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Crime Opera Collection – Review

We’re no strangers to controversial releases lately. We only just took a look at Tokyo Clanpool, and now we’re back with another title that was banned from Steam. Visual novel Crime Opera: The Butterfly Effect was removed from Valve’s platform in 2021 for “child exploitation”, something that indie developer Crime Opera Studios vehemently disagrees with. The visual novel is still available on PC via itch.io, as well as a separate console release. It’s now being joined by both a sequel and a fan disk, releasing together as the Crime Opera Collection. This release seemed like a good opportunity to dive into the series and find out what all the fuss was about. Story As is usually the case for visual novels, we’ll try to refrain from giving out too much information, as the focus is on discovering the story, or in this case, stories, through reading. The center of Crime Opera’s stories is the Gallo mafia family. The two main stories, Crime Opera: The Butterfly Effect and Crime Opera II: The Floodgate Effect follow the illustrious members of this family over the course of roughly a decade, with a particular focus on the family’s six youngest children. The first story opens with the passing away of the family’s matriarch, grandma Gallo. Each chapter shows the aftermath of the death through the eyes of a different child. It’s an interesting perspective, as the suddenly vacant position at the top of the family causes a power struggle between the parents of our protagonists. The Butterfly Effect is already a dark and violent story on its own, but contrasting these events with the viewpoint of a group of children, the youngest of whom is just six years old, enhances their impact. We assume that this juxtaposition is what got Valve so upset about the novel, but in all honesty, we’d agree that the Steam ban of The Butterfly Effect is unjustified, given that the platform hosts games with much more shocking content without issue. There is a time skip of nine years between The Butterfly Effect and The Floodgate Effect, with the second story showing how our protagonists have aged. The focus of The Floodgate Effect is on a rift between Xander Gallo, the youngest son of grandma, and the rest of the family. The events of The Butterfly Effect have left him on the brink of insanity and mad for power. His actions inevitably disturb the delicate balance between the different crime families, and the other Gallos must now make a choice between siding with or against Xander. In addition to these two stories, the Crime Opera Collection also includes a fandisk, The Caterpillar Candids. This is a companion piece specifically for The Butterfly Effect, and it contains three additional side stories that further flesh out the Crime Opera universe. Graphics Art is often a matter of personal taste, of course, but we weren’t fans of the Crime Opera Collection’s art style. The hand-drawn character art is often wonky, especially when it comes to faces. Character portraits are often too small for the scene. This is especially apparent when there is no background present, showing the cast floating in a void of nothingness. The absence of backgrounds happens a fair few times too, typically to emphasize certain events, but the effect is lost due to overuse. The backgrounds don’t match the art style of the anime-inspired character designs, being way more detailed. We suspect that the backgrounds were sourced from stock images rather than specifically designed for the game. Sound Things fare slightly better when it comes to the Crime Opera Collection’s music. While we can’t rule out that the tunes aren’t also sourced elsewhere, they do fit the overall atmosphere of the different story scenes. Music is the main source of audio here, as the game is lacking in both voice acting and ambient sound effects, but the soundtrack is more than adequate when it comes to setting the mood. Gameplay There are two ways to read through the Crime Opera Collection. You can choose between a linear version of the stories, or a branching one where you make choices that affect the flow of the narrative. The linear version depicts the canonical events, which is particularly important for continuity between The Butterfly Effect and The Floodgate Effect. We’ve seen other visual novels where sequels take save data from previous titles into account, but this isn’t the case with Crime Opera. The kinetic versions of these novels ensure that there are no discrepancies between the “true” versions of the stories. This does mean that it’s recommended to read the two main linear stories first, before returning to them to see in what ways the narrative branches. Of course, The Caterpillar Candids further ties into this, adding a selection of short “what if” stories that further expand on the Crime Opera universe in non-canonical, non-committed ways. Apart from the choice between a kinetic and choice-driven version, the Crime Opera Collection is a standard visual novel made using the Ren’Py engine. All the standard options are here, including the option to skip through previously read text, adjust auto speed, and the like. As far as visual novels go, the Crime Opera Collection is fairly short. It depends on your reading speed, of course, but we finished the kinetic versions of the main stories in under two hours each, with The Caterpillar Candids clocking in at roughly 20 minutes per story. While there are reasons to revisit the stories and make different choices, they still feel light in content. This does mean that the Crime Opera Collection is rather expensive, coming in at a RRP of €19.99. In theory, it’s a decent deal compared to picking up the three included releases separately, which would set you back €27.97. However, we’d still recommend waiting for a sale before picking this one up though, as it feels fairly overpriced otherwise. Conclusion The biggest strength of the Crime Opera Collection is in how well-crafted the dark and violent stories are. There is a definitive, canonical way that everything’s meant to play out, but the authors aren’t afraid to branch out with “what if” scenarios that explore other options. The series definitely has some shortcomings. The character art isn’t always up there, and the short length of the stories isn’t reflected in the price point. Nevertheless, the Crime Opera Collection still proved to be an enjoyable, if dark and violent read.