A five-episode Latin American soap opera VN where you control the decisions of the hot new actress. Chaotic, humorous, several LIs. Colourful, plentiful graphics with lively audio support.

Intro

In Destino Indomable, a choice-driven visual novel made using Unity, the player takes on the role of the newest actress in a Latino telenovela, or, for those English speakers among us, a soap opera.  Now, if you’re an addict of soaps (as they’re called in the UK), you’ve probably already decided to get this, and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed… but if you’re not, then you’re more likely to be thinking “oh heck, no thanks!” straight away – and that’s where I suggest shelving that thought a moment:  I have never voluntarily watched a soap in my adult life either, my entire history being as a youngster when my mother had them on the TV.

Overview

Upon loading, we’re presented with a title page which is a full screen version of the game’s Steam banner, and it is very colourful and welcoming, with the pretty MC front and centre, bordered by two very buff co-stars, with other primary cast members also represented.  This is accompanied by a lively backing tune which sits perfectly in keeping with the telenovela’s origins.  

The title menu is clear and friendly, and upon choosing settings, we find they include full-screen/windowed, graphics resolution, text speed and various font sizes, and full audio control.

There is also a CG gallery with a huge 94 pictures to be found, and the credits screen presents an animated galloping horse in front of a pseudo-3D scenic backdrop. Although close inspection gives a mechanical-gallop feeling to this animation, all of the above nonetheless contributes to a very strong initial experience and left me enthused about what was to come.

Gameplay

Once starting the game proper, the display becomes a more traditional VN style, and the story begins with a scene which – if you pay attention – will go on to make a whole lot more sense as you progress.  Following this, and the very attractive episode-opening sequence, we cut to the director gathering the cast and the new actress – the player – who is immediately expected to name her character.  Being of Spanish origin here would help, as you have to provide two names.  Whether that is a first name and surname, or two christian names, I have no idea and had to guess.  A little guidance for non-Latinos here would have helped, but it doesn’t discriminate against whatever you choose.

This choice is then built upon with what is a very rare inclusion for a VN – strong character appearance customisation.  There are an amazing 20 hairstyles, complete with colour variations, to choose from for your MC, along with 9 outfits, 12 accessories and eye shape options available.  With that done, we’re straight into shooting the episode, and there are five overall.

You may wonder how a scripted soap opera can possibly function as a game with player options interspersed.  The idea appears to be that the scripting is loose, at best, and the actors fill in the blanks by improvising, giving them ultimate control over where the story in each episode goes.  As this includes the MC, it allows for player choices to influence direction, and it works within the telenovela scripted framework really rather well.   Being a soap opera, and moreso, I suspect, as a Latino one; the characters can be as outlandishly unrealistic as they like, display thoroughly unbelievable behaviour, and create ludicrous plot developments whilst never feeling out of place:  just like you’d experience if watching a “real” one on the television!  Do bear this in mind if playing the game and finding some moments nonsensically extreme – it simply serves to capture the feel of your favourite (or not!) TV soap, and does so successfully.

Each episode of the novela is then immediately followed by a review show called Que Lata, where a gossip host discusses the episode and sometimes conducts a cast interview which he then promptly twists into a tabloid-style sensationalist headline.

Graphics and Sounds

Graphically, the game is great, with rich colour usage, attractive sprites and backdrops which complement them, stopping at just enough detail to avoid becoming the main visual focus; and quality, smooth animations on a regular basis.  All non-MC sprites have multiple expressions, too.

The tunes accompanying the story are upbeat and eminently listenable – a shame that they’re not also included to listen to separately from the title screen – with just the one little hiccup in the end-of-episode tension-ramping piece which is on a very short loop, and you can clearly tell where it cycles around.  A very minor glitch in an otherwise big audio success, but it is noticeable.

User Experience

I am purposely avoiding story detail in this review so that you can enjoy it spoiler-free, but be prepared for it to feel utterly chaotic with every far-fetched soap-opera plotline imaginable getting a  good airing, and connections between almost any pairing of the cast members going much deeper than you expect.  If you’re old enough to remember the Bobby Ewing shower scene from the US soap “Dallas” … yeah, that had nothing on this.

Overall the English quality is very good, though to retain the flavour of a Latin American telenovela, a low percentage of lines remain in Spanish, with certain Spanish words also used regularly within the English language captions.  As someone who speaks only English, I can assure you that this does not leave you wondering what’s going on.  Everything is fully understandable as it is.

One thing I didn’t like was the design decision for the MC once in-story.  After all of that great work with appearance options, she then appears as a mini-sprite with no expression variation.  Next to the full size sprites for all other characters, this left me feeling like she was comparatively unimportant, which is not a great place to be for the central actress.

Important user control note

When progressing the story, the telenovela episode intro and closing credits sequence will play through at the beginning and end of every episode, as will the animated intro to the gossip show Que Lata afterwards.  These are very attractively done and well worth watching, but you will not want to wait for them over and over again.  They can be skipped by pressing the BACKSPACE key on your keyboard, or the B key on a gamepad.  This is not mentioned in-game but will make a big difference to your enjoyment especially during repeat plays for achievements or alternative endings.

Thanks to Javier at Jandusoft for confirming this.

Issues

At time of playing, 1-2 weeks before release, I did find some things which will hopefully be addressed in order to improve end-user enjoyment of the game:

There is no backstep function available at all, and it appears that there is no history log either.  However, towards the end of a play through, I was presented with a pictureless screen which gave a full options list at the bottom where for the rest of the game only four commands are visible.  This included a history log, which I selected, and it worked.  So it looks like there is one which should be available either by or shortly after full release.  Fingers crossed that this is nothing more than a tiny tweak to the coding.

When typing in the player character name (and that of the pet dog), you can enter these exclusively in capital letters, which then gets carried into the narrative, with the result that every reference to the MC and her pet appears entirely in BLOCK CAPITALS, and are the only names to do so. 

That’s a little jarring, but again, something which could be remedied easily.

If you’re not a Spanish native speaker, then it’s possible that not immediately understanding some repeated words will be an annoyance.  It would improve experience somewhat if some words were clickable, so that doing so then provided a translation.   As mentioned earlier, it isn’t a huge pain, and not narrative-breaking, but adding this feature would help and improve experience.

Verdict

Despite some imperfections along the way, Destino Indomable benefits from high production values and a solid storyline which despite appearing to be beyond all logic, ultimately turns out to be pretty tight.  I had a couple of laughs along the way, loved and hated the same character in different runs, and had a good time working my way through it.  At time of writing this review, I do not have confirmation of the Steam price, but would suggest that there is fair value in the £8-10 range (around $10-$12.50 US); and whether you’re a fan of soap operas or not, this one is worth a look.

^{The game was played via the Steam platform, but it is also available on Nintendo Switch, PS5/4, and Xbox Series X/S.}

Otome Lovers wishes to thank Jandusoft for providing a free review copy of this game.

Review also posted on Steam ➞

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