This one was weird for me. I loved the second game especially and how stressful it was trying to juggle the two conversations, but this one was just so slow and unengaging. Obviously once you "pick" someone in 2 you start speaking almost exclusively to them, but you still talked to the other person occasionally. Here, it feels like I never heard from Evelyn at all after I chose to go to Emily's party, sealing my fate. This would also be a choice I almost immediately regretted, as I spent the majority of my playthrough just trying to break up with Emily when I could not do that. Clearly that's not the game being bad but rather me making the wrong choice, but I didn't realize it was basically just going to be the same game again but now it's parodying Facebook, and that's about it. It felt so much more sterile and disingenuous here, though since it is parodying Facebook that could be intentional. Either way, I really just wanted something more to happen. Some of Emily's friends are introduced and it just doesn't add to much, you can't even talk to them at all, you can't do anything other than regurgitate lovey dovey dialogue to Emily herself and it gets so old when your three options just end up all being in the same general area of intention. The whole universe is confusing as well, like, did the second game happen? There is some mention of that "protagonist", but I swear that game was also all about the end of high school and what everyone was going to do once they had to leave for college. I don't know, this one just really had me conflicted and regretful that I basically subjected myself to the same game for twice the time that the other game took me. Emily is more the kind of person I'd date irl, I felt more of that connection, while Evelyn and I really only had some music in common which really equates to fucking nothing, but after hearing what went down with Emily and Evelyn during one of the chapters and the ultimatum that Evelyn was given, I just didn't really want to be with Emily and the game didn't let me leave once I was in. Again, after choosing to go to Emily's party and therefore being with her romantically, I literally had one conversation with Evelyn and it was all about how another character, Mathew, was chatting her up and being all weird to her, which also went nowhere. Granted, that one was my doing since the game does give you the choice to mention it, but I didn't want to involve Evelyn in all that when I was asked to, you know, not mention it. Now I wish I had, just to see if anything would've happened. And yet despite my issues, I still felt that painful twinge of nostalgia by the end, what with Evelyn having a party that everyone except me was invited to. Like come on, bruh. It's the end of high school and I'm not invited because I didn't go to your party like a year and a half ago? So basically I just spent the whole game alienating myself from everybody because I either didn't trust them or just didn't want to be with them in the first place, and the game didn't really have any way to account for me feeling that way. I guess the third time isn't the charm. That'll show them. Or not, since this isn't a review. Big ramble, whatever.
