On its own, Ciel Nosurge would have just been a competent, well-written sci-fi apocalyptic drama. What elevates it to the most memorable game I've ever played is the meta framing to its story. The sci-fi JRPG plot is not the game that you get to play, that's relegated to flashbacks the heroine Ion goes through to recover her memories. The actual game is you the player interacting with Ion, who knows that you're just someone on the other side of the screen and not a part of her world. The gameplay in this sense is admittedly clunky (crafting galore) but this is nothing less than a truly ambitious video game and I'm in pure awe that this game and its sequel exists. The character writing and 世界観 (particularly the soundtrack) are top-notch. Worth playing.