I'm willing to put up with quite a bit jank in an indie 4 player coop games since it allows me to hang out with friends but this one just kinda fizzled out after about an hour and a half :( It starts off pretty solid - levels are short, there are some spooky monsters and objectives are fairly clear. We were having a solid time! However, as the game goes on, levels get longer and dull unobvious puzzles become frequent. It also kinda sucks if someone dies early on in a long level because it means they're stuck spectating for 10-20 minutes unless the host restarts. I'd say, up until the dogs get introduced, it's pretty enjoyable, but from what point onwards, it started losing us until we were all good to refund this at the two hour mark

American Arcadia is a testement to how much I'm willing to tolerate gameplay that's making me utterly miserable for an extremely good story

I've seen some negative reviews that say this would be better as a TV show but I don't agree with that either. There are moments where the dual protagonists you switch between work very well and the story is definitely suited to a video game. But goddamn did I find a lot of it tedious

Trevor's gameplay is platforming, usually while under the pressure of being chased. However, any mistake is often an immediate game over and restart. Sometimes you aren't given much time to react, leading to a lot of monotenous trial and error. Plus, characters are pretty chatty, so enjoy hearing the same voiceline. I'm not gonna beat around the bush - I thought a lot of these sections sucked absolute shit. Angela's first puzzle sections and puzzles are...maybe more interesting, but you can run into the same issues there too.

There are moments where the gameplay is okay - there's a sequence very near the end that I won't spoil, which is fantastic. There's also another bit early on where you're in first person as Angela. On one monitor, you're watching Trevor and have to avoid him being detected with the WASD keys. On another monitor, you must use your mouse to guide Angela's eyes to the correct answers of a quiz while being grilled by a distracting Security member. WHY WAS THIS ONLY UTILIZIED ONCE???? IT WAS SO GOOD COMPARED TO EVERYTHING ELSE??

As for the story, it's basically The Truman Show Made By Walt Disney - and while there's no subtly there, it's a really strong premise with a lot of intrigue that wraps up very nicely, with a particularly strong moment towards the end

Ultimately, I recommend American Arcadia but I also think it could have been a lot better

I really enjoyed Subsurface Circular but sadly this one didn't click as much for me. The concept and plot are interesting but everything comes across as kind of unfocused and repetitive? For example, my character talks about A, then B, and then goes back to A, but this happens with subjects where it doesn't really make sense retread ground

Two other things:

- There is some REALLY prominent camera shake that never goes away, that was extremely obnoxious and offputting

- There's no option to speed up dialogue or skip text you've already seen, as far as I can see, which is annoying for a game like this where there are multiple branches

I think the first game really benefited from a tigher setting and concept

Milk Outside wants to be on a bigger scale than the first game - you can see this via the art/sound direction which is very nice, and the length of the game. Unfortunately, this lacks common basic visual novel features such as skipping text you've already read and multiple save files. This means if you want to reach multiple ends, it's pretty slow and tedious, making the run time feel padded

I played through the game once, had a decent experience, then seemingly ended up on the same route the second time and decided, I think I'm done with this for now

Ryukishi07's ̶S̶a̶y̶a̶ ̶N̶o̶ ̶U̶t̶a̶ Iwaihime is....a weird one. There's A LOT of moments that just feel like gross for grossness' sake, multiple female characters whose backstories revolve around sexual assult and like....maybe I'm crazy but a weird amount of fatphobia??? Plus the protagonist is pretty bland overall, and you've got the trope where everyone else immediately falls in love with him and says how great he is all the time

Now ALL that being said, there's something about Iwaihime that I found very compelling all the way through, and there's definitely moments of Ryukishi07 brillance sprinkled throughout, with some good mysteries. I also enjoyed all the female characters quite a bit, despite being kinda over how often visual novels use sexual assault to show that they've suffered, although Riria is a bit repetitive

My recommendation comes down to whether the game is on sale, I think