I like slow, ritualistic games; I liked a lot about From_. Every day you leave your house to deliver mail or check up on a neighbor, and they hand you a letter or tell you something another should know, and you carry that story along. You sit with it in your boat, because this country is all water. Houses are on stilts and postmen like yourself navigate the waters between people. The snippet of stories you uncover each stop turn out to be familiar tales of star-crossed lovers (held back by a snobbish father), matrimonial strife (caused by an absentee father), and suicide (the result of trauma inflicted by an abusive father). And because there's a boat ride between each story beat, there's time to dwell on things, like fictional dads or real dads or depression or loneliness.

Then at the end of every day your character says, "Something is calling me... I can hear the sound of rain." They're telling you to go to the abandoned house, the place where it's always raining and where the background music turns quiet and sad. On top of a ruined house is a character who looks just like you, but who refers to you as "young man". He speaks distantly about the day's events: "Wouldn't you say it's easier to leave painful memories behind?" Some moral or point to consider, basically. Then you go home to sleep, wake to deliver another message, and think your thoughts as you row back to see the old man again. Followed always by a small ghost, forever right behind you. A form only you and the man standing in the rain can see.

It's all really evocative. The concept fits the art well: simple and lovely blue sprites on a black background. But the writing just felt really trite to me. The drama is played out and flat. Please don't explain the language of flowers to me, please don't convey a tragedy with stock tropes. This is all too formulaic to feel poignant, even though it's packaged and paced so nicely.