I think, for the most part, it is reasonable to expect (or at least hope) that a studio slowly improves their game-crafting skills with each new release, ideally making them better and better. Of course, that can't always be the case. Some games are good enough to beckon the question "how the hell are they supposed to top this", and which follows the acceptance that it'd probably be okay if what follows is comparatively as good or even a little worse. AstralShift's Pocket Mirror ~ GoldenerTraum (a title I will always type out in full out of sheer amusement) from earlier this year, for as much obtuseness and opaqueness as it relished in, was a pretty good game! Then apparently, they already had their next game right around the corner: a step away from RPG Maker, an incredible looking artstyle, more meat added to the gameplay, and being a prequel to Pocket Mirror ~ GoldenerTraum? It felt like this game had the potential to be something really special!

And now we're here... and now I've played it... and it's... fine.

The biggest up-front appeal here is clearly the visuals, something the game is completely unashamed of. Of course, the game is drop-dead gorgeous, almost every frame of it looking like 90s anime eye candy. In motion, it looks even better, with well done animation and a really subtle static-y noise filter at night that adds soooo much to the vibes. The dungeon areas you go through every night double down on the wonderful aesthetics, with so many little visual effects and setpieces that love to mesh together different artstyles in ways that are a sight to behold. Shoutouts too to the minigames, presented as fancifully-decorated arcade machines that really sell the experience. I do think Pocket Mirror ~ GoldenerTraum ultimately went further with its setpieces and playing with different artstyles, but this game still manages to impress all the same.

Funny anecdote: the game's credits are split between the art team and the programming team for the game. You're only able to skip the later one for whatever reason. I don't think it actually means anything, but its very clear how (rightfully!) proud they are of the aesthetic work put in here.

Yet, under the veneer of these fanciful graphics, the underlying game is kinda lacking? Focusing on the gameplay, it's split between its time management-y social sim elements during the daytime and going through short dungeons more reminiscent of Pocket Mirror ~ GoldenerTraum at night, and both are unfortunately pretty rough around the edges.

A lot of the game focuses on meter management with your health, hunger, sanity, and suspicion meters. The cycle is pretty simple: various things in the game lower these meters (raise in suspicion's case), you get money by selling items/playing minigames, then use the money to buy items to rectify those drops. If you don't, you die. On paper, a fairly simple system to add stress to the player, as one does in a kinda-sorta-horror-y game. However, the scope of the game is small enough that it basically throttles you into playing just enough minigames that you have enough money to get all the items you need to survive, but not much more. When combined with how relatively-consistently these meters drain, buying items to manage the meters becomes more of a chore than anything, ESPECIALLY with how overbearing the UI becomes when you're low on one of them.

Shoutouts to when I had to go through half a dungeon with low sanity while the edges of the screen were covered in dark tendrils and the music was muffled by the constant murmuring of ghosts. It wasn't an issue of "oh do I have enough money to survive???", but "oh I guess I'm stuck dealing with this until I can reach the next shop". I wasn't under threat, I was just annoyed.

Speaking of the dungeons, they're the classic RPG Maker horror game mechanics: enemies to avoid, fairly simple puzzles to complete, and a good few chase sequences—as one does. For the most part they're alright, with some interesting puzzles here and there, but as you go on in them they start to get a bit unwieldy. The second-to-last one stands out as the biggest offender, asking you to wander two large lake areas fairly aimlessly while high-damage ghosts chase you down as long as you're not standing on land, which sometimes is just impossible to reach in-between first seeing the ghost and it hitting you. There's a reason the first Steam guide for the game was made specifically for getting through that dungeon. The final chase sequel also to throw out obstacles that are impossible to naturally react to (including one that appeared while i was in the middle of an animation and killed me) while the camera loves to barely show what's in front. Not to mention the door shuffle puzzle you have to repeat THREE times over the course of this sequence that instantly kills you if you get it wrong. The dungeons have just enough moments of bullshit to them, it was hard to look through to their good, largely aesthetics-based, elements. There was also the forbidden fruit of puzzle design: a SLIDE PUZZLE. It was optional but still. What the fuck?

Don't think I forgot about you putting one in, Origami King. Fuck you.

ANYWAYS, aside from all of this, the rest of the game comprises of dealing with an increasingly paranoid village who might or might not think you are a witch, while courting the girl of your desires. Both of which are fairly interesting and well-done! I personally chose Freya as my bride-to-be, and it was all really sweet, fluffy, gay as hell romance. I loved all of the adorable portraits that popped up during their dates, showing them gingerly grow close together. In contrast, the village was a really compelling showcase of mass paranoia and how it overtakes communities. The dynamics of the various villagers as various blights infect the town were simple, but still engaging. This is where the suspicion meter comes into play, gauging how close you are to being hung by the townspeople or something along those lines. I never got close to filling up the meter, and I don't really know how you can even do so unless intentionally seeking it out or being really really stupid, but I still can appreciate the ludonarrative element to it.

All of this dialogue is nicely written and such, but even that gets a tad dicey when having to often replay segments and, in one of the most baffling things I have seen in a videogame recently, it's a total coinflip whether or not you can skip through dialogue! Seriously! There is a fast forward button that only appears during certainly dialogue sequences and cutscenes for reasons totally beyond by conception. It's awesome to go die in a tough boss-like segment or accidentally choose a dialogue option that instantly kills you/locks you out of something (the game loves to do this), multiple times, then the cutscene you're booted back before is—of course—unskippable!!!

And all of this to experience a story that's... pretty straightfoward. While Pocket Mirror ~ GoldenerTraum forced you to pull the story out of it like you were desecrating a corpse, that mystique to it was a big reason as to why I liked it as much as I did. Being a more mainstream-targeted game, especially published by Square Enix, it makes sense that this game's story is a lot more outwardly comprehensible, and really I have no issues with that. For what it is, the story is still fairly well done, enhanced a lot by the aforementioned dating and town paranoia elements. Yet, as someone who had already played Pocket Mirror ~ GoldenerTraum, I was hoping I wasn't able to intuit the entire story from the very beginning of the game. Hoping for some twist that shaked things up while still keeping up continuity with the game prior, but then I reached the end and everything rolled out... exactly as I expected. That said, I was waiting the entire game for Him to finally appear, and then He did appear and I Leonardo DiCaprio pointed at the screen and it was awesome. So who can say if it was bad or not?

There are so many other smaller things that prick me with the game I could delve into, like the map design basically being a straight line that you walk back and forth across WAY too much for there to be no fast travel system. A lot of these things could probably (hopefully!) be rectified in a few patches, but it's a bit too late for me now. By the end of it, going through that last chase sequence, I was pretty ready to be done with the game. Yet, looking at the amount of time I put into it in a mere 4 days, only a bit less than I put into Eastward for what was still a much less frustrating experience. Getting through all the gruff the game has, there's a pretty decent experience underneath!

I kind of feel like if I went into this without having played Pocket Mirror ~ GoldenerTraum and the world had more mystique to it, I probably would have had a better time. Conversely, if I played Pocket Mirror ~ GoldenerTraum after this, I probably wouldn't have found that game quite as engrossing as I did at the time. It feels weird and a bit bad bad to feel like the games are stuck in this zero-win situation together. I would love to talk to someone who played the games in reverse order to me and how it affected their thoughts on the game. If nothing else, its a really interesting duology for every interesting decision they do, and its hard not to respect them.