With how long the ending sequence is, it feels like there are two games here, and I really love the idea of both of them. Both the "bartending and conversation" portion and the social engineering portion are really interesting, and with a less strange ending I'd probably rate this a full star higher. I can't say it "comes out of nowhere" but it really makes me wish they went in a different direction with all this momentum they'd built up, because as things stand I'm left reflecting on the other sour moments - moments where I was stuck doing the drink-pouring minigame for slightly too long, the moment where a trans character's deadname is a puzzle answer (even knowing this was a thing going in, it still feels... very weird and unnecessary), etc. When this game is at its strongest it creates those moments that your mind just latches onto, a powerful vignette that you just want to capture forever in amber, but with such prominent shortcomings for its short runtime I'm left wishing we got a slightly different product instead.