Eleventy Base Blog v9

Nusantara, Legend of the Winged Ones Review


I recently played a fairly old otome game, Nusantara: Legend of the Winged ones. Here are some of my thoughts

In this game our protagonist, Tamara, who lives in 2017 Jakarta gets isekai'd back thousands of years ago where her ancestors, winged men, roamed the land. She is tasked by the Goddess to help save the village by participating in the war between the avians and the komodos and intervening. On the way you must choose between 3 love interests. Mitra, the eagle-man who's kind and loyal, Rama, the cendrawasih-man with a tragic backstory, and Reksa, the komodo-man with an edge.

I loved the game and found the art style to be very charming! I'm glad to report that the dev/artist is still active answering questions and developing her new visual novel that follows the Nusantara universe! I spent 6-ish hours reading through this free VN and have no complaints, maybe only observations. Spoilers ahead by the way.

Mitra if your standard good guy type. He's perfect in every way, so he's an easy first pick. He does have a bit of depth but not as much as the other two guys. Oh boy. Rama is the problematic one. He dies by sheer recklessness in any route apart from his. He's your standard tsundere bumped up to an 11. He's cold at first but *gasp* will open up sooner or later? Reksa is the posessive type. Though he starts off cold like Rama, once you gain his trust he quickly "marks" you as his and protects you from his own tribe's threats against you.

Which brings me to the focus of this text, Reksa. He's the most interesting character because you could see that his characterization is very... racialized. Although canonically all of the LIs are some flavor of Indonesian, just with different tribes, it's clear that the komodos are treated in a manner that is more animalistic and "tribal" compared to the avians. In Mitra's route we are introduced to a ceremony that pairs single men and women together before starting the courting ritual, whereas in Reksa's route we are chased down through the woods as part of a ritual before marriage (and then bitten and marked by him). The warriors from Mitra's tribe are sometimes cowardly but reliable, whereas the warriors from Reksa's tribe are misogynistic, sneering assholes (though you could chalk that up to the effects of the brainwashing crystal). You see where I'm going with this?

I'm sure this was unintended, as these tropes permeate many parts of our society, the "other" is often characterized as being more animalistic (Reksa growls, purrs, and hisses) with more "out there" traditions compared to the "default" avian tribe which has more traditionally acceptable norms and rituals. There is an exception, though. In Rama's route we are introduced to a tradition where a wife will follow her husband to the grave by stepping into fire. This exposition goes back and forth but ultimately the tradition is still frowned upon and was only done in recent-ish times with the explicit and frenzied request of the distressed wife. The avians, once again do not recieve scrutiny over this tradition because the text treats it as something far in the past and permissible once under specific circumstances.

I'm not saying the game is problematic, far from it, but to make a point that the tropes we consume bleed into what we make and can have some... implications, shall we say. I personally enjoyed reading through the VN. The pacing was a bit slow at first with a lot of exposition but the latter half picked up the pace with twists and conflict that didn't feel rushed or forced at all. I loved collecting the CGs and I think Reksa and Mitra are both best boys. Give it a play! It's free! Here's a link to the itchio page! Soon I'll be finishing another free VN, the Conclave fangame called Delectatio Morosa . Can't wait to write about my thoughts here~