Metamorphosis

introduction
Have you ever heard about Franz Kafka? If you do then you probably know his book about Gregor Samsa. The book has many different meanings depending on your look on life. I would never have thought it would be turned into a visual novel.
Metamorphosis follows the journey of Gregor as he transforms into a disgusting bug, all the responsibilities he had as a human has disappeared because of this transformation. To name one his hatred towards his job. The question then arrives of course is this all in Gregor’s mind or is it real? What does Kafka want to tell you with his book the Metamorphosis? There are many lessons you can learn from Franz Kafka’s book and for everyone it is different.

Franz Kafka usually gets associated with dark and immoral themes and some of his quotes can indeed come over as dark and immoral.  “What if all the peace, comfort, and contentment have come to a horrible end”? This is one of the many quotes by Franz Kafka. Metamorphosis Is all about the story and looking around you and inside of yourself.
Ovid Works has worked really hard to make this visual novel a game where Franz Kafka himself would be proud of, I imagine if he lived in this world with games, he would have something to say about that. What he would say about gaming would set many people to wonder about gaming as that was a git that Franz Kafka possessed. Many people still wonder what he actually wanted to say by creating his story Metamorphosis, I have found many theories on the internet but what is truth and what is lies? What is some one’s opinion and what is a woven net of lies?
I will not create a gameplay section in this review, this game is all about the story and walking through Franz Kafka’s story of Metamorphosis.

What did I think about Metamorphosis before playing?
I usually don’t play visual novels but this game looked very interesting and I have always had a slight interest in Franz Kafka, his name is one that comes by more often in games than you would realize.
I did not know the story of this book before I played this game I learned about the book after playing Metamorphosis. Without prior knowledge of the story, I decided to contact the developer.
I received a key from the developer and I installed the game to learn what this game is about. After learning that the game was based on Franz Kafka my interest was piqued.
I started the game and completed it one day, interested how the story would continue I kept playing until I finished the game. It took me about three hours to complete.

Story
The story begins with Gregor Samsa waking up, today is the trial of his friend Joseph. Gregor wants to walk through the door but somehow the door looks bigger than usual. Gregor finds the key and continues to the second room and somehow
he has shrunk so much that he can’t even reach the drawer for the key anymore. Gregor has a feeling of déjà vu as he enters the second room and realizes that the key is in the same place as it was in the previous room. Gregor needs to climb up and get to the drawer to get the key. After climbing up to the door handle, Gregor manages to open the door. The world around him seems to twist and turn as he opens the door. As he looks at himself, he finds that he has transformed into a disgusting bug. He has grown bug legs and he dares not to look into a mirror at himself. Gregor finds a letter on a table that says he needs to head to the tower to become human again, Gregor falls inside the letter and everything seems to twist as his imagination runs wild.

Following the strange sign from a mysterious organization called the tower, Gregor soon finds himself in Joseph’s room as he keeps following the mysterious sign. All Gregor wants is to become human once again to help Joseph in his trial.
Gregor finds himself wandering through tables and climbing through drawers and he keeps thinking to himself that he is going to wake up at any moment from this nasty dream. He encounters Joseph a few times but he is unable to communicate with him in his current state. Gregor continues to follow the sign and finds other bugs on his way to the tower that can talk, do they talk in the same language Gregor talks now that he is a bug? Or could bugs always talk like this but we cannot understand them? Gregor decides to drop the question and continue his way. He finds himself at something that resembles a port, he finds a boat that will take him to tower but he is in need of a certificate.

Gregor decides to find the certificate and head for the lawyer’s office, he has no clue how the certificate would look or work but he decided not to question it. He finds himself climbing through many tables and drawers once again, is this how bugs climb around all day? He keeps climbing around but he can’t seem to find a way to the lawyer’s office. He finds an exquisite bug club listening to music in a gramophone, a female bug named Leni lets Gregor inside the gramophone.
Gregor finds the boss to talk about getting a certificate, the boss of the gramophone mentions that he needs to get on the lawyer’s desk for a certificate. If Gregor would stop the gramophone the lawyer would come over so that Gregor can get to the lawyer’s desk. Gregor climbs the gramophone and puts a stop to the music. The lawyer comes over and Gregor quickly climbs toward the lawyer’s desk. Gregor looks around but he cannot find a certificate, he hears from bugs that he needs to get inside the table. Gregor finds a way into the table and finds a factory that is run by bugs that make certificates, how strange. There seems to be something broken inside the factory but Gregor repairs it in exchange for the certificate. All Gregor needs to do now is return to the port and take the boat to get to the tower, Gregor needs to become human to save Joseph. He even saw Joseph talking to the lawyer but there is nothing he can do as a bug.
The certificate floats up towards the lawyer but he takes it away and puts it in the filing cabinet. Without hesitation, Gregor follows the certificate inside the filing cabinet. It is the only way to save Joseph.

Gregor finds a huge facility with thousands of floating papers inside the filing cabinet, somehow, he needs to find his certificate with all these papers floating around. Gregor manages to find a furnace but luckily the furnace does not eat certificates, the furnace only eats official documents. When Gregor looks down, he can make out some weird shadows that are looking at him. He keeps searching through all the floating papers until he reaches a giant robotic arm. The robot arm is to take capsules out, Gregor finds a paper laying around with the right code on it and activates the robot arm. He finally found the certificate but it got stuck inside the capsule. Gregor climbs on top of the robot arm to reach a switch that controls the pressure. Gregor is getting the hang of this climbing thing! After adjusting the pressure Gregor gets sucked in with his certificate. He suddenly finds himself back at the port and his certificate has become the sail for the boat. Many weird things keep on happening, the forks are swaying forth and back when Gregor looks down. The boat sets sail, Gregor wonders where he is going to end up now. Will he finally reach the tower and become human or will there be more surprises waiting for him?

When Gregor reaches the other side, he notices it is a big village with many bug inhabitants but the tower is nowhere to be seen. Gregor gets asked by a fellow bug if he can find the producer of a new projection movie since no one is able to find him.
Gregor manages to locate him and learns that there is a problem with the projection screen, there are too many hippie bugs.  Without much problem Gregor manages to solve the problem, the director asks more things that need wants to have resolved before he can play the movie and Gregor happily obliges. He heard from one bug that the passage to the tower is through the screen. After a lot of work the projection screen is finally working, Gregor decides to just wing it (pun intended) and jump inside. He thinks he is going to get zapped but he is indeed teleported to the tower. Finally, he can become human and save Joseph. He finds the receptionist which weirdly enough Is his father, with a little blackmail Gregor gets to see the boss of the tower. The boss of the tower wants to make him human after he signed the papers for Joseph’s trial. Gregor learns that the boss of the tower wants to have Joseph executed. Becoming human would mean killing Joseph!

Gregor decided to go with it while he figures out a plan to save Joseph. Gregor encounters Leni again and she talks about a plan to destroy tower but Gregor would need to get arrested. Gregor has an idea, he continues to the booth he was assigned by the boss of the tower and here he is able to talk to Joseph but he cannot reveal his true identity. He tells Joseph to come back tomorrow for the verdict in the hopes of stalling the execution. All Joseph needs now is his best friend Gregor, but he can’t find him anywhere. Gregor feels terrible and just wants to help his friend. He gets the papers from the tower boss and decides to get ink all over the paper making it unreadable. Gregor gets put in prison for signing the paper, even though the agreement was that he would become human. In prison he finds a mechanic bug who helps him break out of jail, there is also a self-destruct button. Gregor gladly pushes the button and runs for his life. Gregor runs back to where the projector entrance was but now, he sees a door, his door! He just needs to make a few more steps and he is back to being a human again! He enters the door and wakes up on his bed as a human, there is no time to waste let’s go help, Joseph. Gregor opens the door and finds two goons waiting for him.

FIN

Sound and Graphics
The graphics in Metamorphosis are stunning, which I think are needed for a visual novel that remakes a book into a game.  I did not find any errors in the graphics and I loved them.
The sound effects are perfect for Metamorphosis and there is nothing to complain about them.

What did I think of Metamorphosis after playing?
I am usually not into the visual novels but this one attracted me since it is from Franz Kafka. In this game, you have almost no gameplay and you will need to walk through the game most of the time.
The only thing you have to do in this game is to climb many obstacles and solve some puzzles. You can use sticky liquids to climb over bigger items but you can’t climb upside down or you will fall.
I enjoyed the game a lot. The game was a big surprise for me. I would say this is one of the first visual novels that I liked a lot.

My personal rating of this game is an 8.8

Pros and Cons

Pros
– The developers did a great job of remaking Franz Kafka’s book into a visual novel.
– The graphics are really stunning.
– The metaphor that Franz Kafka uses for the book also works really well in this visual novel.
– There is barely any gameplay in Metamorphosis but it works very well in this game.
– Are you a human or are you a bug? Was it real or not?

Cons
– The story is to short but you can’t really make a game longer than the book.

I liked this game very much and I would recommend it to anyone that is looking for a good story. I did not expect I would like the game this much, I found myself wanting to play more to find out how the story would end.
I did not expect it would end on a cliffhanger.
I give this game a…drumroll…

8

Leave your own thoughts about the game in the comments or leave your own rating.
You can download the free E-book version here https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5200
You can buy the game here:https://store.steampowered.com/app/1025410/Metamorphosis/
I hope you liked reading the review, I hope to see you in the next review.