Fantasia: at Regime’s End
- genre: otome, romance, adventure, fantasy
Prequels:
Fantasia: The Realm of Thanos
Fantasia: Requiem of The Abyss
Can assassins find love?
Fantasia: at Regime’s End is the third and last game in the Fantsia series by azureXtwilight. I’ve waited for a full game for several years, and wasn’t disappointed. The game came out pretty long - more than 10 hours, with 4 pursuable characters, a lot of side characters, lore and characters from two previous games, and a lot of fighting.
If you like court intrigue and royal matters, the themes that involve war and peace, long battle scenes - this visual novel is great.
If a person dies feeling hate, they will rebirth again as a demon. In the world of Fantasia many races live together, but demons are still being outsiders, not fully accepted by society, because many people are afraid of demons and don’t trust them. In a society like this there is not so many paths for demon to choose.
Ash is an demon and an assassin on a mission to kill the princess Fatima,the last member of the royal family which survived after the falling of her kingdom and managed to escape with her bodyguard Alister and the Royal Knight Malik.
We are starting the game with the love triangle: Princess is in love with Royal Knight and her bodyguard is in love with her. Also there is a cheerful merchant Zen, who is a demon, but seems pretty much accepted by society due to his charm and quality of the merchandise. Also despite that you don’t remember meeting him before, he seems to know quite a bit about you.
You will have to discover hidden part of each characters. What kind of person are they? What do they desire most? What is their role in the story?
Will Ash succeed in her mission and keep her reputation as an ASHassin or she will decide against it and find other meaning for her life with one of her newly-found companions?
Will she open more ways for demons to be accepted in society?
It is up to player’s choice.
Also you can play matchmaker and help love interests fall in love with other characters.
The story is unraveling itself step by step, and there is one true route, which should be played last.
CHARACTERS:
MC Ashlynn “Ash”
heart desires: find a purpose in life, to be loved for who she is, find her family, don’t be alone again.
As a newborn demon she was found and risen by Serena, however two years ago she left her, because she thought that there is more for her in this world. Now Ash is of the best assassins in the Barracuda’s Guild, but she still feels that her life has no meaning.
Fun fact: because if short haircut and comfortable clothes a lot of people are at first mistaken her for a man
It really is hard to say something about Ash, except general characteristics. She’s still a fun character to play though.
Narrator
The idea of a sarcastic narrator, with which MC can banter and even argue, is absolutely wonderful! I won’t tell anything else about the narrator, though to prevent spoilers.
Love interests (MILD SPOILERS AHEAD):
I would reccomend order of routes (by the amount of content revealing): Altair -> Fatima -> Malik ->Zen
Altair (The Knight)
heart desires: rebuild a house of Brideguard, have children, do something to be remembered for.
Altair is one of the nobles of Kingdom of Requia and the personal bodyguard of princess Fatima. He is very proper and uptight and sometimes Fatima feels like he’s controlling her too much. Also he’s deeply in love with her, but he puts interests of the kingdom beforehand, so he doesn’t allow himself to think about her.
He is prejudiced towards the demons, but spending more time in your company he understands his mistake and warms up to you.
Despite his attitude, Altair is absolute sweetheart, I love his dynamic with MC, and how his story and romance unravelling.
His pairing with May in other routes is hilarious.
Fatima (The Princess)
heart desires: ??? (to find her place in life?)
OK, Fatima basically IS your typical otome game MC. She’s self-concious, shy, soft-hearted, kind, try to see the best in everyone.
She doesn’t know what to do, so in different routes she have different plans. I can’t understand does she wants to be a queen or not?
She’s pretty boring as a love interest, but as a side character I think she grows more. So you can see her good and bad dynamics in different routes.
Pairing her with Alister is necessary in some routes, but it is so plain and pretty boring “princess and her knight” trope. Her relationship with prince Nazim seems to have possibility of development, though.
Malik (The Hero)
heart desires: to be a hero, fight for the weak, build a new regime
Malik’s route contains a lot of new information and shows absolutely different side of Fatima.
As for Malik himself, he has his reason to hate nobles, and his main interest is pretty much idealistic: to build a kingdom in which no one will suffer from oppression or poverty. He doesn’t want any more wars, but is it possible? The role of MC on his route would be pretty much supportive - when the hero is on his journey, everyone else is irrelevant.
His pairing with Fatima can’t happen for a reason, but I would route for it just to see how it goes.
Zen (The Sacrifice/???)
heart desires: for demons being treated as equals by society, to settle down, happiness for May and Ash
He is a demon merchant, who used all his charm and marketing talents to be recognized by society.
Also he has a twin sister May, which is also a demon, because they’ve died at the same time, hating all the world. And now all that they want is to find a place for them to live safely and being treated as equals.
What does Zen hides behind his jokes and cheerful facade? Who’s that secret boss for whom they work? How many plans does Zen have and will any of them save everyone?
Zen is great. He is smart, funny, kind, and will do everything for those he loves. Also he is the canon LI. You will have to finish other routes and some of his own to reach the true route.
PS Personally I’m not a fan of true routes and canon characters in otome games, because the best part of those type of games is pursuing different characters and deciding for yourself who is the best for MC.
(of course, my favorite is Alister here)
Also long battle scenes is not my cup of tea, because of them some routes felt too long (an I have short attention span)
But still I appreciate how much love was put in this game.
Overall:
- Originality: 5/5
- Graphic: 4/5
- Story: 4,5/5
- Characters: 4/5
- Romance: 3,5/5
- My Rating: 4,5/5
The game is free, you can get it from itch.io