God what a mood. The only reason this isnt 5 stars is because I'll be honest, if Im reading this much Id rather be reading a novel haha. This isnt tk say Roadwarden is poorely written as what it achieves is great, and the music and atmosphere are sublime. However, at a certain point a visual novel with this degree of RPG type choices will lose its focus a bit. I grew a little bored near the end, but I will be revisiting it as a staunch militaristic religious type in the future because the worldbuilding is remarkably open and locks you off from a ton due to its time constraint and choices you make. My choices were, of course, to be a hippie dippie pagan lol

I really enjoyed my first playthrough and most of my second, but I ended up rage quitting when I realized how narrow most win conditions are. For a game with at least a dozen big ending beats and achievements, its funny how you can do 2 playthroughs with nearly opposite choices and careers and still end up with a broken family lol.

But I dont want this to sour the entire game. For the most part I still feel it is very well done and has a great story and atmosphere. There are tons of interesting avenues to explore, too. But basically what everyone says is true- the strict ganeplay does lock you out of many branching options. You practically have to make up your mind from year one and you almost cant achieve more than one thing per playthrough tbh