I really wanted to give this one a fair shot, especially after how the first one made me feel (both positively and negatively) but unfortunately this one was only more of a let down with less about it to make up for what it lacks.

I first wanna talk about the things I think this game did better than the first one. First, the art definitely feels more evolved here than it was in the first game. To be perfectly honest, I think it's a bit of a downgrade, because the rough visuals in the first one helped build character and made everything feel a bit scarier. But the art here is definitely an objective improvement on the first game's art. Secondly, the UI got a huge overhaul and now items get their own screen that they share with the stats system. You actually have limited space for items, and it's one of those puzzle-esque systems where items have to be fit perfectly next to each other for maximum room. It's not a grid system though, it's more based on the actual shape of the item, if that makes sense. The game also still does a good job at presenting ambience with its music and art, at least for the areas I saw.

Moving around the different locations is also made easier with the addition of a little mini-map in the corner with squares you click on to move in different directions. However, these squares don't have direction arrows on them, nor does the mini-map have any pictures, so you kind of just have to assume you're going where you think you're going when you click. And for some odd reason, not all locations are denoted by a square on the mini-map. Some locations (like your car, doors on/in buildings, and things like dumpsters) have to be accessed by clicking on them on screen. However, when certain things on screen are clicked on, they bring up a text box instead. And other certain things do nothing when clicked on. There's no indication as to what clicking on something will do until you click on it. There were certain things I missed the first few times around because I clicked on it in the wrong spot and got a text description instead of being brought into it (the dumpster, for example).

This sequel takes place across the entire town, instead of just in the dungeon. And the one thing I like about this is that your truck acts as a natural safety hub that follows you wherever you go. However, this comes with the addition of an honestly boring and pointless driving mechanic. See, in the first location in the game, the gas station, you get a map of the town. And I feel like in any other game, this map would be your fast travel tool (once you get your car fixed, of course). However, instead it's an actual map that you have to use as if it were a real map because you have to drive between locations and there's nothing on screen while you're driving (no ui, markers, or in-universe road signs) to denote what direction you're facing or how close/far you are from certain locations. It's not like you're actually driving in 3D space, either. It's all simulated in 2D. And in order to look at the map, you have to have it equipped, hold space to 'have it ready', and then click and hold the screen to bring it up from your lap so you can actually look at it. If you let go of space or unclick at any time, it disappears. Now granted, it's not like the driving itself is hard. The truck moves on its own (at a set speed as well) and you only have to make an input at intersections. But because there's zero landmarks of any kind and all the roads look exactly the same, (not to mention the map itself doesn't have any 'you are here' type symbols) it's very easy to get lost and waste time driving around aimlessly. When you reach a location, one of the intersection-input arrows becomes an 'exit' sign, but even then, you don't know what location you're at until you get out. I read ahead and it does seem like there are certain events that can happen while you're driving, but only events that force you to stop and attend to them, nothing story related. So I'm not exactly sure why this mechanic was a better option than just fast travel. Especially when the individual locations are very fleshed out on their own, so its not like this was needed to make the game feel more full.

And now for what I could glean as one of the most controversial aspects of the game (based on Steam reviews): The Combat. If you read my review for the first game, you'll know that I did not enjoy nor understand the inclusion of combat. The combat of the first game felt clunky and rough around the edges, and the flee button seemed to never work, and because there were no item drops or EXP, battles didn't really have a purpose. This game changes the combat by giving the player a separate screen to battle in and the ability to dodge attacks during combat. There's also different weapons that allow for different types of attacks and a stats menu where you can make yourself stronger. However, the game does a very poor job at teaching you how this combat works, which is where it all falls apart for me. The only explanation of controls in this game is a single screen that appears at the very start and that screen is never explained or shown again. If a game is simple, and has simple controls, then this is fine. And granted, in your first battle, there is a pop-up that appears telling you what keys to press to dodge. But I don't think that's enough here. I feel like this game would've benefited greatly from a full tutorial battle that goes slow and shows you what to do in a way that's more forgiving. In fact, the first location in the game has no(?) random battles, only a single one-time encounter enemy that you can skip completely if you don't disturb it. This would've been perfect for a tutorial, but instead, it's actually one of the harder enemies in the game because of how fast it moves. Now, to attack, you have to first have a weapon equipped. Then, you have to hold space to raise it, and then click to swing/fire. If you release the space bar though, your weapon goes down, and your clicks do nothing. You dodge left/right with A or D, but holding A/D does nothing. You move to the left or right as soon as you press it, and then swing back to the center in one swift motion, so you have to time it absolutely perfectly, or you will take damage. It's an incredibly frustrating combat system that, on top of being annoying to learn, doesn't feel satisfying or fun. And like with the first game, enemies seem to be able to spawn in any area in the game at any time. During one encounter, I had a run button appear in the middle of my screen. Not sure what was different about that encounter that caused it to appear, since I had battled that type of enemy before and it didn't show, but it doesn't really matter, because it didn't work. Clicking it did nothing, spam clicking did nothing, click-and-hold did nothing. The first game's combat, although annoying, was at least simple enough that learning how it worked wasn't hard. However, this game made it more complex and also more vague, to the point where every encounter I had was a game over, because even after 7 or 8 attempts with different enemies (that also all attack differently and do different damage), I couldn't once figure out what I was doing in time to survive. I also had an encounter with a special(?) enemy where he appeared on my screen and I was locked into place for a few seconds, and I wasn't sure if I was supposed to do something to escape or just wait because there was nothing on the screen telling me what I was supposed to do. And then I died. And of course, because you can only save in your truck, getting a game over can set you back very far. I get how a game being punishing can be fun to some, but when a game throws you into a system like this with no training and no explanation, I feel instead like I'm being punished for even trying in the first place.

Not having a proper tutorial/explanation for controls or mechanics is the downfall of a lot of indie games, and I can look this game (especially compared to the first) and see that the developers have a lot of passion and desire to make their games good. And I can tell that the faults here are the result of oversight and not laziness. If I had to guess, there probably weren't enough blind playtests from people who weren't involved in the project. And again, based on Steam reviews, there's obviously a lot to like and enjoy here. It's still very scary. But I just can't bring myself to sit through the combat (and driving) mechanics. If you can, give it a shot. If not, just watch a playthrough on YouTube.

I'm not upset that I decided to give this game a chance, after all, its presentation (graphics/music) did entertain me. However, it was the actual gameplay and design that completely turned me off here. I have a... feeling that this game is trying to go for that 'so retro' aesthetic, and one of the ways it tries to do that is by not explaining ANYTHING about how you play it. There's a combat system (which I wanna say feels rare for a PNC game?) but like with Middens, I feel like this game is made worse because of it. It's very clunky and unresponsive, and overall does not feel fun to play. There's a 'run' button, but it never seemed to work for me. But the worst part about the combat is that not only is it all random encounters, but battles can occur in any room except the sanctuary and they can happen at any time (even when there's a text box open, which I'll get to later). This, in conjunction with the fact that you get (from what I found) a minimum of two chances to heal yourself in the entire game, means that I found myself trying to move through the caverns as fast as possible in order to not trigger any battles. And this is, of course, in a game where you'd do best if you slowed down and thought about your next move before proceeding. Or quite honestly, a game where you'd want to stop and admire the ambience of a room before proceeding. I know this game isn't much of a looker to most, but the one thing it does do really well is scares and ambience. But ultimately, the reason I quit was not because the game's puzzles were too confusing or two hard, but because I had only one hit's worth of damage, I seemed to be completely out of options to heal myself, and I was not at all interested in trying to do a damageless run of a game where combat was both unavoidable and also poorly programmed.

The game's UI is also quite buggy, especially in regards to the item menu. It's the only on-screen button that you hover over to open instead of clicking, and when it does open, the first item slot appears OVER the button itself. And coincidentally, that's how I discovered how the green scroll heals you. Maybe that's a good thing, though, because there's not a single other way to figure out what each of the scrolls do before you use them. Like, you hover over the item menu to open it, but you can't hover over items to read what they do? Even a little text blurb would've been nice.

And speaking of text blurbs, the text boxes in this game are very broken. In the intro cutscene, you forward through text by clicking inside the text box. You aren't told this, by the way, you just have to figure it out. However, the very second that gameplay starts, this changes-- text boxes that appear during gameplay auto-scroll. Now, this wouldn't be a problem if not for two things: First, the text box covers like, 2/3rds of the screen, and that's barely an exaggeration. They also open in the very middle of the screen. And clicking on something multiple times causes the text to open multiple times and layer on top of itself. And again, remember, the game opens by teaching you that text is cleared/forwarded by clicking on it. Second, although this is only true of (potentially) one single item in a single room, the text autoscrolls shockingly fast when there's multiple "pages" for it to flip through. You know, a time when you'd actually want to slow down and read everything it says (in this case, a literal lore book you find). And like I mentioned earlier, the text boxes don't auto-clear when in-room events happen, like combat. So you have to wait for the text box to clear before you can really see what's going on, which isn't the worst thing in the world, but is annoying.

Also, as a side, for some reason, despite being a point and click game, the game has a weird reliance on keys for input when clicking would've sufficed? Like, when you go to save, you get a window that pops up with the three save files listed. But you can't just click on 1, 2, or 3. You have to manually press the 1, 2, or 3 keys on your keyboard. I genuinely want to know what the reason for this is, because I feel like it would've been so much better to just... not do that?

But I can't wholeheartedly recommend this unless you're into weird, "trashy", fucked up games or you're looking for some pretty good scares for like, the reasonable 30-45 minutes before giving up like I did.

EDIT:
I wanted to update this review because it's been a few days since I played this and I've been thinking about it. And my thoughts have been both good and bad-- I've really come to appreciate a lot of the game's setpieces and environments, but knowing that, it's also really disappointed me how rough around the edges this game really is. I want to finish this game, I really do, but because I've run out of places to heal my character (and this game's battle system is broken and unkind), I'd either have to restart from the beginning and try to avoid as much damage as possible OR try to play from where I'm at and not take any more damage. Both of which seem nigh impossible. I'm going to watch a playthrough soon and then hop into the sequel and just pray that it has better design.

I really wanted to like this one, because after sitting with my thoughts on the last one for ~24 hours, I was interested in how it would be followed up. But unfortunately, this one (especially in the second half) is riddled with lame puzzles that have no clear directions or instructions. Like, I had a walkthrough up just so I could see what the goal was, not even the solution, but just what I needed to do. Not to mention the map design is huge, but the indication as to what areas are dead ends and what areas lead onto new areas is incredibly vague. I got stuck a few times and when I checked back in the walkthrough, I watched as the player clicked through to a screen that I didn't even know existed because it looked like a dead end. I gave up around 3/4ths of the way in due to a particularly egregious puzzle that, even after watching the solution to, I couldn't figure out what it was even supposed to be. And not to mention, of course, the fact that the lines between what's supposed to be solved on its own (or played like a minigame rather) and what requires a 'solution sheet' hidden somewhere else (like a note with a code on it) are incredibly blurred here.

Music is nice as always but this game just feels like a rough draft.

It was okay. I think the animation is really charming and well done, and the music is too. I think having different dialogue scroll sounds for different characters would've been cool, considering how much dialogue there is. Even if there were just like, 5 or 6 different ones that characters shared. Total personal preference though.

Some of the minigames were kind of wack. Like the shoe/drawer one was totally luck based, and the anime dating one was fun in concept, but way too long and there was literally no way to know how good you were doing until it was over. When I played it, I thought it ended really well based on the dialogue, but then it told me I failed, and I was so confused. I also wish the time mechanic was more defined throughout the game. You don't know how long something takes (conversation/game/whatever) until you've already done it. They had the times listed for retrying a minigame, but not for anything else, which I think is kinda odd. And because of the time mechanic, you literally can't do everything in one playthrough. And I get that it encourages replayability, but (and I could be wrong here) I feel like the stuff I missed didn't encapsulate a full, secondary, completely different playthrough? And there were also a few of those minigames you HAD to play at least once. So I feel like encouraging replayability shouldn't have been a focus here. And on top of all of that, I felt like the game dragged for just a bit too long. Or maybe it was some of the minigames being too long that made me feel that way.

Regardless, I had fun. I probably just won't be replaying it.

Yall this game whooped my ass I was genuinely so surprised when I couldn't move backwards once the screen had scrolled and there were a few things about the collision (specifically around corners of platforms) that really threw me off and I definitely did NOT beat this game I didn't even reach the second boss despite playing for almost an hour. But...! I had fun and that's what matters. I just don't have the time to really learn this game right now especially when I have to restart from the beginning every time I die

I originally bought and played this game around when it came out, and at the time, I was completely dumbfounded by it. I was so confused with how I was supposed to get anything done if I kept dying every 60 seconds, and progress I made (in my eyes, things like bushes being destroyed) was erased every time. I didn't give it much of a shot. However, I knew people liked it, so I decided I'd try it again. And safe to say, I'm glad with my decision.

I think my biggest pervasive problem with this game is how you really have to memorize EVERYTHING-- every location and how to get there, every roadblock and the proposed solution, literally everything, as there's no maps or quest list in the game to remind you. And for the most part, that was okay. However, the game opens you up to a lot of different avenues/areas very fast, and I found that the roadblocks I discovered first were the ones I ended up forgetting for the longest time. The game also has grid-based design, but no grid based movement, and one of the most frustrating things ever was accidentally sliding into a door and wasting seconds getting out or getting snagged on the corner of a tile while running and losing seconds there.

But the art style was super simple and cute, and the world felt super tight and connected, never too big or crazy.

What? Homos?

I had the cough MISFORTUNE of getting this game spoiled to me due to an awry tiktok that appeared in my feed a few months ago. Before I even knew what was happening, I had seen a crucial part of this game's ending. I tried to forget about it, but of course, the more I thought about it, the more it stuck in my head. But, despite that, despite knowing the twist from before I even downloaded it, I still had an awesome time here. I absolutely love the character writing, because it feels like it perfectly treads the line between portraying Misfortune as a perfect angel of a girl and portraying her as a big gross weirdo for the sake of shock value. I think it captures the pure essence of what weird little girls are like. I mean, she's basically a furry for god sakes.

The gameplay is simple, but I feel like it tries to overinflate its complexity and make it feel like it's more intense than it is. You make a lot of A/B questions throughout the game, as you do in a lot of games, and yet both consequential (''will you do this'' questions) and progression questions ("do you want to enter the next area" questions) are portrayed with the same screen-blurring, music-pausing effect that makes them feel like they have the same question. I think if the intention was to truly confuse the player over what choices have weight, it was accomplished, but I also feel like that's kind of lame. Otherwise, have the simpler preferential questions be portrayed in a more mundane way. I also think there were a few spots where the interact icon was a bit finicky, to where you had to stand at a distance to something in order to inspect it instead of right next to it. But these things never bothered me too much.

Overall awesome, totally nutty experience.