CW: Self harm, drug abuse, emotional abuse, honestly, you name it.
It has been a long time since i've played a game that has made me as uncomfortable as Needy Streamer Overload. It is grimy, blunt, and very arguably lands on the side of "in poor taste", like i've taken the wrong turn on DLsite and have found myself in the Rance section. All the while it presents events of clear distress and horror with this beautiful, bouncy, art style. And whilst "It's cute but actually a horrow game :O" is old hat by this point, the sheer glee with which NSO depicts what is essentially a torturous month of a woman's life is such a great horror hook.
If you force yourself out of the game's headspace, probably either later in your first playthrough or in subsequent ones, it's easy to see the deliberacy and commentary it's going for, but when I was sucked into it, it really got under my skin to the point that on my first attempt at playing i just had to shut it off after about half an hour.
And the game does a great build up of it's horror as well. Whilst the scenario clearly starts in a fucked up position, it near-inevitably gets much worse and throws a good handful of sucker punches your way, with a very cleverly balanced mixture of triggers based on days and values, and RNG-driven events. Stuff like the game throwing a straight up self-harm minigame at you is sickening, and a lot of the endings have odd triggers and come before the end of the 30 days of gameplay, which adds a very creepy spontaneity to it.
The writing and localisation is also surprisingly very good. Ame is essentially the game's lone character and if the presentation of her was off it would tank the whole thing, and it easily could have ended that way - but there's a great bluntness and relatability to what she says that makes her both someone you want to root for as well as truly nailing the "too online" side, for lack of a better term. It's a simple, obvious trick but the juxtoposition of her alter-ego k-angel and then her private account posting tweets after each other always works, and there's a cutting "realness" to all her DMs, etc.
Probably the most contentious thing of NSO is how unfiltered it is. It goes around slashing at a good pile of raw nerves with a machete - especially in a number of the ending sequences - and i think it's very reasonable to think this is crossing some lines. When things are being presented so matter-of-factly, in that same bouncy, eerily beautiful presenation, i wouldnt blame people for thinking it in bad taste or being shock-value/exploitative.
But the blunt presentation of the topics at play here really works for me. It see it as coming from a place of real anger - about abusive controllilng relationships, about youtube's policies encourange creators wringing themselves dry, relationships between creator and fan. On those repeated playthroughs where the horror inevitably fades, the commentary and grimness really takes up the slack. This incarnation of a fucked up relationship, a girl who's dissociated from a world that revels in her downfall. There's more twists down the tracks and down the 24 endings, but the core is what really resonantes. In particular, I really like how the game feels casts a shadow on to an extent, the whole raising game genre. I doubt this is untrodden ground, but looking at something like princess maker, and how much you control someone's life in that, feels almost tainted after.
Getting int those 24 endings is probably the game's only real problem in my opinion. They're very fiddly, a number of them basically demand a guide and doing multiple repeat playthroughs right to plan in these sort of things saps the game of it's spontaneity. It also just takes too long. Yes, the entire game can be beaten in about an hour, probably far shorter on repeats, but it still ends up way too much, and some are even tied to 1/100 random events proccing. I don't blame anyone for getting a handful of endings then watching the rest on youtube, which is probably not ideal.
The game's "main" ending, though, Internet Overdose, is just... horrifying. The game's true coup de grace and a fantastic way to go out. Its the apotheosis of what NSO - incrediblly presented and being confrontational with it's themes in a way thats hard to watch.
So if you can stomach it, and also go into it with some faith that's its not pure exploitational shock value garbage, I highly reccomend NSO. I'd honestly say its a truly great horror experience, the sort of thing that makes you feel like a gigantic piece of shit for even being involved with it at the time and has been living rent free in my conscience for too long after.
It has been a long time since i've played a game that has made me as uncomfortable as Needy Streamer Overload. It is grimy, blunt, and very arguably lands on the side of "in poor taste", like i've taken the wrong turn on DLsite and have found myself in the Rance section. All the while it presents events of clear distress and horror with this beautiful, bouncy, art style. And whilst "It's cute but actually a horrow game :O" is old hat by this point, the sheer glee with which NSO depicts what is essentially a torturous month of a woman's life is such a great horror hook.
If you force yourself out of the game's headspace, probably either later in your first playthrough or in subsequent ones, it's easy to see the deliberacy and commentary it's going for, but when I was sucked into it, it really got under my skin to the point that on my first attempt at playing i just had to shut it off after about half an hour.
And the game does a great build up of it's horror as well. Whilst the scenario clearly starts in a fucked up position, it near-inevitably gets much worse and throws a good handful of sucker punches your way, with a very cleverly balanced mixture of triggers based on days and values, and RNG-driven events. Stuff like the game throwing a straight up self-harm minigame at you is sickening, and a lot of the endings have odd triggers and come before the end of the 30 days of gameplay, which adds a very creepy spontaneity to it.
The writing and localisation is also surprisingly very good. Ame is essentially the game's lone character and if the presentation of her was off it would tank the whole thing, and it easily could have ended that way - but there's a great bluntness and relatability to what she says that makes her both someone you want to root for as well as truly nailing the "too online" side, for lack of a better term. It's a simple, obvious trick but the juxtoposition of her alter-ego k-angel and then her private account posting tweets after each other always works, and there's a cutting "realness" to all her DMs, etc.
Probably the most contentious thing of NSO is how unfiltered it is. It goes around slashing at a good pile of raw nerves with a machete - especially in a number of the ending sequences - and i think it's very reasonable to think this is crossing some lines. When things are being presented so matter-of-factly, in that same bouncy, eerily beautiful presenation, i wouldnt blame people for thinking it in bad taste or being shock-value/exploitative.
But the blunt presentation of the topics at play here really works for me. It see it as coming from a place of real anger - about abusive controllilng relationships, about youtube's policies encourange creators wringing themselves dry, relationships between creator and fan. On those repeated playthroughs where the horror inevitably fades, the commentary and grimness really takes up the slack. This incarnation of a fucked up relationship, a girl who's dissociated from a world that revels in her downfall. There's more twists down the tracks and down the 24 endings, but the core is what really resonantes. In particular, I really like how the game feels casts a shadow on to an extent, the whole raising game genre. I doubt this is untrodden ground, but looking at something like princess maker, and how much you control someone's life in that, feels almost tainted after.
Getting int those 24 endings is probably the game's only real problem in my opinion. They're very fiddly, a number of them basically demand a guide and doing multiple repeat playthroughs right to plan in these sort of things saps the game of it's spontaneity. It also just takes too long. Yes, the entire game can be beaten in about an hour, probably far shorter on repeats, but it still ends up way too much, and some are even tied to 1/100 random events proccing. I don't blame anyone for getting a handful of endings then watching the rest on youtube, which is probably not ideal.
The game's "main" ending, though, Internet Overdose, is just... horrifying. The game's true coup de grace and a fantastic way to go out. Its the apotheosis of what NSO - incrediblly presented and being confrontational with it's themes in a way thats hard to watch.
So if you can stomach it, and also go into it with some faith that's its not pure exploitational shock value garbage, I highly reccomend NSO. I'd honestly say its a truly great horror experience, the sort of thing that makes you feel like a gigantic piece of shit for even being involved with it at the time and has been living rent free in my conscience for too long after.