| Silver Palace | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Release Date | Gameplay & Story | Pre-Register & Pre-Order | Dichotomy Beta Test Review |
Silver Palace is an adventure-RPG gacha title set in a Victorian-era world where troubles lie underneath its perfection. Read our review of its early-access build to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
Silver Palace Review [Dichotomy Beta Test]: Janky, But Charming All The Same
A Victorian-Themed Open World Gacha Like No Other
Silver Palace is another highly anticipated gacha game of recent times with a massive following, appealing to the general public as a free-to-play detective-adventure RPG with Victorian aesthetics. Gacha games are a dime a dozen these days, but there was something about its vintage, old-timey aesthetic with that splash of fantasy that may have drawn the attention of tens of thousands—me included. We already have our more otherworldly gachas like the ever-present Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, sci-fi ones such as Arknights: Endfield and Wuthering Waves, then urban open-world titles like Neverness to Everness, Zenless Zone Zero, and the upcoming Ananta.
All these games, but none of them take place in a more classical-themed, almost Gothic-era world. The Lord of Mysteries RPG appears to still be a ways away from a global launch, so here comes Silver Palace to fill in that gap. My time with the CBT is far from over, but within the several hours I’ve had with the Detective and the people of Silvernia, I’d have to say I’m definitely looking forward to this one…as long as they smooth out the obvious janks.
Back Home, Back to Silvernia
Silver Palace is—surprise, surprise—set in the large metropolis known as Silvernia, a city that prospered under the widespread use of the element or substance called Silverium. The specifics are up in the air, but it transformed the lives of Silvernia’s citizens everywhere for the better, fostering an era of massive innovation and hastened industrialization. Our story begins at a time long past. Hugin and Munin (default character names for the MCs, can be customized) board the Evermore, a grand flying airship that looks like a giant silver whale, to celebrate the prosperity of the city. The siblings are to be awarded a medal—in the form of a magical Reactor, technology that allows the user to wield powers—for their massive contribution to Silvernia, yet the celebration is abruptly disrupted by a coup by someone part of a mysterious organization called "The Purists," hoping to assassinate the Queen.
Fights break out against hostile beings made of living Silverium, and the Evermore bursts into flames as the damage spreads, taking everything down with it. It’s one heart-wrenching and unforgettable prologue, that’s for sure. Both the queen you supposedly saved and your sibling—whoever you didn’t choose at the beginning—perish from the commotion, leaving you as the sole survivor.
Three years later, the surviving sibling returns to Silvernia after being requested by the city’s chief inspector, Lorin, for help in a mysterious case. However, they are also there in search of clues to find the people behind the airship attack. Initially just another case to solve, certain clues and hidden secrets within seem to have a connection with the incident from three years ago, drawing the Detective deeper and deeper into the hellish underbelly that Silvernia hides.
The beta test covers Acts 1 to 4 of Chapter 1: Burned to Cinders, where you investigate a trail of murders and conspiracies surrounding what they call the Cinderellas Case—yes, plural. I’ve caught up to the end of what the CBT is able to give, and I’m already at the edge of my seat, hoping to see what comes next. It ends at what feels to be an appropriate, climactic note, leaving you just shy of the truth before being whisked away. And I don’t mind going through all that again once it launches, though I am positively ticked about having to wait longer to reach its conclusion.
Satisfying Exploration, Decent Combat
Silver Palace’s gameplay is a melting pot of many gameplay systems. Firstly, there’s the open-world exploration and real-time action combat. You’re free to explore the streets of Silvernia, through the wide central avenues to the narrow alleyways scattered about, or take to the skies on your trusty steed or with grappling hooks. The exploration mechanic in this game is incredibly engaging with tons of content to discover—capturing lost packages, solving a variety of environmental puzzles for chests, taking down hostile enemies trying to blend in, and more. There’s a plethora of things to do in Silvernia, even from this tiny glimpse of what’s to come. No wonder CBT is almost a month long.
Combat is quite satisfying and packs a punch, and I appreciate the very wide parry window; however, it can feel a bit laggy at times and not as intuitive as other gacha games’ combat systems. Parrying is easy, but dodging is trickier—a complete inverse of what usually happens in action games. I could swear I hit the Shift button to dodge properly, but sometimes, it doesn’t register. Perhaps it’s also my own skill that’s holding me back or the sudden lag spikes, but it happened more than a few times, which can get frustrating. Nevertheless, interested players can try their skills over with the endgame content systems in place, such as the Hilbert Hotel and the Thought Experiment modes that test your combat capabilities.
Master Detective At Work, Solving Crime
Next is the main driving force of the main story—the whodunnit, detective-themed clue gathering, and puzzle gameplay, told through a mix of crime scene and suspect investigations and piecing together the evidence on an evidence board like a puzzle. You will be doing this often, whether it’s the main story or a side quest—after all, people need the detective’s help for…even the most mundane of things.
It’s a fun mechanic, and it makes it pretty immersive, making you feel like you’re actually the detective. Even if, more or less, it’s just a lot of clicking. Still, that minimal interactivity is fun in itself. And it's not only the main story investigations you can solve! Silvernia is full of smaller cases you can take on, like the werewolf mystery, and these actually require you to go and explore the city based on clues you deduce.
A Bit of Free Time Activity To Relax
And lastly, there are also the more mundane and lighthearted (kind of) city activities that let you take your mind off the heavy mystery-solving for a moment. You can help out over at the coffee shop across the street, play a poker-like game with added mechanics, and race through specially curated tracks against the knights on your horse.
You have another stamina bar called Free Time, which is what you use to acquire rewards from these activities, such as Ounces (in-game currency) and EXP. A pretty good deal for what is essentially you slacking off from detective work without using up your actual resource-gathering stamina.
You’re also able to build friendships with the Assistants that you pull from the gacha banner, giving them gifts and unlocking more about them. Leveling up their affection levels nets pretty good bonuses such as Ounces and level-up material, as well as unlock more interactions with them for the picture-perfect moment.
Absolutely Gorgeous Audiovisuals
Silver Palace’s visuals—from the individual character designs to the environment and the scenery, they're all incredibly pleasing to the eyes. The character designs, from the named characters to the NPCs, are very appropriate for its theme. Military-style, authoritative uniforms for the police, dashing maid outfits, intricate clothing for the nobles—a little bit of everything. There’s a bit of an issue with its animations which I will get to later, but nevertheless, it’s gorgeous to look at.
In that same vein, the sprawling and regal Victorian-themed metropolis is captivating and aesthetically pleasing with all its Gothic-style architecture. Getting lost in its twists and turns in the alleyways or soaring through the rooftops on your trusty steed or grappling around with the hook or just by taking a nice, slow stroll—every district, every corner of the city feels unique, something to discover. Rich districts are opulent and shining, while the locations in the outskirts are more worn down and drab but still pretty in a charming way.
The UI is not to be beat either, especially since it sits on the screen your entire playthrough. Its golden color scheme is a funny contrast to a game named Silver Palace, but it’s just as appealing to look at as the rest of the game. The main menu design with the back of the Detective against a navy blue background and all these gold embellishments almost feels like a Victorian-era painting, adding to its pleasing aesthetic. In terms of usability, it does feel a little overwhelming at first, but once you get the hang of it, it’s easy to navigate.
Audio-wise, the voice-acting is superb. I usually play with Japanese voices, especially when the game I’m playing has several of the voice actors I’m a fan of. Fan speculation on the internet has zeroed in on an unofficial cast list for the Japanese dub, and I was all ready to head in to hear very familiar voices. However, I ended up playing the entire main story, from beginning to the end, all in English, because they were that good. Hugin, Munin, Red Rose, Lorin, and even cute little Alf—they were incredibly fitting for their voices, lines delivered well and emotionally. NPCs in important main story scenes even have their own accents sometimes, diversifying the range of voices you can hear in Silvernia. A melting pot of peoples, and the English dub does it wonderfully.
Most of the game’s tracks are piano pieces, perfect for the era it’s supposed to emulate. There are several tracks that cycle through as you go about the story and explore. Sound design is also aptly present—heavy footsteps, the sound of rain, the wind breezing through your horse’s wings, and more. This extends to combat sounds as well: snappy, clean, and meaningful, making combat all the more fun to hear.
Gacha Isn’t The Best
And of course, the question of many—how’s its gacha mechanics? Well, the CBT2 explicitly states that Revelation (banners) rules are for testing reference only, and can probably still change over the course of development leading to its release, but let’s dissect it a little bit.
Hard pity appears to be at 100 for the Limited Repertoire, with the Standard Repertoire’s at 80. 5-Star character rates are at a 0.8% to 1.8%, a number not too out of place with its contemporaries. However, there is no clear indication of how much the probability increases the closer you get to 100 or 80 as they do in other gachas—would be nice if they could be clear on this, but with the range of probability, it should be going up the nearer you get to high pity. I mean, that’s how I got my Gratia and Cinderella…at 80 and 100 pulls each. There are also no details on whether it’s a 50/50 guarantee or having a system something similar to Arknights: Endfield. It does say "Up to 100 Revelations guarantee at least one current featured 5-Star Character," but the nitty gritty details are still up in the air. For now, it’s safe to assume that there is no 50/50, since it’s not listed.
Putting my crappy luck aside, there’s not much in the way of clear scope—literally just hope for the best and pray that the gacha gods and RNG deem you lucky for a 5-Star character. Again, this is CBT2, so the rules may change slightly or even completely by the time it launches.
Jank, Jank, And More Jank
I know, I know, it’s the Beta Test. It’s a warning in bright white on the very bottom of your screen when you play: "This is a test version and does not represent the final quality of the game." But gosh, the jank and the bugs can be a bit overwhelming. From rough animations to unsynced dialogue and odd text to memory leaks and clear unoptimization, all of them together have soured my experience, even by just a tad.
Unpolished Animations Take Away Immersion
The animations could really use some work, still rough around the edges with several clothing pieces clipping away. This extends to even the cinematic cutscenes, which are, in my experience, easily the most polished out of everything in a video game to really sell that immersive experience with whatever is going on on screen. And even in these cinematic cutscenes, unsynced animation with the character’s lines is evident in several of them, which is pretty disappointing.
Hopefully, it will look a hundred times better on launch because Silver Palace is undeniably gorgeous as a game, even if right now, it looks its best when it’s standing still.
Unsynced Audio-Dialogue Text Issues, Skipping Context
Another evident jank in the current build of the game and one of the issues I have most problems with is that the game itself keeps skipping dialogue in the middle of a scene, ending up with lots of unfinished lines because the game just…abruptly cuts itself off for no reason at all. Just as the spoken line is about to finish, the game just moves forward on its own. It also occurs for unvoiced MC scenes too, like the Rendezvous with Alf (I believe it's the only one available in CBT2), which is annoying because context is lost before the text even fully appears.
Additionally, there are also many instances where the spoken line doesn’t match the text on the screen. A little more minor, but still a discrepancy. There are also typos here and there, like mismatched words, entire missing names, and more.
In that same vein, the game is constantly on autoplay, and there appears to be no way to stop it, unlike with its contemporaries that let you take on the story slowly. It just keeps going, so you need to keep your attention on the game all throughout. That also means you can’t pause for a moment to catch your breath while trying to make sense of the storyline, which, in a detective-themed mystery-solving title, is a bit of a letdown. I would like to ruminate, thank you very much. Hopefully, it’s something that will also be remedied in the future.
Memory Leaks, Random Crashes
Some people might say it’s my rig that’s causing issues—perhaps it is. However, my PC ticks off almost all of the boxes for its recommended specs, so technically, there shouldn’t be any major problems. Other gacha games, like Wuthering Waves (infamous for having a pretty crappy launch), and even resource-heavy games like Baldur’s Gate 3 run smoothly on my PC. I’ve toned it down to Ultra Performance mode to see if anything would improve, but I didn’t feel much of a difference from Balanced or even Optimized Graphics settings. It still had a memory leak, still was dropping frames like they were hot potatoes—it was disappointing, to say the least.
Definitely looking forward to these issues being fixed once the game is at its best state, because a game this intriguing and charming deserves to be experienced by everyone, even at their announced minimum specs.
Silvernia, Please Open Your Gates Soon
I thoroughly enjoyed (and, as we speak, still enjoying at present) my time at Silvernia, and while the unnerving amount of jank is definitely souring my entire experience, at its core, Silver Palace is definitely an adventure-RPG gacha game to look out for. The hype is not for nothing—Silver Palace definitely has a strong foundation even at its test version, and once it’s properly polished, it might just be a game that can solidify a place amongst the giants. It’s got decent combat, a lavish world to explore, a variety of gameplay systems for everyone, and a compelling, deep narrative that’s paced well and is good at building up to its climax. God, I’m shaking in my boots for more.
It is definitely still in its Beta version, but that only heightens my expectations and excitement further that the developers could deliver on all its promises on its release. There are frequent surveys they send out to the test players for feedback, and I’m hoping that these solutions come into fruition.
For now, I’ll still be hanging around the streets, looking for clues on werewolves and playing poker with Red Rose on the side.
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Silver Palace Product Information
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| Title | Silver Palace |
|---|---|
| Release Date | TBD |
| Developer | Silver Studio |
| Publisher | Elementa |
| Supported Platforms | Platforms |
| Genre | Action, Adventure, RPG, Gacha |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| ESRB Rating | RP |
| Official Website | Silver Palace Official Website |
