About RB Battles:
Ever since I gave Hatoful Boyfriend a try, I just dig every kind of visual novel that seems, well, a bit zanier. Of course, RB: Axolotl happened to fall on my radar as well. It helps that I was always interested in these kinds of animals in general, as they’re not only utterly adorable but also fascinating overall with their crazy healing abilities. You see, they can even regrow a part of their brain, how cool is that? Anyway, I just dived right into the game, expecting a group of friends swimming around together and having a great time, however, it turns out that RB: Axolotl does go into a slightly different direction. There is a reason for the warning that this visual novel is by no means a kid’s game which becomes greatly noticeable during the playthrough. RB: Axolotl opens with Axy, who surprisingly is an axolotl, introducing himself. He resides in a tank with four other axolotls. This might sound pretty normal at first, however, there are a lot of things off such as a void inside the tank where everyone came from. That’s not all, this void spits out items from time and time and it’s evident that going anywhere near it is dangerous for any living being. Thus, while Axy is spending his everyday life with his friends, they are trying to find out what the void is. There is another strange thing about them as all of them possess knowledge about things axolotls are not supposed to have. So, the most important thing about a story is the character development for me. Luckily, RB: Axolotl did an excellent job in that regard. This visual novel actually takes its time to properly introduce its players to each axolotl and whilst I couldn’t stand some of them in the beginning, I quickly started to warm up to them. I loved that this game didn’t only focus on the plot but makes sure that the player understands the cast and their relationships first, before moving on to the real deal. During playing, I had a lot of fun going through the everyday life of the axolotl friends, and even when there was no story progression, I thoroughly enjoyed the slice-of-life scenes this game offered to me. It was heartwarming for me to see them growing closer to each other.
