Strange game, but definitely a very cool one still. The way the narrative and gameplay feel entirely disparate from one another is at first a bit strange, but these two sides end up being individually compelling enough to make it work well nonetheless. The narrative is easily the biggest draw of this to me though, with it being pretty simple for the most part, but conveyed in a way that strongly elevated the experience of getting to see another scene after each round of the game. It's especially strong in the way the main plot of the random disappearances is complemented by these mysterious notes that are undoubtedly linked to the events that are transpiring while simultaneously feeling very detached from the world of the game thanks to the way they're implemented.

The actual gameplay was surprisngly engaging to me as well, following a similar baseline to falling block puzzle games, but the method of controlling all the pieces in this one made it pretty cool as well. Since the movement of pieces is done via launching blocks at them as they slowly fall, it provides a certain sense of erratic control, with your plans often going a bit awry due to accidentally hitting a piece at the wrong angle, sending it flying in a direction you didn't quite intend. It leads to a dynamic where getting better at the game is not just a case of better understanding where pieces should be positioned, but also getting better at the mechanical skill of actually being able to get them into that planned position, and improvising when things go off the rails. Surprisingly ended up putting a few hours into this as a result, especially since the music is fantastic, being deeply melancholic, yet hypnotic. Overall this is just a cool game that incorporates its meta elements in a neat way, I wish that I could have unlocked metsu mode without having to have gotten such a high score on regular mode, since that's really where the game gets especially good on both fronts to me, but even so, I liked this one.