relatively spoiler free
It's a neat little indie game that does a lot with very little with a neat core gameplay/thematic concept that hasn't been explored much, but I have to say that despite its great character writing, I could not finish it. The game was quite buggy. Times when there should have been a pop up to note that there's new dialogue, there wasn't. Characters got stuck. Dialogue options I had already picked wouldn't become marked or vice versa, even though you often need to redo conversations to exhaust all the options. There's also how you can just possess someone, put them in a different room, examine an item as another character that was already in the room, and the character that's left will still say something he'd say when you examine an object as another you're not supposed to touch. It didn't really try to make sense of you possessing and letting people switch places in general.
The pacing was well done from a perspective in which you slowly discover more about each character, but in a general sense, it felt like everything kept dragging on.
In terms of gameplay and progression it's a mess. It's unintuitive, but luckily there is a hint system..Which magically disappears on the chapter you most need it. As it is unintuitive, your actions will often revolve around talking to every character as every character while occasionally trying a special character ability. But later on you can ALSO full possess a character, which can have different dialogue options, so that's another point you will have to brute force. There's a LOT of downtime in this game where you keep switching between characters trying to make it progress. That's not inherently an issue if it wasn't so unintuitive it's unsatisfying. It didn't really make me feel like I was solving a mystery myself where 1 unraveling led to another riddle to solve, I was trying to make the game let me make progress. Speakin of the mystery..The plot and mystery is rather unsatisfying too. Eventually it starts to feel like you're not really making much progress and keep hearing similar things that don't really say much, but then suddenly out of nowhere poof things happen.
That's not to say you shouldn't play this game. It's unique. It uses only a handful of locations and characters yet does a lot with them. It's unique, The ghost trick esque possessing concept gives a neat perspective for the story. The music is pretty charming and so are the mother style graphics, Even if the overall presentation is rather basic. But most importantly, it has a very interesting cast of characters that occasionally have some neat interactions/dynamics as well, as well as some neat moments when it comes to the dialogue. I think that makes it worth experiencing alone, it's just that it's so buggy and the last chapter is so convoluted to get the right ending and drags on so much that I ended up watching the end on a let's play. That's a pretty bad sign, but it's something I sadly just have to admit.
I don't want to spoil much else.
It's a neat little indie game that does a lot with very little with a neat core gameplay/thematic concept that hasn't been explored much, but I have to say that despite its great character writing, I could not finish it. The game was quite buggy. Times when there should have been a pop up to note that there's new dialogue, there wasn't. Characters got stuck. Dialogue options I had already picked wouldn't become marked or vice versa, even though you often need to redo conversations to exhaust all the options. There's also how you can just possess someone, put them in a different room, examine an item as another character that was already in the room, and the character that's left will still say something he'd say when you examine an object as another you're not supposed to touch. It didn't really try to make sense of you possessing and letting people switch places in general.
The pacing was well done from a perspective in which you slowly discover more about each character, but in a general sense, it felt like everything kept dragging on.
In terms of gameplay and progression it's a mess. It's unintuitive, but luckily there is a hint system..Which magically disappears on the chapter you most need it. As it is unintuitive, your actions will often revolve around talking to every character as every character while occasionally trying a special character ability. But later on you can ALSO full possess a character, which can have different dialogue options, so that's another point you will have to brute force. There's a LOT of downtime in this game where you keep switching between characters trying to make it progress. That's not inherently an issue if it wasn't so unintuitive it's unsatisfying. It didn't really make me feel like I was solving a mystery myself where 1 unraveling led to another riddle to solve, I was trying to make the game let me make progress. Speakin of the mystery..The plot and mystery is rather unsatisfying too. Eventually it starts to feel like you're not really making much progress and keep hearing similar things that don't really say much, but then suddenly out of nowhere poof things happen.
That's not to say you shouldn't play this game. It's unique. It uses only a handful of locations and characters yet does a lot with them. It's unique, The ghost trick esque possessing concept gives a neat perspective for the story. The music is pretty charming and so are the mother style graphics, Even if the overall presentation is rather basic. But most importantly, it has a very interesting cast of characters that occasionally have some neat interactions/dynamics as well, as well as some neat moments when it comes to the dialogue. I think that makes it worth experiencing alone, it's just that it's so buggy and the last chapter is so convoluted to get the right ending and drags on so much that I ended up watching the end on a let's play. That's a pretty bad sign, but it's something I sadly just have to admit.
I don't want to spoil much else.