I’ve seen Alpha-Nighthawk by Liar-soft and Shiravune written off as a ‘furry’ visual novel. While it does have human/animal hybrids, it’s much more than just that. A Sci-Fi romance set mostly in a lawless slum abandoned by the military, it features mecha battles, powers bordering on the supernatural, a threat to humanity, and much more to make it stand out than anthropomorphic characters.
Rose and Pilot
A giant rose called ‘Consuelo’ appeared in the sky three centuries ago. Every century, it fires a thorn at the Earth, not only destroying an area as big as a city but infecting the nearby area with monsters. Efforts are made to combat this, including the creation of a giant spaceship and mecha pilots that spend their time pruning the rose. Once it’s fired though, nothing can be done. Infected areas are just sealed off and abandoned.
Alpha-Nighthawk follows Miriya, a naive but talented pilot from the Space Force, and Ichizo, a former top pilot who now lives in the ‘Red Zone’, protecting the residents. Miriya finds herself bullied and unable to progress in the military due to her lack of ‘Sel’, an inborn power that fuels the mecha. Ichizo on the other hand has an abundance of Sel, but has his own issue – he’s part Consuelo.
Coming into conflict initially, Miriya is stranded in the Red Zone after he shoots her down. Ichizo ends up rescuing her from almost being taken as a sex slave (even if it’s his and his companion’s fault), and training her to help to protect the Red Zone from the monsters. He can provide the power for the mecha, while she pilots.
Soon enough, Ichizo’s past comes to haunt him. His mistakes from his previous life as a pilot cause an old enemy to manipulate things to try and dispose of him. An obsessed and disturbed former subordinate finds him and will do anything to get him back.
I don’t want to go too into depth on specific events – Alpha-Nighthawk is quite short, so it’s easy to get into spoilers. It took me just over six hours to finish. It’s a kinetic visual novel, so there are no choices or alternate paths.
Neo-Fennecs and Slavery
Alpha-Nighthawk isn’t afraid to delve into dark or unethical themes. Slavery is mentioned several times throughout, the most disturbing of which is the creation of a race of part-human, part-fox beings. While some level of independence is shown, they’re forced to obey their creator and many are put to backbreaking labor on the spaceship, while we see others used for sex. There’s another purpose they’re used for, which is a particularly interesting revelation later in the story.
Neo-Fennecs are usually fox-faced and known for their loyalty, extreme strength, large sexual features, and endurance. Nayata, one of Ichizo’s companions is a notable exception, looking closer to a human and being flat-chested. While the main characters are both human, several of the other notable characters are Neo-Fennecs.
Other dark topics are brought up in Alpha-Nighthawk too. One character is shown to abuse Neo-Fennecs heavily. There are also mentions of drugs and kidnapping.
Plot and Progression
While it may seem like the setting for a more sexually-charged visual novel, Alpha-Nighthawk actually does have an interesting sci-fi plot and does romance in an interesting way.
We find that Ichizo is quite gruff and bad-tempered, but his softer side is revealed throughout. He may act in extreme ways at times, but he has a home and family of sorts to protect. Miriya is naive and somewhat weak at the start, but we see her learn more about the world and gain determination. While I did feel like Miriya forgave him too quickly for a certain early event and some events wouldn’t work outside of an adult visual novel, the interplay between them is done well and we can see the romance grow. The somewhat warped relationships between characters on the military side are interesting to experience too.
Pacing is done well through most of Alpha-Nighthawk. It slowly added details about the backstory of the characters and this fit in well to explain how they currently act. It occasionally switches over to other points of view to add details too, which I found useful to understand motivations and to see how life was on the spaceship.
Where it did fall down a bit was the ending. It was a rather exciting event where many things came to a culmination, followed by a somewhat unexpected end. I couldn’t understand why one character in particular acted how they did. It almost felt like there should’ve been another section to wrap up that character’s story. As well as that, it generally felt like the ending didn’t fit the tone of the story up until that point.
Adult Content
You can buy Alpha-Nighthawk on Steam or directly on Johren. For the Steam version, a free patch is available to restore sexual content.
This is not a sweet and fluffy romance and the adult scenes reflect that too. Being forced on display on stage, sexual torture, S&M, role-play, and non-consensual scenes all come up.
Most of the characters are clearly adults, with the women generally being extremely busty. Nayuta who appears much younger than she is is also involved in a few scenes, as are the more animalistic Neo-Fennecs. Interestingly, the antagonists have their own adult scenes when Alpha-Nighthawk is showing things from their point of view.
All adult scenes in Alpha-Nighthawk are censored with mosaics.
Production Values
The art style in Alpha-Nighthawk is certainly very nice to look at. It includes 68 CGs including adult content. Many of them have slight variations too. The resolution is capped at 720P though and occasionally looks somewhat low-quality when zooming in.
Basic animation is included such as bullets flashing or sprites moving into a scene. This is where it falls down a bit, as they sometimes appeared overly slow and not smooth, almost as if it was running on an old PC, rather than my reasonably high-end one.
The background music and sounds are used to good effect, but the soundtrack is limited to only 9 songs. Still, they all fit well to build an appropriate atmosphere. All of the female characters are fully voiced, with male characters only voiced during particularly important scenes.
It has the basic options – everything you need, but no nice extras like individual voice controls or text options beyond speed, skipping, and auto. A glossary is included which makes up for this somewhat though.
In terms of localization, it all reads well, though I can’t comment on accuracy. There are a couple of references in there that I’m curious about whether they were original or added in. Either way, the ‘Elite Four’ of furry male prostitutes gave me a laugh. There’s the occasional typo or error, but generally, the quality is high.
Verdict
I picked up Alpha-Nighthawk as the sci-fi setting sounded interesting and it didn’t disappoint. While I do have some issues with the ending, the majority of the story was interesting and I would’ve liked to see more. The banter between characters was often great too. I hope that people don’t continue just to dismiss it as a ‘furry visual novel’ and actually give it a chance.
ALPHA-NIGHTHAWK IS RECOMMENDED
Want to see more Visual Novels? How about our review of Renai Karichaimashita: Koikari – Love For Hire? Or if you’re looking for another darker Adult Game, Dohna Dohna ~ Let’s Do Bad Things Together is worth checking out.
Many thanks go to the publisher Shiravune for a review code for this title.
A gamer since the days of Amstrad and DOS and someone who has dabbled in a variety of professions. He enjoys a wide variety of genres, but has been focusing on visual novels and virtual reality in recent years. Head Editor of NookGaming. Follow him and the website on @NookSite.
