To an extent I can appreciate Galatea for its search for an NPC with more presence than usual in videogames in general and in text adventures in particular. If there is one thing I’ll never get tired of is people experimenting with IAs, especially when it is more about trying new models than raw technological power.

And yeah, you never know exactly how Galatea is and the conversations are equally blurred enough to not be able to really move anything exactly in the direction you want. My main concern is in not being able to properly develop any of its themes. In a way I guess having multiple big thematic ideas as well as various dozens of endings going around was just the perfect match for the game, but in my playthroughs none of them got into anything interesting. Probably much of it has to do with a writing that doesn’t stand up enough by itself.

In one of the conversations the main character ended up talking with Galatea about their family, their sister, and crying with her reaching through a connection beyond the cold relation of a visitor and a museum piece. The problem? It got out in a few lines (which can be fine if done well) and honestly didn’t feel to me that neither the main character nor Galatea had any kind of confidence, trust or just feeling between them yet for the talk to end up that way. It makes me wonder if it wouldn’t have been better to reduce all the possible ramifications to have a more focused development, in particular when reaching near the personal areas, probably the most interesting aspects of the dialogues. I know that Emily Short herself has already reckoned that this is no perfect game by any means, especially as more games and years passed by. And in a similar way, I appreciate Galatea in some ways, but the words weren’t enough to make me want to visit again.