- Unforgettable masterpiece experience with captivating story
- Profound philosophical exploration and emotional impact
- Stunning hand-drawn art and superb voice acting
- Extensive replay value with meaningful player choices
- Repetitive gameplay and unsatisfying, similar endings
- Confusing, pretentious narrative not for all players
Emotions
Players express high satisfaction due to the game's exceptional overall quality, encompassing its deep and branching narrative, impactful player choices, high replayability, and strong artistic presentation (including art, music, and voice acting). The game consistently exceeds expectations by offering a rich, thought-provoking, and emotionally resonant experience, often leading to a desire for 100% completion and exploration of all content.
Admiration stems from the game's exceptional artistic and narrative quality, particularly its profound philosophical depth, unique story design, and masterful presentation. Players are consistently impressed by the high caliber of writing, voice acting, art style, and soundtrack, which collectively create a deeply impactful and memorable experience that often redefines genre expectations.
Excitement is driven by the game's innovative and engaging design, particularly its dynamic, branching narrative with numerous choices and unexpected twists that encourage extensive replayability and exploration of all possible outcomes. Players are thrilled by the game's high quality, emotional depth, and unique blend of genres, often leading to strong recommendations and a desire for others to experience it, especially through a blind playthrough.
Awe is evoked by the game's exceptional artistic and philosophical depth, which creates a unique, profound, and often transformative experience. Players are deeply impressed by the game's high quality across all aspects—storytelling, visuals, music, and voice acting—and its ability to redefine genre expectations, offer profound insights, and leave a lasting emotional and intellectual impact.
Joy arises from the game's overall high quality and the deeply enjoyable experience it provides, particularly through its engaging story, well-crafted characters, and effective use of humor. Players find happiness in the game's ability to fulfill expectations, offer meaningful choices, and deliver heartwarming or satisfying narrative outcomes, often leading to a strong emotional connection and a desire to share the experience.
Verdict
Mostly positive
Summary
Positive 98% · Negative 2%. Score: 2 / 100
Positives:
- The game is widely regarded as an innovative and unforgettable masterpiece that redefines the visual novel genre. Reviewers consistently describe it as a unique, high-quality experience that sets a new standard and leaves a lasting impression.
- The game is consistently praised for its deep, complex, and emotionally resonant narrative. Reviewers highlight the sharp, witty dialogue, compelling plot twists, and the overall high quality of the writing and narration.
- The game is recognized for its deep philosophical and psychological themes, including love, existence, free will, morality, and identity. It challenges player perspectives and encourages introspection, often blurring genre lines between visual novel, horror, and philosophical art.
- Reviewers praise the game's exceptional replayability, driven by its numerous branching paths, diverse endings, and hidden content. This ensures each playthrough feels fresh and provides significant value, motivating many to pursue 100% completion.
- A core strength is the game's robust choice-and-consequence system, where even minor decisions significantly alter the narrative, character development (especially the Princess), and overall outcomes. This encourages extensive exploration of branching paths.
Negatives:
- Players frequently found the game's looping structure and requirement for multiple playthroughs to be highly repetitive and tedious. The lack of a clear flowchart or skip options for already seen content, combined with choices often feeling inconsequential, made exploring different paths feel like a chore rather than an engaging experience.
- A significant number of players expressed disappointment with the game's endings, finding them to be largely similar, confusing, or lacking a sense of reward or closure. The perception that choices throughout the game had little impact on the final outcome further contributed to a feeling of emptiness or frustration.
- The game's story is often described as vague, convoluted, and overly philosophical, making it difficult for players to understand or immerse themselves. Many feel the narrative tries too hard to be deep but ultimately lacks substance or clear meaning, with choices often feeling inconsequential.
- Some reviews explicitly stated that the game, being a visual novel, inherited common genre shortcomings such as lengthy, unengaging dialogue and choices that don't significantly impact the story. This point primarily serves as a warning for players who generally dislike the visual novel genre.
- Many reviewers questioned the game's value proposition, finding its price point to be too high given its relatively short duration and the repetitive nature of its content. This led to a perception that the game was not worth its full price, especially for those unwilling to engage in multiple playthroughs.
Gameplay:
- The game is a choice-driven visual novel where player decisions significantly influence the narrative, leading to numerous branching paths and diverse outcomes. Every choice, even minor ones, has visible and immediate consequences, encouraging extensive replayability to explore all possibilities, with no "wrong" choices, only different perspectives.
- The game offers substantial content for completionists, featuring a large number of achievements (over 100) and a gallery to fill, which encourages thorough exploration of every route, dialogue option, and ending. This design rewards players who invest time in uncovering all the game's possibilities.
- The Princess's identity, appearance, and temperament dynamically change based on the player's choices and actions across multiple playthroughs. The central conflict revolves around the decision to slay or save her, with her transformations reflecting the player's approach and previous interactions.
- The game is primarily a visual novel, praised for its exceptional storytelling that blends psychological horror, romance, and philosophical themes. It features high production values, including beautifully hand-drawn visuals and full voice acting, enhancing immersion despite its text-heavy nature.
- The game establishes a clear, recurring premise: the player character is tasked with journeying to a cabin in the woods to slay a princess in the basement, believed to be the cause of the world's impending end. This straightforward setup serves as the foundational narrative hook for the complex branching story.
Performance:
- The game is highly optimized, runs smoothly on various systems including Linux, and has fast startup times. Players reported no crippling stutters or issues with changing settings, making it playable even on modest hardware.
- Players reported an almost entirely bug-free experience, with any encountered issues being minor, infrequent, and having no significant impact on gameplay. This indicates a very polished game.
- The game performs exceptionally well on the Steam Deck, offering resource efficiency that allows for extended gameplay sessions without significant battery drain. The 'wake from sleep' function also operates flawlessly.
- A specific, minor issue was noted where the cursor would occasionally skip to the UI menu when selecting dialogue choices using a controller or on the Steam Deck. This is a small usability bug.
- Players appreciated the highly realistic sound of the game's surroundings, contributing positively to the immersive experience.
Recommendations:
- The game receives overwhelming positive recommendations, with many reviewers calling it a masterpiece, giving it perfect scores, and emphasizing its value for money. It's considered a must-play for its unique and unforgettable experience.
- Reviewers consistently advise playing the game with as little prior knowledge or spoilers as possible. This approach is believed to maximize the impact and enjoyment of the narrative and its surprising twists.
- The game is highly recommended for fans of visual novels, psychological horror, and narrative-driven games where choices have significant consequences. Many reviewers also suggest it's an excellent entry point for those new to or typically averse to visual novels.
- Players should be aware of potentially intense emotional impact and themes including gore, suicide, and murder. Reviewers advise checking content warnings and being prepared for a challenging experience.
- For those unsure about purchasing, reviewers suggest trying the game's demo. This allows potential players to experience the game firsthand and determine if it aligns with their preferences before committing.
Miscellaneous:
- Developed by a small indie team, the game is widely recognized as a passion project, showcasing immense dedication and care from its creators. Its high quality is often contrasted positively with larger AAA titles.
- Many players, who typically dislike or avoid visual novels, found themselves deeply engaged by this game. It is praised for offering an experience far beyond the usual expectations of the genre.
- Despite limited settings, the game's environments dynamically change and adapt to the narrative, creating a shifting, labyrinthine experience. The minimalistic yet atmospheric design enhances the player's fractured journey and sense of reality.
- The game contains stylized gore, body horror, and disturbing scenes, though some routes are tamer. It also offers accessibility options to mitigate sensory issues for sensitive players.
- The developers are noted for their unique approach, including encouraging players to experience the game blind, even suggesting pirating to preserve the initial impression. This fosters a supportive community and highlights their player-centric philosophy.
