The art is beautiful, the voice acting is excellent, and the atmosphere is impeccable, but all of the actual substance of this work is doing little to nothing for me. This is one of my longer reviews that's mostly just negative because I have far too much to say about this topic. I care too much about metafiction, and in some ways, this is precisely the sort of game I'd like to make (if I weren't too financially cowardly to tie myself to working for bigger game studios for now). I'm giving this a "Recommend" on Steam because I can't say it's BAD. It's beautiful and well-delivered and thoroughly considered, but I have to unload what I feel about the substance of the story.
Also, note that there's a degree to which I feel less bad being really critical of the dialog in this game due to how verbose and sarcastic the game is, especially when one goes about checking out more endings than necessary to get to the true ending.
Spoilers Ahead.
Game Structure
First, a caveat on the macrostructure of the game. I saw it was a "collect all the endings for 97 achievements" type of thing, so I used the ten pages of save files to do that efficiently. It was only a conversation on Discord that revealed to me individual save states contain all of your choices that matter to unlock the true ending -- you can't jump across saves. Given that, I hopped into a save, blasted through a couple more endings (luckily, I had a few in one save), and got to the "true ending" in 15 minutes. However, it appears the benefits it gives of tracking which endings I already got in a single save might be gone anyway (you have to start a New Game), meaning going for more endings means doing more of what I was doing in the first place.
I'm not sure I understand the author's intent of how a player is supposed to engage with this, given they slapped 97 achievements on it, but I can confidently say I disagree with their approach. I don't accept the premise of "be satisfied with the handful of endings you get and set it aside" in something that functions precisely like The Stanley Parable regarding how many branching paths are condensed into 10-15 minute loops. The game's most passionate audience will read it all, so why not accept that as a given and account for it in the game structure more directly?
Story
As for the story...having seen over a dozen individual endings, I'd say it's a work that is far too preoccupied with itself in a meta context. It's not just the time looping -- it's the actual characters, the dialog and exposition, and the choices available to the player. It's all completely about itself while saying almost nothing beyond: the princess is fucked up and weird, the narrator thinks she's terrible and wants to follow the script, the situation is absurd and constructed, and the protagonist can and will question anything and everything about the situation across dozens of playthroughs despite the answer to every possible question having already been provided dozens of times. There is a "true ending" that contextualizes all of this, but the context is obvious. It's what I assumed it would be from the outset.
For a game with so many endings and unique dialog, the paths are almost all fundamentally the same. A spooky/weird/scary thing happens, the player chooses from a handful of contrived options to try to find a path they haven't done already, the spooky thing escalates, the player "dies," the narrator doesn't know it's a time loop, there are absurdly far too many lines of the protagonist/princess/narrator commenting on what is or isn't a time loop and what is or isn't a contrived situation (to the point where I started just skipping them because they all play out the same despite, incredibly, all being unique VO), and then the thread ends and that's it. After a few endings, you don't learn anything of substance about the princess, the narrator, the protagonist, or the situation you didn't already know, and the conversations start to sound the same.
And the real bummer is that the titular Princess is functionally not a character. All of this is a construct from the perspective of the Princess. She couldn't care less how any situation steers or ends up. There's nothing to learn about her. She has no wants or needs outside of the construct of being a vessel to do horrifying things and make meta or blithe remarks, and, in effect, she knows this and plays into it. Doing meta stories is fine, but, for me, a writer needs a LOT more substance at the heart of their meta characters to make all the overly contrived structure and constant sarcastic or repetitive meta-commentary worth the audience's time. I have to say Rick from Rick and Morty is the obvious great example of doing this well, fully knowing >50% of people who might read this will find this example terrible and write me off for it (which is ironic because this game is vastly more similar than not in terms of some fundamental principles and themes). It would also be nice if the meta-commentary said something of substance, but I can even enjoy meta works that say barely anything as long as there is substance elsewhere in the work. Unfortunately, I could not find substance here.
I feel like I have to acknowledge the meta ending character who ties all the endings together. Well... wildly, to me specifically, it just feels... lazy, to be honest. I've been obsessed with metafiction and even meta horror for years, and an entity who exists beyond the script to consume the outcomes of the story into some overly vague and (to be generous) poetic monologs implying a greater fantastical force that doesn't operate on a thematic or worldbuilding level to contribute much of anything to the work is... Yeah, like I said, it just feels lazy and obvious. I've written similar things in first drafts or notes, and they feel like half-finished ideas that I'd like to have taken further because I think a metafictional horror force should at least have substantive character to it. Or the worldbuilding around it should be impeccable to allow for how innately obnoxious it is as a concept. I can forgive this type of character in an SCP short story or something because that's a low-scope and lower-effort work, but this game puts SO much effort forward.
Even setting aside "how a meta entity should function in fiction," I also think that entity should say clever or interesting things, not just aimless and contextless poeticism. "I am an ocean of possibility, I am endless and consuming change, I am Isaiah's complete lack of surprise or curiosity at anything I am saying (except I am not that because I am not a work that is up to the task of meaningfully criticizing itself (despite being endlessly meta and sarcastic))." Like, I entirely got it the first time it was explained, and adding another 1000 words of exposition about it after that didn't make it more compelling or emotionally engaging for me.
Conclusion
The whole thing, as Peter Griffin would say, insists upon itself. I walked away with the thought that it has great vibes, an ambitious structure, and also that the whole thing must have been MUCH easier to write this many branching paths for by constraining the three available characters to be so simplistic that they only exist to support the fundamental structure. In no way do I mean to diminish the effort put in -- I acknowledge this is a monumentally sizeable creative work -- but the whole thing is an immense web of effort that seems to insist it is much more emotionally substantive than I felt about it as a player.
Also, note that there's a degree to which I feel less bad being really critical of the dialog in this game due to how verbose and sarcastic the game is, especially when one goes about checking out more endings than necessary to get to the true ending.
Spoilers Ahead.
Game Structure
First, a caveat on the macrostructure of the game. I saw it was a "collect all the endings for 97 achievements" type of thing, so I used the ten pages of save files to do that efficiently. It was only a conversation on Discord that revealed to me individual save states contain all of your choices that matter to unlock the true ending -- you can't jump across saves. Given that, I hopped into a save, blasted through a couple more endings (luckily, I had a few in one save), and got to the "true ending" in 15 minutes. However, it appears the benefits it gives of tracking which endings I already got in a single save might be gone anyway (you have to start a New Game), meaning going for more endings means doing more of what I was doing in the first place.
I'm not sure I understand the author's intent of how a player is supposed to engage with this, given they slapped 97 achievements on it, but I can confidently say I disagree with their approach. I don't accept the premise of "be satisfied with the handful of endings you get and set it aside" in something that functions precisely like The Stanley Parable regarding how many branching paths are condensed into 10-15 minute loops. The game's most passionate audience will read it all, so why not accept that as a given and account for it in the game structure more directly?
Story
As for the story...having seen over a dozen individual endings, I'd say it's a work that is far too preoccupied with itself in a meta context. It's not just the time looping -- it's the actual characters, the dialog and exposition, and the choices available to the player. It's all completely about itself while saying almost nothing beyond: the princess is fucked up and weird, the narrator thinks she's terrible and wants to follow the script, the situation is absurd and constructed, and the protagonist can and will question anything and everything about the situation across dozens of playthroughs despite the answer to every possible question having already been provided dozens of times. There is a "true ending" that contextualizes all of this, but the context is obvious. It's what I assumed it would be from the outset.
For a game with so many endings and unique dialog, the paths are almost all fundamentally the same. A spooky/weird/scary thing happens, the player chooses from a handful of contrived options to try to find a path they haven't done already, the spooky thing escalates, the player "dies," the narrator doesn't know it's a time loop, there are absurdly far too many lines of the protagonist/princess/narrator commenting on what is or isn't a time loop and what is or isn't a contrived situation (to the point where I started just skipping them because they all play out the same despite, incredibly, all being unique VO), and then the thread ends and that's it. After a few endings, you don't learn anything of substance about the princess, the narrator, the protagonist, or the situation you didn't already know, and the conversations start to sound the same.
And the real bummer is that the titular Princess is functionally not a character. All of this is a construct from the perspective of the Princess. She couldn't care less how any situation steers or ends up. There's nothing to learn about her. She has no wants or needs outside of the construct of being a vessel to do horrifying things and make meta or blithe remarks, and, in effect, she knows this and plays into it. Doing meta stories is fine, but, for me, a writer needs a LOT more substance at the heart of their meta characters to make all the overly contrived structure and constant sarcastic or repetitive meta-commentary worth the audience's time. I have to say Rick from Rick and Morty is the obvious great example of doing this well, fully knowing >50% of people who might read this will find this example terrible and write me off for it (which is ironic because this game is vastly more similar than not in terms of some fundamental principles and themes). It would also be nice if the meta-commentary said something of substance, but I can even enjoy meta works that say barely anything as long as there is substance elsewhere in the work. Unfortunately, I could not find substance here.
I feel like I have to acknowledge the meta ending character who ties all the endings together. Well... wildly, to me specifically, it just feels... lazy, to be honest. I've been obsessed with metafiction and even meta horror for years, and an entity who exists beyond the script to consume the outcomes of the story into some overly vague and (to be generous) poetic monologs implying a greater fantastical force that doesn't operate on a thematic or worldbuilding level to contribute much of anything to the work is... Yeah, like I said, it just feels lazy and obvious. I've written similar things in first drafts or notes, and they feel like half-finished ideas that I'd like to have taken further because I think a metafictional horror force should at least have substantive character to it. Or the worldbuilding around it should be impeccable to allow for how innately obnoxious it is as a concept. I can forgive this type of character in an SCP short story or something because that's a low-scope and lower-effort work, but this game puts SO much effort forward.
Even setting aside "how a meta entity should function in fiction," I also think that entity should say clever or interesting things, not just aimless and contextless poeticism. "I am an ocean of possibility, I am endless and consuming change, I am Isaiah's complete lack of surprise or curiosity at anything I am saying (except I am not that because I am not a work that is up to the task of meaningfully criticizing itself (despite being endlessly meta and sarcastic))." Like, I entirely got it the first time it was explained, and adding another 1000 words of exposition about it after that didn't make it more compelling or emotionally engaging for me.
Conclusion
The whole thing, as Peter Griffin would say, insists upon itself. I walked away with the thought that it has great vibes, an ambitious structure, and also that the whole thing must have been MUCH easier to write this many branching paths for by constraining the three available characters to be so simplistic that they only exist to support the fundamental structure. In no way do I mean to diminish the effort put in -- I acknowledge this is a monumentally sizeable creative work -- but the whole thing is an immense web of effort that seems to insist it is much more emotionally substantive than I felt about it as a player.