Long and personal review ahead, be aware. (Not really that long nor personal, putting this up here mostly as a cringe disclaimer)

Ok, so I started playing on December of the last year, I got to finish the first two chapters and never touched it ever again until yesterday, when I decided that I wanted to finish some leftover games I had started but dropped for whatever reason, mainly because my computer got bricked on January and I lost so many saves files that I had to drop half of my Steam games from the 2000s. But I didn’t lose the save file for Emily <3, I just didn’t want to finish it. I played Emily Too at the start of the same year, and while I kinda liked it, it didn’t click with me like the first Emily game did. The reason being that playing Emily Too was like revisiting the same story all over again. Tho in reality, it isn’t the same story.

The first Emily, for me, was a game about realizing that not everything needs to go as you pleased and moving on, because it didn’t matter how many times you replayed it, the ending will always stay the same (or worse if you wanted to), so the best thing to do is to stop lamenting yourself and move on. Now, what was Emily Too about? Emily Too was about getting the girl, achieving the good ending, and there wasn’t only one girl but two, so you got to choose which one did you prefer. I know this is an oversimplification of what it actually does, but the outcome was (if you weren’t acting like a jerk) starting a relationship with the girl you wanted. So, what is Emily <3 about then? Emily <3 is a relationship simulator. None of these games follow an overarching story, they’re self-contained stories, but they repeat characters (the titular Emily and Evelyn, the second girl introduced in Too) and the gameplay and narrative are pretty similar.

Now, when I say Emily <3 is a relationship simulator I mean it literally (again, if you aren’t acting like a jerk). You get to choose the girl that you want again, but now the game doesn’t end there, you get to see what happens after, because getting the girl is only the first two chapters, the next three chapters are about facing relationship issues. This game differs with the previous two on the character cast, now there isn’t just Emily and Evelyn, like in the last entry, you get to talk with a friend, Mat, his girlfriend, Kelly, and many, many more, you keep getting introduced to new characters as the story goes on. In fact, the branchings of the story are way more than in Two because of this. There are many more actions you can do and things you can say. And while this may look more profound, it is here that the message gets lost. See, the first Emily had a clear meaning, not everything was under your control and Emily had her own stances and opinions, like a real human being. That meaning got lost in Two, where the things you said had an impact on the characters so they’d act according to what you, as the player, want, instead of what they (Emily and Evelyn), as characters, wanted. I know this was done in favor of making your decisions actually matter, but I just don’t get what it was going for. I mean, yeah, I got the happy ending everyone who played the first Emily wanted, but was it worth it if everything really deep that the game had to say got lost in the way? What you think of this is up to you, but for me is a clear no.

When I got to finish Emily <3 and saw all the branches and paths I could have taken, how much decisions I could have made, I just… didn’t feel anything. Yeah, I get to have the ending I want, but what is this all about? What do these multiple endings mean? That my actions have consequences? I already know that, even if I hadn’t played Emily Too beforehand, I could have played other games with similar meanings, but even if I hadn’t, I would already know this because of real life itself, because that’s what real life is about. So Emily <3 is just a repetition. A repetition of the same game Kyle Seeley had made four years before. A repetition twice the length, with more characters, more paths and more… nothing. All the characters just are there to give the illusion of more, they work as a reflection on the player’s ideas about relationships. But hey, at least it’s better than getting the girl you want like if it is some binary option instead of another human being.

What I’m trying to get to after this long talk (and by the way, thanks for sticking this long), is that the first Emily is Away was an important game to me because what I extracted from it was the message of letting things go. Apparently I’m the only one who thinks this way, because it’s not just that people wanted a sequel where they get the good ending they wanted, but more significant is the fact that its creator, Kyle Seeley, hasn’t published anything different besides Emily games. And I hope he’s out there, living his life at the fullest, but what this feels like is the exact opposite thing I always thought that Emily is Away was trying to say.

Since concluding the summer of last year, I’ve been playing other games, I stopped playing non-stop COD games, I broke free from Payday 2 and finally moved on to new games that really interested me. I got into Resident Evil and the Survival Horror genre, I started to dip my toes into other genres, I got to play games that meant something and spoke to me, like Silent Hill 3 or OneShot among other titles, games that will stick with me like the first Emily is Away did. I moved on. Emily did not. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the forthcoming years a hypothetical Emily is 4way or something like that gets released. But I’m done with Emily, I’ve moved on and I think that’s for the best. Because the summer is half-way through and I just can’t keep thinking about what life will be after it ends, my life is now and I can’t just keep coming back to experience the same downer story every time. If anything, Emily <3 reminds me that the best summers of my life are gone forever, for better or for worse, and there’s nothing I can do, because as with Emily, there are things that will never come back and all I can really do is move on from that and look at the future with optimism and not relive the same bygone summers. Emily is away, and I hope it stays that way. I’m done.