The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty Review | PC

I would like to start by saying that I am not a fan of horror films, particularly the ones that involve the supernatural. I mean, is it really fun to avoid going to the bathroom at night out of fear? Or scanning your room over and over when you are left “alone”? What if Chucky is sitting in one corner of my room as I type out this review and I would not know until it is too late?

I suppose, however, my argument is rendered useless since I think it is fun to indulge the other end of the horror spectrum – reading. Heck, give me a good gory whodunnit book right now, and I will sit back to read while enjoying my tea. Maybe this is because I do not like jump-scares but enjoy the feeling of the unsettling throughout the media I am consuming.

 

This brings me to warn you about the content in 2P’s The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty. It is nothing new for the horror genre to show the innermost evil workings of the human mind, but the way they portray their horror is through the perspective of a human trafficker, and whatever else that information can entail. Child abuse and mentions of rape are also present within this game.

Even for the most nonchalant of players, this may leave them with unease for a good amount of time. There is a level of realism to how sickening these acts can be, and although not everything is shown in this game, they are still described through the writing. My initial impression of The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty and my first taste of it were miles apart. That being said, you have been cautioned.

The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty has you thrown into China during the year 1628. A brief monologue introduces you to your point of view character, Liang, and his grievance with the name given to him by his father. His complaint mainly lies with the fact that a character in his name looks like that of a sheep opening his mouth to eat, and he refuses to see himself as a sheep. This is the first look at the animal symbolism that is going to be prevalent throughout the game.

His moping is interrupted by his partner, who mostly goes by the name Tongue. Together, he sees both of them as wolves, not prey animals, and for reasons that I will get to in a bit. After being bribed to spend a leisurely time in town, Tongue comes to Liang saying he has a job for them both – human trafficking.

Like the player, Liang was also asserting how against the idea he was. When I read the description of the game initially, it did mention escorting people, but I did not comprehend that this was the means they were referring to. Of course, to drive the plot forward, neither mine nor Liang’s protests mattered, sending us to the fox’s lair.
 

The fox’s lair is an inn that is the cover-up of shady business dealings. Here, our ‘heroes’ are greeted by Yin San, the fox. With pleasantries being exchanged, they start talking about the job Liang is still opposed to. Here is where we come across our first choice option within this visual novel: Ready to accept the job or scope out the lambs first.

Honestly, whatever you decide to pick will not matter to the story. Whichever decision you choose to make just leads to how much more or less dialogue you have to sit through, which is something I do not necessarily like for a visual novel. The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty is essentially a game where you just have to click through to experience the narrative. Now and then, as customary, you will be given supposed options as the only means of actual gameplay.

But little to none of the choices in The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty appear to branch out and create different endings for the player to experience. In my playthrough, I made a save file and picked the option to scope out the lambs, first, because I wanted to see what personalities I would have to deal with on this morally questionable journey. The dialogue that came after acknowledges the hesitation to take the job but ultimately leads to accepting it.

On the other hand, I went back to the aforementioned save file and picked the option of just accepting the job. And what happened? The same thing. But instead of the others acknowledging your hesitation, they just take it as you do not mind the job, resulting in you accepting it. I gave this one instance the benefit of the doubt, however, because I knew that the game would, of course, make you take the job anyway, or there would not be any point to The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty.

We are then introduced to the four children we are tasked with escorting to the city of Luoyang. We have sisters from an impoverished family called Hong’er and Cui’er, a small noble lady named Qiong Hua, and the most different out of the three with no ability to speak is Little Mute. They are the lambs. Whatever happens to these lambs after being delivered is none of your concern.
 

The trafficking of these girls from one place to another is as you would expect for a game set in the early 1600s of China – They are tied together by their waists, starved, and Tongue gives them the occasional scaring, despite them being already frightened for their fates. But what does your character, Liang, do exactly? He, uh, takes them to relieve themselves whenever Tongue sleeps, I suppose.

Out of both evils, Liang could be considered the lesser evil, as it was observed how much easier for the girls it was, to approach him on those matters. So far, I have not found myself too worried about Liang. That changed soon through when night fell.

Once the sun settled and the moon rose, the wolves took turns in guarding their lambs. During Liang’s shift, Little Mute woke up, wanting to go number one. After turning the other way to give her some privacy to finish her business by the lake, the music shifted. There was a tense feeling that crept up along with my anxiety. Before I knew it, Little Mute was charging at me with a dagger that glinted under the moonlight.

This is where we are faced with another choice scenario. I thought, okay, this is where The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty puts in proper branching out of its narrative. With Little Mute charging at you, your decisions are either to step back fast or neck tackle. Being a full-sized adult with the description of being a rogue killer, there was no way I was going to use force on a child unless out of self-defense.

I, of course, came to find later that my values simply do not matter. I chose to step back fast, and, well, I died. I fell when I tried to evade her, fell, leading her to use that opportunity to bury her dagger into my throat. I was blank-faced and stared at the screen for a good minute. I let it go eventually and returned to the choice menu again, and selected neck tackle.

Post confrontation, where I found out how she had lied about her not being able to speak, amongst the other information she shared in her state of panic, it all developed into Liang wanting to teach her a lesson. And so, he ordered that she strip her pants.
 

My body felt like it was lit on fire because I genuinely did not want to sit through whatever The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty had planned. To add to my absolute misery, Little Mute started pleading for Liang to not rape her. Liang did not plan on committing that heinous and unforgivable act, rather he just wanted to give her a beating.

Still, hearing her beg for mercy caused my stomach to turn. And for whatever reason, the game decides that now is the perfect time to bring about another scenario where you have to decide the course of action you want to take. And what are those choices? Go along with the conversation, or cut the chatter, just hit her.

Again, why would I want to hit a kid? Sure, she tried to kill me, but how about Liang see things from her perspective? Without thinking too hard about it, I picked the other option – the worst mistake I made while playing The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty, why you may ask? Selecting that choice leads to Liang mortifying her even more with bluffs that he will rape her.

I just could not sit through it. Reading the first two sentences since opting for that option made me load my save file and just opt to smack her instead because I would rather sit through; beating a child over; and scaring them of sexual assault! My word. The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty also made sure I heard her wails as I hit her using reeds.

I thought that surely this third time was the charm and that this would have a huge effect on the story. Alas, I was proven wrong, again. After the whole ordeal, the game just returns you to the original path the story has set out. I figured that the game has you make these choices to warm up to your preferred way of operating as a means of gameplay, compared to the usual implementation of branches that accumulate to different endings.
 

But that is not to say that The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty is lacking in the visual novel department. If the developer intended to ignite strong feelings within the player, then this review is proof that it did just that with its very mature themes. I may have been astounded at the game’s audacity, but I think it is to their credit with how well the tale was written and then translated from Chinese.

This is further made better with the voice acting done for the game. Though only in its original language, paired with the subtitles and the emotions of the voice actors, they did a solid job. Again, if they failed to reach the mark, I doubt I would have felt as intense as I did. The fact that they were aiming for very ambitious concepts, could have gone very wrong, but it did not.

Visual novels typically have CG art scenes for important moments, so, selecting Liang to use his strength on her neck prompted The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty’s first example of its CG scenes. Accompanied by the usage of grains, the beautiful art has left me thinking that the game’s main lack is not utilizing more CG art – a shame, considering how intricate and amazing the limited amount of art scenes the game had.

I did not think that such an unassuming click on Steam could lead to such a strong tale with underlying messages of humanity, or lack thereof. It also represents the kidnappings of little girls during times of political and geographical turmoil as well as it could. I was unable to stomach a lot of the issues covered in The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty, but there were and are people who have lived through such times of horror.

 

The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty had me in a daze upon finishing the game, but with the ending I have reached, I cannot complain. Sure, when I think back to this game, the first thing that presents itself in my brain is the memory of how uncomfortable I felt, but underneath all that, I believe that the mystery and horror elements that exist everywhere else in the game made this an experience I will not regret.
 

Jennifer
Editor, NoobFeed