I'm going to make a proper way better review for this when I put in 100+ more hours and try out more characters other than my disgusting C-Nanaya RPS you until you cry, but in the meantime.

Raw kino goat swag holy fuck does it feel good to play a fighting game with air footsies that are like, ACTUALLY air footsies. Having so much of the screen that you can control overall is almost overwhelming, balanced by how easy it is to really pick up characters and throw their buttons out. Absolutely mental, would play out of a trash can with my pals any day. I've seen the light.

getting the gog version of this game to run flawlessly on linux is a bitch, so i'm gonna leave a guide on how to do it here. this whole process takes about 5-10 minutes.

a. install the game via gog's offline installer.
b. make a "PREFIX" folder in the game files. this is where the game's wine prefix will go.
c. using lutris (easiest way), click "add an installed game" and configure it with a 32-bit wine prefix, running on the lutris-ge-7-43 wine runner.
d. now that you've configured the game, click the "wine configuration" button in the options popup menu for the game in lutris. when it finishes generating the prefix, click the mouse autocapture option in the graphics tab, then click ok to save and exit.
e. in that same menu, you can open a bash terminal. in there, run "winetricks -q amstream quartz devenum wmp10". verify that nothing has gone wrong. you might need to download the wmp10 file and put it in the folder indicated in the terminal (READ THE LOGS) because the internet archive download speeds are awful.
f. install the mod for this game that removes the intro logos.
g. download k-lite codecs standard package from the internet.
h. go back into the lutris menu, open a bash terminal again, and type "explorer". then navigate to where you downloaded the codecs installer and open it.
i. in the installer, leave everything enabled, but set mpc-hc as the default file reader for both audio and video formats. this step is important.

after that, run the game through lutris. it should be flawless. if you screw up any steps, just delete all the files in the PREFIX folder and repeat as necessary. DO NOT RUN ANYTHING ELSE IN THIS PREFIX. i cannot stress that enough. if you do ANYTHING other than play pathologic in this prefix it will break. obviously if it breaks its really easy to fix (just delete everything in the prefix folder and start, as i said) but like. just don't.

Without love, it cannot be reviewed.

Where as the first 4 episodes focus on building up a mystery, the second half of Umineko focuses more on its themes. We're so focused on the truth, but is that really the most important thing? After all, without love, it cannot be seen. Even as some of the mysteries are answered, you can't neglect the heart.

You will be forced to sit your ass down and THINK however. If you can wrap your brain around it just right, it's really rewarding.

Just don't get too caught up, and lead a life where these things don't take you over.