My TL;DR review: Eliza reveals raw humanity and all its multitudinous dimensions with piercing relatability and the best voice acting performances of 2019.
My TL review:
Eliza is a visual novel about an AI that does counseling and the people who've had a hand in creating and developing it. Yes, it's named after the chatbot from the 60s. It's much more advanced though. This game's Eliza can measure its clients' biometrics and process their speech, using this information to respond properly all in real-time and give recommendations at the end of a session.
What makes this therapy service unique and successful is the presence of a "proxy", the human element. A real person sits in front of a client. They wear a pair of AR glasses that shows the script Eliza provides based on its understanding of the situation, which the "proxy" has to recite verbatim to the client.
You play as Evelyn. She is a software engineer who has come back to her former employer after a self-imposed 3-year exile, not to return to her previous role as part of the team that created Eliza, but as a proxy. Throughout the 5-6 hour game, she hosts counseling sessions with a handful of clients. In between the sessions, she meets with and talks with the other people connected to Eliza, each one having particular perspectives on the service.
Every single one of these characters is written and voice-acted superbly. They actually all sound like humans! The voices are so good that they breathe life into the static portraits, and these already look great with their painterly look. From their inflections to their pauses, each voice actor brings so much personality with their performance. And because the characters they play are written like real people, there is never a point where the voice actors sound like they're "acting" when they're delivering highly emotional lines or deep, cutting dialogue.
In fact, the writing and performances are so good that I didn't mind at all how mechanically sparse the game is, even for a visual novel. It's a linear story where most of your choices don't affect where it goes, only nudging Evelyn toward expressing herself in a direction that is still within the confines of her largely defined identity. You only get to decide to alter the course of the story near the end after you've taken in all the smaller stories of each character you meet, which makes the process all the more empowering and impactful, and that, too, feels true to Evelyn's own character.
Everything about Evelyn (my favorite 90s romcom) is done so well, too! Aily Kei's understated depiction of a woman in her mid-30s that's been burned out by working in the tech industry drew me in close. Evelyn is thoughtful in every sense of the word; she's smart, she's observant, she's thoughtful, and gets into her own head a lot. It can be tiring inhabiting a mind like hers, one that's grappling with mental health issues internally and externally. Thankfully, her inner voice speaks plainly and honestly, never once veering into self-absorbed pretentiousness. It doesn't demand attention. Its vulnerable sincerity simply moved me to listen.
Everyone else has a distinct sense of self, each one motivated to act with their own purpose. There are some archetypes, but they're either given quirks to round them out or played with a natural conviction that I bought in. The supporting cast does a good job of representing the major roles you'd expect from a story told within the tech industry; from the calculating, delusional executives to the disaffected, privileged talents to the workers who are well aware of their place in the system but do their jobs to the best of their abilities in the belief that they can do something for society. They're all imbued with a little wrinkle of humanity that made me feel for each one, even if that feeling was just of strong disagreement for a couple characters.
Even the clients that Evelyn only interacts with during the brief counseling sessions reflect the multiple manifestations of modern alienation with authenticity. How they open up about (or talk around) their problems is disarming. It was easy to connect with their concerns and doubts, no matter how unfamiliar in their specificity some of those problems were.
And with the Eliza-proxy interface lies the game's central tension. Whatever the client says or the turns the session takes, a proxy should not deviate from the prepared responses Eliza gives them. Eliza is not a replacement for an actual medical diagnosis or psychiatric treatment, so says the Terms of Service. As much as Evelyn wants to reach out and directly help the clients, she has to stick to the script or the service won't work as intended. Complying draws a line of professionalism that allows the proxy to hear out their clients' issues and infer insights at a safe remove. The game explores this distance to disturbing effect.
I was immediately unsettled by the interface with the first client, but as the game went on, I fell into a rhythm just going along with what Eliza told me to say. There is comfort in following the convenience of the algorithm. Plus, it got me to recognize the simple techniques of psychotherapy, asking questions that reframe a person's view of a troubling situation, so that was neat.
And yet there was always this unease at the idea of taking myself wholly out of the equation, where a person is sitting right across me and sharing their thoughts and feelings that they dare not tell others, not even their loved ones, baring their specific and all-too-real pains, only to be given the same robotic spiel Eliza gives everyone at the end of a session. Everybody working a job that directly deals with other humans has to draw their own lines and stay out of other people's lives just so they can keep living their own without losing their sanity. Everybody's got their own shit to deal with.
Evelyn echoes my conflicted mindset.
Eliza, the game, tackles these big themes where big tech intersects with mental health. It balances philosophical quandaries brought on by technological progress encroaching human lives by touching on the deeply personal and very real, material ways today's society affects how people relate to one another. It does so with an understated boldness, avoiding the pitfalls of preachiness without excusing the negative consequences of the tech sector's blind obsession with innovation.
It's funny actually that the game crashed on me midway through. Trying to run it again loaded a crash report page that told me to restart and update my drivers to fix the problem. I did just that, but the crash report page kept showing up after multiple restarts. I even uninstalled and downloaded the whole game multiple times to no avail. I thought I had to start over, which was super frustrating because I was deep into the third chapter and was really enjoying myself.
So I followed the last resort instruction from that crash report page to email Mr. Zachtronics, Zach Barth, himself. Because of my rather peeved state of mind, the messages detailing my problems had... a bit of attitude. I didn't cuss or say insults because I'm not a total asshole, but I was "playfully" upset.
Thankfully, he responded not long after with a fix that let me continue where I left off with no problem. I apologized for my tone in the previous message and made a point to say how much I liked the game. He didn't mind and told me to have fun.
I think I'll be checking out the studio's other offerings. I'm sure they'll be just as emotionally affecting and thought-provoking as Eliza!
My TL review:
Eliza is a visual novel about an AI that does counseling and the people who've had a hand in creating and developing it. Yes, it's named after the chatbot from the 60s. It's much more advanced though. This game's Eliza can measure its clients' biometrics and process their speech, using this information to respond properly all in real-time and give recommendations at the end of a session.
What makes this therapy service unique and successful is the presence of a "proxy", the human element. A real person sits in front of a client. They wear a pair of AR glasses that shows the script Eliza provides based on its understanding of the situation, which the "proxy" has to recite verbatim to the client.
You play as Evelyn. She is a software engineer who has come back to her former employer after a self-imposed 3-year exile, not to return to her previous role as part of the team that created Eliza, but as a proxy. Throughout the 5-6 hour game, she hosts counseling sessions with a handful of clients. In between the sessions, she meets with and talks with the other people connected to Eliza, each one having particular perspectives on the service.
Every single one of these characters is written and voice-acted superbly. They actually all sound like humans! The voices are so good that they breathe life into the static portraits, and these already look great with their painterly look. From their inflections to their pauses, each voice actor brings so much personality with their performance. And because the characters they play are written like real people, there is never a point where the voice actors sound like they're "acting" when they're delivering highly emotional lines or deep, cutting dialogue.
In fact, the writing and performances are so good that I didn't mind at all how mechanically sparse the game is, even for a visual novel. It's a linear story where most of your choices don't affect where it goes, only nudging Evelyn toward expressing herself in a direction that is still within the confines of her largely defined identity. You only get to decide to alter the course of the story near the end after you've taken in all the smaller stories of each character you meet, which makes the process all the more empowering and impactful, and that, too, feels true to Evelyn's own character.
Everything about Evelyn (my favorite 90s romcom) is done so well, too! Aily Kei's understated depiction of a woman in her mid-30s that's been burned out by working in the tech industry drew me in close. Evelyn is thoughtful in every sense of the word; she's smart, she's observant, she's thoughtful, and gets into her own head a lot. It can be tiring inhabiting a mind like hers, one that's grappling with mental health issues internally and externally. Thankfully, her inner voice speaks plainly and honestly, never once veering into self-absorbed pretentiousness. It doesn't demand attention. Its vulnerable sincerity simply moved me to listen.
Everyone else has a distinct sense of self, each one motivated to act with their own purpose. There are some archetypes, but they're either given quirks to round them out or played with a natural conviction that I bought in. The supporting cast does a good job of representing the major roles you'd expect from a story told within the tech industry; from the calculating, delusional executives to the disaffected, privileged talents to the workers who are well aware of their place in the system but do their jobs to the best of their abilities in the belief that they can do something for society. They're all imbued with a little wrinkle of humanity that made me feel for each one, even if that feeling was just of strong disagreement for a couple characters.
Even the clients that Evelyn only interacts with during the brief counseling sessions reflect the multiple manifestations of modern alienation with authenticity. How they open up about (or talk around) their problems is disarming. It was easy to connect with their concerns and doubts, no matter how unfamiliar in their specificity some of those problems were.
And with the Eliza-proxy interface lies the game's central tension. Whatever the client says or the turns the session takes, a proxy should not deviate from the prepared responses Eliza gives them. Eliza is not a replacement for an actual medical diagnosis or psychiatric treatment, so says the Terms of Service. As much as Evelyn wants to reach out and directly help the clients, she has to stick to the script or the service won't work as intended. Complying draws a line of professionalism that allows the proxy to hear out their clients' issues and infer insights at a safe remove. The game explores this distance to disturbing effect.
I was immediately unsettled by the interface with the first client, but as the game went on, I fell into a rhythm just going along with what Eliza told me to say. There is comfort in following the convenience of the algorithm. Plus, it got me to recognize the simple techniques of psychotherapy, asking questions that reframe a person's view of a troubling situation, so that was neat.
And yet there was always this unease at the idea of taking myself wholly out of the equation, where a person is sitting right across me and sharing their thoughts and feelings that they dare not tell others, not even their loved ones, baring their specific and all-too-real pains, only to be given the same robotic spiel Eliza gives everyone at the end of a session. Everybody working a job that directly deals with other humans has to draw their own lines and stay out of other people's lives just so they can keep living their own without losing their sanity. Everybody's got their own shit to deal with.
Evelyn echoes my conflicted mindset.
Eliza, the game, tackles these big themes where big tech intersects with mental health. It balances philosophical quandaries brought on by technological progress encroaching human lives by touching on the deeply personal and very real, material ways today's society affects how people relate to one another. It does so with an understated boldness, avoiding the pitfalls of preachiness without excusing the negative consequences of the tech sector's blind obsession with innovation.
It's funny actually that the game crashed on me midway through. Trying to run it again loaded a crash report page that told me to restart and update my drivers to fix the problem. I did just that, but the crash report page kept showing up after multiple restarts. I even uninstalled and downloaded the whole game multiple times to no avail. I thought I had to start over, which was super frustrating because I was deep into the third chapter and was really enjoying myself.
So I followed the last resort instruction from that crash report page to email Mr. Zachtronics, Zach Barth, himself. Because of my rather peeved state of mind, the messages detailing my problems had... a bit of attitude. I didn't cuss or say insults because I'm not a total asshole, but I was "playfully" upset.
Thankfully, he responded not long after with a fix that let me continue where I left off with no problem. I apologized for my tone in the previous message and made a point to say how much I liked the game. He didn't mind and told me to have fun.
I think I'll be checking out the studio's other offerings. I'm sure they'll be just as emotionally affecting and thought-provoking as Eliza!
Reviewed on Feb 16, 2022