i sort of bristle at the way people talk about this being "The First Game To Be Art" or "Finally Games Are As Good As Movies With Alan Wake 2," if only because this title deserves more robust discussion then the sort we were seeing in 2013 gamefaqs posts when the last of us came out or in 2023 magazine articles when the last of us came out. those kinds of sentiments are also just stupid and annoying on their head.
outside of all that i think this game is absolutely delightful. a solid and compact cube of game design. there were some weaker or underserved mechanics (case board) and a few moments i did genuinely hate (both musical numbers) and by the end both are recontextualized in ways that i absolutely adored. the last 30 minutes are the only thing that drag the entire experience down. so agonizingly close to the end when it seems like the game is about to nail everything it becomes a children's cartoon about going to therapy before dropping you into two lukewarm encounters and that's it. however the game does get an extra star for being finnish so it's back up to a perfect 5.
i will probably end up getting this on xbox at some point because i hear it runs 1% better and i would be happy to replay