My biggest fear in playing this game was that it would lose what I felt was the soul of the first: its unhingedness. FP1 had a total devotion to making stuff more or less difficult if that would serve the tone of the scene. Even in cutscenes, the still amateurish voice actors screamed to the top of their lungs. It was their teenage preferences given wings in adulthood, and its enthusiasm was contagious. One could definitely feel how much fun and passion they poured into that dream child.

The slow build up on tension this game's story takes helped not those fears, with the game putting a lot of emphasis on the newfound world peace the characters fulfilled in the first game and how much more powerful and mature they have all become.

However, as soon as the part of the archipielago comes in, all my fears were dispelled. Absolutely bonkers stage concepts like the Ancestral Forge or bosses like the Astral Golmech serve exclusively the purpose of elevating the intensity of its narrative.

Characters like Aaaa or Askal are super annoying in cutscenes or have very little screentime, but they win you over thanks to their repeated and diverse boss fights, and when entire stages move around actions they take in cutscenes. Kudos on the excellently designed fight against Merga, with so many stages that it seemed advised by Treasure Inc. themselves.

As the credits rolled, I was smiling widely. Not only because this studio has not given up their inner child, but because one can feel their growth as a developer. Everything is more sophisticated, the story takes its time, and characters are equally fun to play now.

Many of the amateurish voice actors are now prominent roles in the industry of voice acting, and some were about to give up completely on it until Galaxy Trail gave them the chance to revisit their past passion. <<Success is at its best when you share it>> said the main director in an interview, and the way this series has changed lives, certainly lives up to that.

This game, this team, this passion project breathes so much positivity and personality that it makes me remember of why I fell in love with the medium and its unique possibilities to transmit emotions and stories, that would otherwise look half baked or basic in any other media.

Please, never lose that inner child of yours.

An Outcry is one of those few games which I feel like they are not for me at all, but I played out of emotional masochism.

This is a turn-based RPG maker game with a high emphasis on its themes. It is a game which condemns neutrality and equals it to cowardice. The only true characters are those which are broken, struggling, confrontational against evil and living true joy out of the few moments of mental peace they find.

Commodity is seen as ignorance, people misgendering the character because they would rather not understand what the fuck is an enbi and how it would shake their understanding of identity in general, or worse, out of evil and despise of the unnamed's nature.

The obviously neonazi crow army is not portrayed as persons, but a force of nature made flesh: birdness, despise of everything different, eventual massacre after the late realization that everyone is in their own different, ultimate moral death and fixation on their dangerous goals, no matter how much hypocrisy, cowardice, violence and intimidation it takes to achieve it. They don't have a clear ideology, nor do we have clear what makes for a bird, the only thing you know is that perhaps nobody around truly belongs within them despite their promises.

Not taking action and ignoring the outcry is taken as existential dread, as an outside force robbing the Unnamed's uniqueness and voice, perhaps in an attempt to bring it closer to the player. But unlike other games where neutrality is granted a pat on the back, this game takes it as an illness because of which everyone Aster loves dies or ends up hating them. The game looks specifically at you and condemns you for robbing the game of its purpose and voice, of the immersive empathic factor it tried to project, and turns it around by breaking the 4th wall to attack you.

As a largely coward person who is still allured by neutrality, this game felt like it was trying to instir a change within me. It comes to mind the sentence of Hbomberguy "Gamers want political games, and precisely those complaining about politics in games are the ones who wish politics in them the most." I don't know if this game will do any of it within me, but at least it is a empathy door to the frustration minorities feel against the condescendancy of their peers. I apologize to them for not being able to be truly there for them.

As such, and reflecting that, this game shall remained unscored by someone who doesn't truly understand what it conveys nor did its apparent message reach. The review I made on steam was void yet possitive, for I appretiate this game's vibe, so hopefully the spoiler tag and this website serve as a shelter of my true thoughts.