Game review: Lamento - Beyond the Void

Made by: Nitro+
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy, Yaoi, Catboys <3
Summary: In a world where humans died hundreds of years ago, the race of Ribika lives. Strong fighters, Touga, pair up with Sangas whom can sing to improve the fighter’s attributes. A strange disease that causes bodyparts to disappear is spreading and at the same time The Void slowly takes over the forest and makes it impossible to touch anything without getting hurt.
Hunger to become a bigger and bigger problem, especially in the small village of Hibiki where Konoe lives alone, with only a ring as a memory of his dead parents.

After nights of horrible nightmares he finds out that a curse was put on him and he begins to travel around the world to find out what’s really going on.

Konoe

He have white and brown ears that later is dyed to black when the curse appears. Konoe was an outcast of his village and never really been close to anyone before. Still, he tries to help everybody the best he can, but easily gets discouraged. I really liked how Konoe acted different on each route. With Rai he was soft and wanting to understand Rai’s feelings. With Asato he was easily embarrassed and on Bardo’s route Konoe was a total tsundere.His seiyuu did a great job on not making him sound to uke-ish which I really liked. He was a great main character~

Rai is a skilled Touga who meets Konoe early in the game. He is an arrogant, cold, stubborn and confident cat who makes Konoe his Sanga. He often acts according to what he think is right and expect everyone to follow. Rai calls everyone, and especially Konoe, Bakaneko (stupid cat).

He and Konoe are the “official couple” in the game.

 Of course he is softer on the inside but too proud to admit that he loves Konoe, who on the other hand thinks that Rai acts coldly because he hates him and that he only want him as a Sanga.

I admit that I love Rai, but his true ending was so-so. I didn’t feel anything between them on the epilogue and I was left with a feeling of emptiness. I know that it was a happy ending and everything but the mood and atmosphere really threw me off.

Rai had a rough childhood and when his parents were killed by bandits something snapped.  Whenever he kills something and he feels the warm blood splatter, Rai goes insane.

Luckily for him, Konoe is always by his side to help him and calm him down. But as the story progress Rai only becomes more and more crazy which results in him hurting Konoe.

So Rai tries to push Konoe away, saying that he should find another Touga and that he will be killed by him if he stays.

Konoe refuses to leave Rai and promise to stab him in his heart ever goes crazy beyond control. When they get back to the inn Konoe confess his feelings and they face both of their problems together.

Asato is in one way the opposite of Rai.
He is gentle, honest and always thinks of Konoe.
He grew up in the village of Kira, where strict rules and orders from the elder chained everyone down. The elder told everyone that if a cat from Kira leaves the village he or she will die, because of this, Asato knows nothing of the outside world and comes off as clumsy in many situations.

 Asato is just too sweet in the game. He wants to defend Konoe but doesn’t know how to express his feelings in words, so he just ends up kissing him instead.

When I was playing Rai’s route I was like “Asato who?” but after finishing his route I got to say he is my favorite guy in the game.  I know RaixKonoe is the true pairing and everything, but Asato’s route just made me realize how much I missed more signs of affections from Rai. He was way too cold most of the time.

Anyway, back to Asato; when cat’s from Kira reappears to kill Asato, Konoe hear that the cat calls him “Demon child” and “Child of the curse”. When Konoe later finds out what’s really going on and why the demon of sorrow is connected to Asato, Konoe promise that he will always stay with him forever and would search for a cure until he dies.

The true ending was just amazing. I really felt that they belonged together after everything they’ve been through and their clumsy way of showing their feelings. Konoe never had anyone whom he had loved before and since Asato also was an outcast in Kira, he had neither.

Konoe loves Asato unconditionally and Asato would protect Konoe no matter what. Always.

Bardo

When Konoe and Rai comes to the bigger city, Ransen, they meet Bardo at the inn. Turns out that he and Rai got a past together and for some reason Rai hates Bardo more than anything.

Konoe can’t help but to get interested in Bardo, not only for his charm and personality, but also because he wants to know what happened with Rai.

Playing Bardo’s route was really fun. He kept teasing Konoe and joked around a lot, whom turned tsundere, calling him EroNeko (perverted cat).

The serious story for Bardo was not as capturing or good as the other two.
In short:

Bardo had been a fighter for a long time and seen many horrible things.

He was emotionally drained and feelings of guilt awoke after seeing so many that he cares about die.

 That’s why he started to work as Rai’s teacher. That day when Rai turned crazy for the first time Bardo was there and saw him. But instead of feeling fright or pity for him, Bardo was jealous.He envied Rai who could forget everything and just kill everything in his way merciless.  He wished that he could have that kind of power too, then he wouldn’t be so weak and maybe all those people in the past wouldn’t have to die.

So he made a contract with a demon.

 But something went wrong.

And now Bardo is stuck with unwanted powers that are slowly eating him from inside.

His true ending was nice and left you with a happy feeling, while his bad ending was surprisingly cool and I wished they could have used it in the main story.

I’m usually not the type who likes older guys but Bardo was both funny and charming which made me like him a lot. He and Konoe really had a good chemistry going and Bardo kept a nice mix between being funny and serious. 

Another thing that I really enjoyed in Bardo's route was that he was the only one who tried to stop Konoe from fighting the bad guy in the end. Both Asato and Rai had the "Let's fight! We can do this!" while Bardo kept insisting Konoe to stay, afraid that he might lose him. It was really touching and you can notice when comparing that Bardo had a more grown-up feeling.

The traveler

A musician who helps Konoe many times through the story. He hides his face under a hood and never speaks, always carrying a guitar with him. Konoe feels a strange connection when he hears the traveler song.

Gameplay:

There is a total of 10 different endings (both good and bad) and a replay gallery with 10 scenes to enjoy. The music library got 32 songs and 3 promo movies. There is also a Treasure Disk with a short story, wallpapers, character voices and more. A playthrough contains around 20 choices and a good/bad ending choice.

Final Score:

Story 10/10  

I love a good fantasy and Lamento was just great. The background story about the gods, the map, the curses and the characters were just amazing.

Music 10/10

The music in the game was extremely well put together. It was a nice mix of oriental music but kept the pace going. My favorite soundtrack is Konoe’s sanga song, but I really love all of them.

Art 10/10

The artist is Tatana Kana who comes back with beautiful catboys. Everything from the character designs to the CGs were super high quality and I just can’t get enough of it.

Voices 9/10
 It took me awhile to get use to Konoe’s voice (Hatano Kazutoshi) but after playing the game I got to say I liked all the seiyuus. Morikawa Toshiyuki (famous for his voice as Sephiroth) made the voice for Rai and sounded sexy no matter what they were talking about.

Total:10/10

This is just an amazing game. It’s like somebody put together my deam game and made it even better than I could ever imagine.
The story played out pretty differently on each route and I can honestly say that I think Konoe fit perfectly with any of the three main guys.
The story about LeaksxShui made me cry and I became a huge shipper (people who have played the game know what I talk about)