Someone else's review said "Words are sometimes not enough to describe something" and frankly I concur.

This game was rough. I like to push my limits a little with visual novels sometimes, so I saw everyone talking about how fucked up this one gets and figured I'd give it a shot. I got all the endings, and one of them was so genuinely depressing and bleak that I immediately rushed through every other outcome so I could palate cleanse my brain and forget about that one. It's been a few years since I played it, and so normally I'd replay it again to refresh my memory before reviewing, but I can't bring myself to get through this one again - it's definitely a 'play it once and then put it down forever' kind of experience.

There were some scenes I had to physically look away from and just mash skip until it was over (I'm thinking specifically of one moment where one of them has to hammer a nail through the other one's hand), and I was so incredibly not a fan of the enema scene, but at least there's a handy 'no visuals please' button for that one.

I found the psychological elements of this one really interesting, the question of whether physical trauma vs. psychological trauma is worse and which one you'd choose to go through if given the option (though I do think it would have been more engaging to get to make those decisions yourself). You can get some pretty varied endings, and I found it interesting to see how earlier scenes and the dynamic between the two main characters changes subtly depending on the 'route' you're on.

I don't think I can put a star rating on this one. I kind of like it, I kind of hate it, I still think about it often, I never want to play it again.