I really wanted to like this. Sci-fi horror is my jam, and I really dig the art style. Unfortunately, the gameplay is pretty meh, and the combat just isn't fun or engaging. Yes, it's supposed to be emulating games like the PS1 Resident Evil games, but it just doesn't feel as fun to play as those did. My real sticking point is the story, though. I don't think it's asking much that by the time I'm two hours into a game that HLTB says is eight hours long, I should have some idea of what's happening. Unfortunately, I didn't. The whole thing felt like random spooky events rather than a plot. It's an intriguing game, I just couldn't be motivated to care about the mystery.

Only played through the Moral route, though I'll likely tackle the other three at some point. The battles are the game's weakest point, honestly. By the midpoint of the game, I was just autobattling my way through most battles, and even without grinding, I was able to two shot basically all late game bosses. The final boss was actually a challenge, it took three hits.

The story was honestly the main draw, and the best part of the game. I very nearly dropped the game a few times, but around the halfway point, the plot picks up, things finally actually start happening, and the plot was interesting enough that once I got to that point, I finished in less than a week (after taking nearly three months to get to that point). Overall, if you want a game that plays like an interactive Digimon anime season, play this.

Another game with a neat aesthetic and concept that just didn't really do it for me. The investigations are unsatisfying -- you don't even look at the clues yourself, you just hold down a mouse button and then you've "looked" at them and have the information on your corkboard. A lot of the stories seem random and unrelated to the "main" plot of solving the mystery, which is fine -- can't expect every passenger to be relevant -- but I'd go multiple nights where I'd have one relevant thing happen, and the rest was just riding around. Combined with some frankly absurd characters (driving around a bunch of people cosplaying as Power Rangers was funny and arguably could happen, but picking up a cat and taking it to a train station because it's owner cuddled it too much was too much), and it just didn't really gel with me. Neat concept, but I just didn't dig the execution.

To start with: Yes, the performance issues exist. Anything too far out from your character has incredibly choppy animation, and it's very noticeable. There's also a lot of slowdown in battle and obnoxiously long load times in the box screens.

That being said, I didn't really care about any of that. The game is, frankly, a lot of fun. It's exciting to be able to play in the same instance of the world as my wife. The new Pokémon are, generally speaking, well designed and fun. The game has an actual, honest to god story. Multiple stories, even! And for the most part, they're pretty good. There's a few missteps, but the writing is solid, and funny, and just in general fun. The only reason Legends is my favorite Pokémon game this year is because the gameplay was better, and even that's a close one. If the next mainline entry has Legends gameplay and this level of writing, it'll be fantastic.