Viola: The Heroine's Melody from start to finish. It's been a year and a half since I started with Early Access, and close to three years since I started making this game.
COVID-19 has had an impact on Viola's development, and it certainly had an impact on all of our lives. The previous delay was an indirect result of the pandemic, but it did give me time to work on content that was previously cut from Viola. Being able to put in extra time to make sure Viola is the best experience it could possibly be has been very rewarding.
In any case, to celebrate the upcoming release date, there's an update right now that contains the following:
- Ceryn, Justice, and Arti now each have their own Personal Quest!!
- Updated visuals for battles - including better feedback, better animations, spell effects, and more!
- UI updates: smoother selections and menus during battle!
- Gameplay updates! Platforming with springs and cannons while wall and triple jumping has been improved.
- New and improved animations for story moments and battles!
- Improved environmental artwork!
- Improvements to the Bond Level conversations, as well as a full suite of party banter conversations. 70+ conversations between every single party member!
- A massive number of bug-fixes, such as platforming issues, issues with being unable to resolve Personal Quests, running from battles restoring a little too much HP, controller rebind issues, UI overlap issues, and many, many more.
You still won't be able to progress past Drum Village, but you can revisit old levels as you please.
On February 17, you will be able to play three new levels, plus an additional final level featuring just Viola, and of course, you'll be able to witness one of the multiple endings. Do your best and go for the true ending!
An unfortunate note for old players of Viola: while your save data can be used to progress in the game, you will not be able to play the three new Personal Quests that have been added if you have already reached an S-rank Bond Level with them.
Note: Once the 1.0 release drops, Viola's price will increase from $9.99 to $14.99, as promised in the Early Access information on this game's store page. That means if you've been on the fence, this might be the best time to hop on, wait for the 1.0 update to drop, and then start playing!
See you, Violin Girl! Someday, somewhere!