In leu of writing way too much, I'll say this; I got the bad ending and I'm sad. :(

fr tho, this game was amazing. The Witcher 2 left a HUGE impression on me when I played it almost exactly 4 years ago. Somehow this game met almost every expectation I had of it. I lament the turn the character driven story telling took from "Clearing your name with your merry band of misfits" to "WHERE IS MY DAUGHTER" and leaving a lot of that merry band on the sidelines through a lot of the main story (bar some quests and side quests). Though the writing didn't let up on that front either, definitely filling that personal gripe I was left with. Interacting with all the new characters was as fulfilling as my first time, all of them wonderfully real. The game is gorgeous (especially after that next-gen update), the score is beautiful, the combat is satisfyingly complex, and 96 hours somehow felt only like 30. I definitely recommend playing 2 before this game. You do NOT have to, but man does it make this game so much more potent.

This is one of those games that are more of an "experience" than a "game". Though unlike its contemporaries in the "experiences" genre, this game doesn't feel the need to be pretentious with its artistry. It just is. It is a love letter, expose, and a walk down memory lane of a time lost to us; the Wild West of the internet. It presents you with a nonsensical peripheral, nonsensical OS, nonsensical applications, web-pages, and a non-sensical moderator job. Just... if a stone was un-turned, a blade of grass un-stepped, or fly un-killed in our current timeline, there is an uncanniness to how probable, how sensible, that any of what Hypnospace Outlaw presents could've been real. It's like staring at your reflection in a funhouse mirror. It's a satire of you, but it holds the entire reality of what you are (or were in the case of this game) within that reflection.

tldr; God I miss GeoCities.

I was writing a big ass paragraph until I realized I didn't really care that much. This remake is as good a remake as FireRed or LeafGreen in which it is 100% true to the source, even to a fault. Unlike FireRed and LeafGreen though, BDSP have 3 generations of remakes and 20 years of lessons that were painfully ignored during their creation. Calumniating in a game that is somehow just as good or just as bad as the original game it is based off.

Side note: I like the chibi art style, I don't get the uproar. Y'all wanted a game that looked like Sword and Shield? The N64 tree game? hahaha, you guys are funny.