A beautiful little game that says a lot with just a little. The premise is a concept that I can't imagine any trans person hasn't wished they could do at one point or another - read the minds of those around you to see if you actually "pass" or people are just being nice to you.

You play as the disembodied ghost of a trans girl riding the bus. The beauty of this game lies in the multiple endings, each depending on which people you "talk" to. If you encounter people who can tell you are trans, she walks away sad that she doesn't pass but vows to keep trying. If you encounter people who just think she's cis, she walks away happy that she passes, but with the caveat that maybe she got lucky and the next person she meets could be the one who can tell. Lastly, if you only talk to people who aren't thinking about her at all one way or the other, she comes away still wondering whether she passes, but with the relief that random people aren't actually thinking all that much about you and have their own concerns to deal with.

This last one feels like the "true" ending to me, insofar as there is one, but the real point is that each of the endings is just as true as they are false - even if we could astral project around and read people's minds, it's impossible to ever truly know if we fully pass or not. The people on the bus are the same in each playthrough, the only difference is whose opinion we actually hear. It speaks to the arbitrary nature of "passing" itself, and how the sole pursuit of it as a basis for a successful transition is an unattainable goal.

Despite being just a little homebrew Game Boy game that I played 2 years ago, I keep coming back to this game in my mind, especially when I'm feeling self conscious about passing myself. Even it's something you could know definitively, does it really matter? Does it truly change anything? I consider this one of the essential transfem indie games along with Secret Little Haven. I'm glad it exists.

This game is a delight. It also makes me sort of sad, because it's SO close.

It has one of the most interesting worlds and stories I've seen in recent memory, the stylization is delightful, the ambience and music and character designs are all a pure joy.
I'm not someone who gets precious about realism in video games and I love some super crisp graphics, but it's so, so refreshing to see something that's a.) extremely stylized and b.) stylized in a way that's 'ugly' by design. The environments are genuinely lovely and play perfectly with the story. Each world feels distinct and unique despite being populated by the same handful of character models, and I didn't even mind the model reuse because they're all SO lovely to look at. And while the very end of the story does feel a bit like it comes out of nowhere, it still fits the established themes enough that I don't even really care. It has gorgeous, deeply poignant things to say about the nature of loss, how there's no real way to be truly safe in a world that's plagued by random chance, how even despite that we have to strive to find joy and love and closeness, and how attempts to force safety just limit connection and care. It has beautiful things to say about how even the kindest people can be turned into the worst versions of themselves by fear, and how, given a chance, those people can and will redeem themselves. It says, again and again, it's okay to be terrified or angry about how unfair it all is, but you have to keep going.

And the gameplay and general movement is just...not great. It's not HORRIBLE, it's just so SLOW. I kept thinking that if the combat and movement was snappier that this game would be perfect. It reminds me a bit of Alice: Madness Returns in that way; gorgeous aesthetic and design sensibilities and a lovely story let down by their often-boring movement. Which is especially frustrating because the combat here has SO much potential to be SO GOOD. The randomization element is SO fun in theory, it just, again, is hampered by the movement being slow as hell. None of the bossfights are standouts, though some of the minibosses bring interesting things to the table.

I know I'm not the first to make the Alice: Madness Returns reference, and they do have a lot in common aesthetically and, to a lesser extent, narratively. Broadly speaking, if you liked one you'll like the other. If I had to describe it, I'd say A:MA x Psychonauts x Lemony Snicket, which, again, should be the COOLEST THING EVER and it's so frustrating that it isn't.

Normally, my go-to rating for "this is a game I'm unlikely to play again due to its various flaws but that I still enjoyed for what it is" is 3 stars, but that just feels...not right here. Like I said, it comes SO CLOSE. It has SO MUCH potential to be one of my favourite games ever and I want to honor that. I'd love to see a sequel or a spiritual successor — a quick-moving 3D platformer in the style of Psychonauts 2 with this kind of aesthetic sensibilities and semi-randomized combat has so so soooo much potential.

Despite all my bitching, I still genuinely think it's a lovely game. It's unique, it's not another huge, generic game pumped out to appeal to the widest possible demographic, and it takes itself seriously without getting precious about it. At a certain point you've got to support the flawed-but-unique things, just so there's SOMETHING there that isn't another generic RPG.

Also, Death is there just for a deeply funny cameo and the narrator, who is just a disembodied voice, at one point is kidnapped which, like, that alone is 5 stars.