I excitedly began playing this on November 15th, 2019, the day it released. It started out fun enough — the beginning is cinematic, has some nice music and pretty locations... Exploring the Wild Area was novel and enjoyable for me at the time. I spent a lot of time there, actually, squeezing every bit of enjoyment I could out of that place; camping with my Pokémon as they became inadvertently over-leveled, hoarding items I would mostly never use... until I wound up dropping the game for a few years. Over the course of those years, I saw some of the criticism that this game received, and I didn't really get it. Everything seemed fine to the point that I'd played. Oh well, Pokémon fans can be pretty critical at times.

I picked it back up more recently, and pushed ahead with the main story. From there, it just went downhill. Lower, and lower. This sucked. If I weren't so loyal to the Pokémon main series of games, I probably wouldn't have pushed to complete it, especially with how much of a drag the final parts of the game were, wherein an utter lack of content gave way to anticlimactic repetitiveness.

The main thing I have to say is that everything about this game is so surface-level when compared to the other main-series Pokémon games. They tried putting a coat of pretty paint on stuff, but there's nothing of substance behind it. It might fool you for a bit, but it can't keep it up for long at all. It shows in things like the lack of flavor text after leaving the first town, for objects you'd be able to examine in other games (except Scarlet and Violet, which is similar and even worse in that regard), and the inability to enter the majority of buildings. (Of the structures that can be entered, many look near identical to each other, with the exception of buildings one is required to be in for story scenes. They wouldn't want you to miss the few locations they put any effort into designing, after all.) Where new towns in other games often promised crannies to peek into, small discoveries to be made, or unique features... this game largely presents the facade of new towns, where all you can do is pass through them.

In other Pokémon games, there are optional activities to participate in, some of which have a lot of depth to them! TV/radio programs, contests and performances/musicals, underground mining and secret bases, riding Pokémon, flying through the sky from location to location, the Safari Zone, Trick House, little side quests, gambling, photography, an entire second region to journey through (HGSS was just WOW), optional Legendary Pokémon to pursue, Entralink, the ability to pet or walk with one's party members — I could go on and on. There are no such treasure troves of optional content, locations, and features in this game. The most there is to mention here is like, Max Raid Battles and making curry. And you can play fetch with your Pokémon. (I believe it goes without saying, but I'm judging this game based on the $60 USD full game, not based on paid DLC.)

Once you're done in the Wild Area, I felt there's no real incentive to return — it's all behind you — and everything from there is a straight shot from one Gym to the next, broken up only ever so slightly by bits of an absolutely mediocre plot that had so little thought and care put into it. Pokémon games aren't known for their high quality story telling, but this is a new low. I can't even say that it seemed to me like the writers were trying. It felt so lazy, stingy, and stale, and not once did it touch me emotionally. It's devoid of the adventurous magic I've found to varying degrees in the games that came before it, as well as the more recent Legends Arceus and Scarlet/Violet. The story lacks imagination... They tried going for some plot twists, but they fell completely flat. Most of the characters have so little personality, you could copy the words spoken by one of them and paste them on another character's text box and it might not be apparent at all that you'd done so. There were a couple of main characters who could have been interesting, but the writers just didn't... really do anything with them.
There are a few nice music tracks, but not much I enjoyed relative to most Pokémon game soundtracks.

Overall, this game is an empty disappointment.

Fun and largely intuitive gameplay, and it can get pretty challenging (but if one fails a segment of a track a few times, the game will let one skip past that segment). This game sure has (super queer) vibes! It's extremely flashy, though. It was kinda hard for me to look at, and my partner couldn't tolerate looking at it for more than a couple of minutes. Sound sensitive and photosensitive players are likely to have a bad time here.
I would like to learn other players' interpretations of Little Death... I didn't really know what to make of that part.

I spent a really nice day with this! What a cute, silly, and pleasantly queer game. Jumping and gliding around is pretty nice, but what I most loved was the fun dialogue and endearing little characters (including the artwork for them). The game isn't long enough to give the characters' relationships with one another a whole lot of depth, but to me, the feeling of a silly little neighborhood community was successfully crafted. Feels a heck of a lot warmer and more human than most IRL spaces I've been exposed to these days (yikes).
It's a fantastic helping others simulator. Gotta love spending real time † helping fake people haha. It's not really a complaint, but I wish it were a longer game so I'd have more incentive to make regular returns to Grumblewood Grove.

Mail Time was pleasant and chill almost all of the way through, although I did get frustrated for a bit due to some navigational difficulties. A map might have been helpful, but there's also something to be said for exploring the open space without one.
It has cute character customization, with a sufficient level of complexity.
Optional ungendered pronouns for the player character, and the inclusion of numerous other characters that go by gender-neutral pronouns — and even combinations of multiple pronoun sets — are still relatively rare in video games (especially that same-sentence alternation! Entropic Float might be the only other game in which I've seen that). Both are present here, helping me to feel immersed and as though this world was crafted for my enjoyment too.

It's still a little buggy (as in, programming bugs... but yeah, also actual bugs, wee~) in places (particularly the very ending scene). And on two occasions, I had the misfortune of getting trapped between mushrooms the player character can bounce on... Just rapidly bouncing between them with no way out (other than exiting the game without saving). Decidedly the least fun part of the game LOL.
The developers seem like they're actively fixing stuff, though.

All of this considered, it was definitely a worthwhile time for me~ And if you enjoy the comedic style of Frog Detective and/or Purrgatory, you may similarly enjoy this (I did).

† time is an illusion

(Functions well on Steam Deck. Sometimes the game became unresponsive after manually closing the virtual keyboard -- it's better to use in-game controls to proceed after entering the text for the player character's name. Played mostly docked with a controller.)

What? This is so sweet...
At least within the culture in which I've been raised, humans really aren't taught how to empathize with and talk to people about subjects like chronic illness and death. We stumble a lot, and don't give people who have chronic or terminal illness enough space to speak for themselves and openly share what only they understand. Usually we try to avoid it altogether, because it feels uncomfortable and we don't want to think about it or accept reality — and we expect those afflicted to do the same. Even when it comes from a place of deep compassion, it can have an effect opposite what we wish for. I would love to see attitudes around this shift in a big way — for people to get more comfortable talking about these matters, and to get more comfortable listening. I want to learn how to relate better when it comes to this, too. I believe Astra's Garden handled this really nicely, for such a short story, and it was pretty relaxing.

Short, sad VN...
Short, sad review...

I found this to be well-written, believable, and relatable — such that I have to wonder if this is a depiction of the writer's actual experience.
The art is cute. The text speed is slow and can't be sped up at all, but I believe that's simply the pace at which the writer wants it to be experienced. I'd consider it more of a problem were this a longer VN.
I did sometimes have trouble knowing which character is talking within the memories.

Putting that aside, it's free, and easy to recommend.

Functions well on Steam Deck (handheld. Selecting the clothing and accessories ranges from annoying to impossible without using the touch screen).

Disappointingly cis-het LOL.

I heard that reception of this game in Japan has mostly been either quite negative, or quite positive. I got my hopes up about it, given the premise. My feelings fell somewhere in the middle, though.

The romance is relatively weak in most of the routes (a few of which don't even depict a kiss... which indeed, probably would have felt forced in some routes), and definitely second to the rest of the story, but that doesn't feel like such a bad thing in this case. The story was engaging enough for me to keep me playing until the end, but I was forcing it by the time I was halfway through. Notably, this game features eight love interests, which is a lot, so I think they did OK considering that.
Of the six character routes that are initially available, only three (of the player's choice) must be played in order to unlock the last three routes (including the grand finale). So if, among those initial six LIs, you find a few that you really aren't into, you will have the freedom to skip over them. I felt that each route contributed some bits of information (some routes more than others) to the overall story, but I could see it being fine if some early ones were skipped over.
I felt that all of the LIs were likeable (at least upon concluding their routes... I'm looking at you, Ayumu).

The "gender bending" really felt like a missed opportunity. It doesn't really apply to the romantic aspects of the game, which is odd since they are both big focuses of the game. There isn't much interesting going on here in terms of gender identity, and most of the male characters don't feel anything special about being able to transform into or exist as females. (It's really just their anatomy that changes – not their gender.) It's often treated as something to be embarrassed about, that's hidden. It's mostly there to create what's supposed to be an amusing scenario in which the main character is unaware of the LI's dual identities (which are entirely obvious to the player). Which repeats to varying degrees in all applicable routes and started to annoy me after its second occurrence. It gets old quickly, and I found myself wishing they didn't waste so much time on it, and instead focused on the plot or romance more.
Ibuki is essentially non-binary at least. 😅

I think that the majority of the CGs were of nice quality. Nothing super fancy. Most of the art didn't feel awkward. I feel that they made OK choices about which scenes to include CGs for... Some felt unnecessary, while other scenes would have really benefited from one.
I really liked a lot of the character sprites! There were a bunch of interesting, asymmetrical facial expressions. I was a little disappointed at the lack of inclusion of character portraits for the protagonist, though. And I know it's uncommon for games of this genre, but I would have liked the protagonist to be voiced as well.
I thought the voice acting was great!
The music was fitting and I enjoyed it during the game, but I don't think much of it stood out enough that I would listen to the soundtrack on its own.
The text isn't without typos, and the formatting of the text is disjointed in places, but there's nothing too grievous. The English is not a very literal translation, which differs from my taste — especially where the content is severely altered in order to be more understandable for a non-Japanese audience — but I think most players will be OK with it.

This game functions well as a VN. Players can access a flowchart to return to any part of the game they've played before, and can skip to next choice or next line of unread text (whichever comes first) instantly and with ease. Returning for different endings is a cinch.
Button functions can be remapped manually (there are no alternative presets).
Volume of voice acting can be adjusted as a whole and also individually for each recurring character (although the default volumes are mostly balanced and I barely adjusted them).
My main complaint here is that the Auto mode functions very poorly. I'm not a super speedy reader when playing video games, and the Auto speed was still incredibly slow even at its fastest. I'll be waiting too long for the Auto to proceed from an unvoiced section, meanwhile at the same Auto speed, I'll have unvoiced single word text boxes ripped away before I can comprehend them. I just kept Auto off the whole time I played, and that was fine for me.

As the player progresses through the routes, they will unlock little extra scenes that can be accessed from the ACTIVITY REPORTS section of the menu. These are neat. However, no indication is provided as to which of these extras have been viewed previously, which I found to be a nuisance.

I think there's stuff here to enjoy. I just don't want people to get their hopes up the way that I did. You can still romance the magical girl boys... but don't expect too much.

(Review edited upon game completion.)

I love GNOSIA. I love the vibes, the mystery, and the characters, who are all unique and fun. I loved gradually gaining bits of information to see how the characters tie into the mysteries.
Even got a couple of great, explicitly non-binary characters (notably, the player can also play as non-binary).
I almost didn't take a chance on this, as I'd never gotten into any games categorized as "roguelite", and the concept doesn't generally appeal to me. I feel that there's narrative utility in the repetitive gameplay loop, in really feeling the situation wear on the player. For me, it was a somewhat immersive aspect.
For anybody who enjoys this gameplay despite the repetition, this game has a lot of replay value. After one full playthrough, I'm still coming across a lot of new things. It's kind of amazing.
The computer AI is "smart" and well designed (as a single-player social deduction game necessitates). Catching subtle hints based on NPC behavior is fun, as well as developing one's own strategy in order to influence the NPCs (lying gave me such intense anxiety though, LOL). The different characters each have unique ways of behaving in different situations, and varying inherent (and circumstantial) affinity towards other characters, including the player.
I wish they would allow for a multiplayer mode (separate from the story)!! I would love to play simultaneously with both the computer AI, and a friend.
I also wish I could casually spend more time with the characters. There's so much to work with here!
Cotori's lovely artwork, and the unusual music are the perfect dressing.
It's exciting to see such a cool game come from such a small development team.

Somehow, Voltage made this, and it's delightful. It had me laughing through my tears more than once.
I was surprised by the overall quality of even if TEMPEST, and that was even before really getting into the story.
The developers don't allow the game to be boring for even a moment through the main story (OK, maybe a moment in one of the later routes). The game played me, and I loved it. I felt like I was on a rollercoaster the whole way through (I did feel the ride slow down in the last bits, though). It doesn't shy away from tragedy. I don't think I've ever been so invested in the successes and failures/losses of a character as I have been in Anastasia's. Anastasia is a fantastic protagonist (and ~gorgeous~). I genuinely really like the other main characters too. UGH just let them be happy.
I liked the romance OK, but I would say it's not one of this game's greatest strengths. I love romance, but it's not really what I was here for. The game didn't need it, basically.

The character sprites, and especially their facial expressions, are superb. So many great, freaky expressions. The CGs are generally really good too.
The logic in the trials isn't anything very challenging, but I still thought they were fun. If playing without a walkthrough, the investigations preceding the trials might take some trial and error (pun not intended).
I think the route structure is clever, for a game with multiple paths and love interests.
I enjoyed watching even the plot twists that I predicted play out.
I feel that even many games that I like don't mind wasting my time, but such is not the case for even if TEMPEST (aside from the poor Skip function, which I'll mention shortly).

I enjoyed this so much that these issues don't really touch it, but I will note them anyway (along with more praise, naturally).
Background noise tracks of crowd chatter and such generally either loop very poorly, or last all of five seconds before ceasing, which can be distracting. The sound in the game is otherwise great. The music is fantastic. I wish I could buy the soundtrack! The instrumentation is gorgeous (and they are legitimate instruments played by legitimate artists where applicable — not synthesized as is common in other games. The emotion and flavor of these sounds are very real).
The voice work is super. The game is fully voiced, with the exception of the protagonist, which is such a shame for a character with this much of a personality. And it's disappointing that such a strong character as Anastasia lacks character portraits. These two would be the things I was most disappointed about.
The translation is quite good. There are more than a few typos here and there. The sort of things you could miss if you aren't scrutinizing.
I wish that more thought had been put into the text "skip" function. It's really slow, and can't be adjusted in any way beyond skipping read text or skipping all text, making it pretty troublesome to double back for other route endings. It took me out of the flow of the story more than it should have. I didn't want to miss any content, but the experience of the game would likely be better if I didn't bother. The regular route endings are where it's at. (Edit: I have seen someone else's Skip function in action, and it's much faster than mine is. No idea why. You might get lucky with your copy/system. Or not.)
Skipping to the next choice is becoming a more common feature in otome games, and I missed it here.
The game did crash on me once, which isn't something I recall experiencing with any other Switch games. Not a big deal if one saves often. (Edit: the game of the aforementioned "someone" also crashed a heck of a lot!)

This is really all of my complaints, and I can't even complain... I'm really looking forward to the fan disk. I hope Voltage will make more games like this one.

A delightful little game! I love the art style, and Nim is exceptionally cute~
The captain feels like a realistic character, and the emotions were depicted well and easy to understand. Even so, the ideal responses were, at times, a bit hard for me to predict. I would love to play a game that expands on this!
I've taken a star off my rating because the flashing lights during certain moments (the opening credits, between in-game days, and even the title screen) were really uncomfortable to look at. I'm sure it looks cool for people who can tolerate it, but I think it's insensitive to force players to either endure it, or stop playing. An option to turn it off would have been appreciated.

(Functions well on Steam Deck. Played docked with a controller.)

Every time I started a DanganRonpa game for the first time, this is basically exactly how I wished and hoped their stories would go (they did not).

I played this back at launch, but my memory of it is pretty clear.
I feel like it's kind of spoilers to talk about the direction this game takes, because it's clearly playing on the expectations of people who played some of Uchikoshi and Kodaka's other games (certainly was me), but I suppose some people will probably be disappointed by that expectation (and you've probably already had it spoiled by other reviews anyway). Might be for the best. (Although you can look elsewhere for more of that.)
I liked this. It was cute and emotional. It's not on the level of the Zero Escape games, but it's its own thing. The soundtrack is amazing and I love listening to it outside the game. It's just packed with awesome tracks.
Some of the gameplay sequences were a bit annoying to get through, forcing me to retry a few times.

The character designs are really cool, although I think they did Mowchan dirty. Cute character, but just the same fat joke/stereotype you've seen again and again.
The characters themselves are fine, but very cartoon-ish, with exaggerated personalities a la DanganRonpa. They still have some meaningful moments, but most of what you'll see is just silly stuff. I particularly like Jennu, Pochi, and Nyoro.
Some of the story twists were pretty fun.

It was a worthwhile time for me~ Still have to go back to find my last like, two stickers...

I can't recommend this to anyone at all in its current state. It worked fine when it first released, but has since received an update (version 1.0.1) that causes an error that closes the software before I reach even the title screen. It takes multiple tries (sometimes over six), reopening the software, before I can actually get past it.

Anyway...

I picked this up immediately upon finding it, simply because it's made by Child-Dream, which developed a game I first played many years ago: Scar of the Doll. There weren't really any reviews to go by at the time.

I'm curious about what sort of experience I would have had playing the original 1999 PC game (which was never released in English). It seems like the sort of game that would have been really immersive! I think it's really fun when the player needs to use resources external to the game to investigate and glean information to then apply to the game. All of the necessary information is included in this remake, in the form of simulated websites (it still provides the web addresses for those websites, but you'll have the options of reading those pages in Japanese, or using Google Translate, so...). It functions, and it's clear why they included them, but I think it removes some of the fun of figuring out when to reference those websites, and that feeling of exploring something real. (Which I suppose was a large part of the appeal of the original.)
I kind of liked the sort-of message of the game, especially as someone greatly distressed about the current course humanity is taking, but the whole thing was pretty sloppy. The initial scenario set-up takes way too long and was pretty boring. It became somewhat more interesting after that, but was still mostly a slog. The translation is pretty bad; not only inelegant and lacking in personality, but hard to understand at times, which is especially unfortunate in a mystery game, as the player is supposed to be picking up on details with which to formulate their own theories (that's what I'd like to do, anyway).
The mystery feels all over the place, which did make it largely unpredictable (plus)... It ties together OK, though. Most things were explained. I'm not entirely sure what to think.

The character art isn't bad, but for a game with horror elements, it's really lacking that eerie feeling that the original character art evokes. I think it would have been better to just clean up the original art and use that.
There are some great music tracks. Some of the vocal pieces in particular enchanted me.

The game has some technical problems (the most egregious of which, I noted at the top of this review). Whenever a field for entering text appears on the screen, if one tries using the "rewind" feature, the game basically freezes up -- none of the buttons will work anymore. All I could do was close the software (which is annoying to reopen). I had some other experiences with that feature malfunctioning too, but I still appreciated that it was present.
Also, I played this mostly docked, just because I have a preference for playing my Switch that way, but navigating (especially) the map using the Joy Cons is a nightmare! Way easier to use the touch screen.

Even if they fix the technical problems, I don't know to whom I could recommend this experience.

This game is a work of art. It is thought provoking and philosophical, and at times feels very personal.
Some of the story-telling is presented in a nonlinear way, which made it feel a bit like the writer dropped me into the deep end suddenly, where I floundered about in confusion for a while, trying to make sense of something I didn't yet have all of the necessary pieces of (which I suspect is similar to how the protagonist feels). This felt very intentional, and kept me interested in gathering all of the pieces — most of which, I couldn't make sense of until I neared the story's conclusion. The game in general all feels very intentional...
Unfortunately, I did struggle with the repetitiveness when I was playing through the latter half of the endings. There IS actually a way to skip text: by holding the down arrow key on your keyboard. That single feature would have left me with nothing to complain about, had I known about it! It's not explicitly indicated anywhere within the game, so I did not learn about it until after I completed the game. Clicking repeatedly to skip lines I'd read many times before sometimes caused me to accidentally select a choice, or miss a variation in the text that wasn't there before, so I'd have to reload. I grew pretty tired of it. But if you're reading this review, you've been saved! (The only thing I'm not sure about is whether this method allows the player to skip unread text too. Which would be concerning. Unfortunately, I can no longer test this.)

The true ending was very impactful for me, and it's a bit of an understatement to say that it had me in tears. I immediately felt that it was worth pushing myself to reach, and it made me very glad that I didn't abandon the game earlier because of the aforementioned struggle. I already want to replay the true ending (which is also something that can be instantly skipped to once it's already been reached, via the Password tab). The feeling it gave me is something that I think (and hope) will stick with me.
I didn't care for the other endings much, but it's necessary to see them all to get the code to unlock the true ending.
As the game went on, I grew to like the characters. The story doesn't delve into most of them deeply, and keeps things brief (it's not a long game). I would be interested in reading more of their stories (there is a side story to unlock). I also felt like the game messed around with my expectations regarding the characters, which I liked.

There is an in-game guide for ending requirements, which is nice for people who want to play without a walkthrough. But there is a good English language walkthrough posted on Steam as well.

The artwork in the game is lovely. I especially really like some of the character art. The music, visual art style, and limited use of colors effectively set a simultaneously dull and intriguing tone.
I'm a horror wimp, so I was worried about that while playing. It gets kinda freaky here and there, but it was never too much for me. I don't recommend approaching this game for want of horror specifically. But if you like some milder horror vibes and the occasional tone shift, I think this does nicely.

There isn't much in the way of disturbing imagery, but the game does deal with sensitive topics like mental illness and suicide. I personally felt it was tastefully done overall.

The game has "mixed" reviews on Steam, but it was due to an issue with Steam keys being revoked, which the developer reinstated. A lot of people left negative reviews about that specifically, which have nothing to do with the contents of the game. So don't let that deter you!