One of the most impressive and enjoyable parts of Heart of the Woods is, especially in its opening couple acts, how it manages to gently push your suspension of disbelief further and further in its introduction of its fantastical elements. At the very beginning you find yourself asking, just like Maddie does, whether the magical elements could really be real, and Morgan is believably presented as unreliable in what she's saying. Yet, over the course of these opening hours, the game submerses you into these magical elements step by step so that each level deeper you go just adds to all the mystery and intrigue and excitement; the big reveal of the forest spirit, looming outside the church, is particularly breathtaking. Yet one of my favourite moments is when the game swapped point-of-view to Morgan for the first time, right before the introduction of Evelyn's ability to influence and control people's actions; the timing on this is so perfect for suspending disbelief as up until now Morgan has been presented as unreliable through the eyes of Maddie and Tara, and we need to see things through her own eyes to know that we can actually completely believe what she's about to say about her mother. A moment earlier and the mystery wouldn't have been so enjoyable, a moment later and we'd struggle to get on board with the notion that Evelyn is capable of such things.

I do think there are some elements of the story-telling that work less well, in particular I think this game is generally worse at resolving problems than developing them with a handful of situations that were resolved in what felt like deus-ex-machina-esque means that, whilst they later might make sense in context of the world-building, weren't hugely narratively satisfying at the time. I like the direction these moments take the story, and am somewhat forgiving towards them because of that, but wish they could have been brought to me in a more satisfying manner considering quite how good the game is at initially developing and submersing us into this world. On a different note, Evelyn forcing Morgan to burn down the main tree at the heart of the forest felt like an incredibly sudden development, introducing a bunch of different world-building elements all at once, and I really felt like it would have benefited from having more in the way of direct build-up. I'd also say the sense of time in the visual novel is very strange, with me always being caught by surprise to find out that a few days had passed here, only a couple days there, I was left with a very poor sense of how long anything was taking, where in the month I was, or why there were periods of sudden inaction (this gets particularly awkward after Maddie disappears, when the story has to dedicate a lot of in-world-days to the development of Maddie and Abby's relationship, and Maddie's understanding and exploration of the forest, and it feels like the story finds it hard at points to find stuff for Morgan and Tara to do other than hang out with one another and be scared of Evelyn in the time being most of which is enjoyable but it's really hard to shake the feeling that Maddie has experienced a lot more days than Tara has in this time period).

As far as the central relationships go, I have complicated feelings on Maddie and Abigail's relationship. I loved a lot of their interactions with each other that existed outside of their relationship; those initial meetings in the forest, Maddie bringing the books so that Abby could show her name and listen to the children's story, Abby sharing her favourite parts of the forest with Maddie after Maddie joined her as a spirit. These moments are so endearing, and it made me happy that Abby finally had company after so long alone. It felt like an almost sisterly bond was forming between them, Maddie becoming protective and caring towards Abby, and that's a part of why it felt kind of weird to me when the story pushed things between them in a romantic direction later on? Abby is rendered in a much more childish way in a bunch of different regards and this makes it so hard for me not to see these early interactions as those between a big and little sister. I think, on top of this, it's hard for me to see things between them as that romantic even outside of that aspect? Part of this is that I felt like the visual novel didn't confront how the trauma they'd both experienced might impact a relationship between them nearly as well as it did with regards to Morgan's trauma and the impact of that on her feelings towards Tara, and a part of this is that being stranded alone with someone, perhaps forever, floating through the forest with them and knowing you may never see another human again and only then seeing them as a potential romantic partner strikes me as more sad than romantic. Like they went from this sisterly affection to being partners potentially more out of loneliness than anything? I know that's not what the story is going for, but the sense that it could be read that way added to my inability to get on-board with their relationship as much as I'd like.

Conversely, I loved Tara and Morgan's relationship. The development from their early interactions up to them being girlfriends by the end of the visual novel, and everything that came in-between, felt incredibly organic, their interactions with each other were consistently a delight, and it felt like their relationship was handled in a really mature way respecting the challenges they're both facing and their attempts to figure out what they actually want in a hard time in their lives. Seeing them gradually grow closer, and open up more and more, and communicate so well with one another throughout this process, was a real joy. Tara and Maddie's friendship, and Morgan and Abigail's discovery of their sisterhood, are both engaging and really add to the story in different ways too, and the sense of these four people becoming a chosen family towards the end was really enjoyable and felt earnt.