The ocean used as allegory for birth and death, in a spiral of worlds and lives feels appropiate for a sort of "conclusion" to Towelket; ignore the fact there are still two main games before it all ends properly and an array of spinoffs. As Towelket went from its comedic, Star Wars rebellionesque roots to its serious, gruesome representation of feminist worldviews, it loops back around to its globe-trotting aesthetics here, but also knows that it carries the weight of the other games behind its back.

It's hard to explain why Towelket 4 is so effective; it refines what 6 failed to do with its large cast, with more effective and charismatic writing, while knowing how to use aspects established in Once More and 2. But more than anything does it feel like a game that resonates with the player; placing you in a state of alignment with the world, a mishmash of similar aesthetics and locations as it tries its hardest to connect everything while also being faithful to its slapdash style. More than anything does One More TIme 4's setting feels adequate: an ocean. Where everything feels connected, no matter the distance, through a body of water that all of earth shares. And as it rejects its basic structure by the end, its usual good against evil dynamic while also remaining faithful to it and its tragic endings; it feels as if, while not the best in the series, does One More Time 4 feels like it understands itself the most, and manages to transfer that basic enlightenment to the players.

This really does feel like the "culmination" of Towelket in a sense, with pieces from every single game winding up here in this vast ocean, perhaps meant to represent timelines and possibilities. A chaotic mish-mash, like the series itself has imploded and only vague visual representations of the past remain, reflected in the hazy, “deja-vu” esque writing. I’m glad to see the series continue its weird guro-cute dichotomous style, and Towelket 4 generally represents a refreshing return to form after the rushed development of previous games. Moca and Koucha are very cute protagonists - their wholesome energy is to die for, the side characters are quite funny, and the story is wildly unpredictable, so it’s got a lot going for it as a Towelket experience. I think it’s overall one of the more fun entries, though I will say, it does drop off in the second half where it becomes more of a lore dump interspersed with excessively boring fights and copy-pasted assets, and the story just ended up creating more questions than answers anyway (with another lame ending too), but some of the imagery, spiritual philosophy, and returning iconography was…interesting to think about at least, though it’s hard to tell how much of it was planned to be intertwined from the very beginning. The theory that all the games take place in the same universe is much more plausible after Towelket 4, if nothing else. But personally, I don’t think any of the games really needed an explanation, so it was kind of lost on me. If you liked Towelket 3 and want something similar, but larger in scale, I’d recommend this one.