Edited on: October 28, 2025
Posted on: October 27, 2025
Jinini
Verified ownerGames: 205 Reviews: 20
A must play with lots of good some bad
2.5/5 6.5/10 Contains heavy spoilers throughout, including end game! Puzzle/apartment hint in the end. Did I mention spoilers? Lots and lots of spoilers below. I only realised after playing it that there was an original to this game with a slightly different name, I will play that one too at some point down the line. So the review is based off no knowledge of the original classic. I liked it but didnt love it. Lots of good and some not so good too. First to mention is that its a game referencing many things resembling real life horrors and what we are all slowly becoming. With our social and justice system, humans becoming numb, indifferent, fake, turning a blind eye from the wrong and pretending all is good etc. Which is constantly refreshed in game with the lines 'keep a smile on your face' reminders to the citizens. The whole city having enforced chips for nonstop tracking and to locate their children when they go missing, something Foster comments on when he first arrives from outside the walls and is forced to get his hand chipped to enter: 'it sounds kind of invasive'. It is! Things like heart regulators to monitor their health, to keep them all 'healthy' and happy despite feeding them one type of drink, the flouride spankles soda but hey at least it has different flavours each month that ppl can vote for xD And things like 'nipping anti social behaviour in the bud' (dangerous way of think). The Ministry of Aspiration has everyone striving to be a better person and reach the bottom, not the top. Which is done by using the Qdos system which is the equavilant to chinas social credit system. Do wrong, misbehave, and u loose points and access to stuff in their city. That sort of stuff. And if they 'wake up' from their induced grasp of reality and fake implanted memories and start skipping work or act out, then they will get a nice little free trip to the 'spa' which resets them back to their good and docile fake self again, with no memory of what happened. All of these truths are ingrained in the whole story, it is the story. It also tells the story of a modern society who no longer reproduce normally/enough (wonder why lol) and resort to kidnapping and using children for their experiments and invasive adjustments. All of this is something most games cant seem to do right without making me uncomfortable and feeling like its made by one of its supporters of such actions. This game didnt do that, for the horrible theme it was about that part was done well imo. It was told so that you can understand and see how wrong these things are and to recognise it. So bonus points for that. Some of the lines were absolutely hilarious, the sarcasm and squints alone from Joey later in had me laughing. Lines meant for the player to indicate hints etc, such as 'calling the already present elevator did nothing, no surprise there' also made me snort out a laugh, then it made me feel stupid, then some more snorting. That was something I really liked throughout. Some of the puzzles and interactions in places were a really nice touch and fun, like the museum where u can switch the Calm for the Crazy to the speaker, brilliant lol. Some of the negative to mention: The voiceover is great all around, but the english accents especially on some of the characters in the beginning like the tech girl was def not the monthly spankles for my tastebuds lol. Something many ppl comment negatively on in general and I agree with. But dont let that alone turn u away, it gets a little better further in. The ui was kinda jumpy and erratic in selecting choices sometimes. All the main female characters we meet have been uglified or look almost genderless. I did not like the voice lines for the girl with the teddybear in the furnace. Despite maybe being part of the story and what happened to her and her partway memory treatment, that creepy constant laugh when you interact with her was not for me. The hacking is not easy to get at first, or even by the end tbh, the layout can be so confusing to understand untill u just do it on autopilot and somewhat guesswork at times. And like everyone else I too was stuck for ages at the apartments lol O.o. Tried everything and spend so much time there that I almost walked away b/c I could see so many saying it was bugged and to restart it, and thats a lot of dialogue to go through a second time.. But in my case it turned out to be the holographic projecter I didnt realise I should hack back to how it was at first to show the new code. If you pay close attention to dialogue and dont take break for days or week here then this is prob easy to follow and clue in on, but I do think some of the hacking stuff was hard to understand and that the puzzles could benefit from clearer lines(and hints in some cases). In conclusion to that: if you think you're stuck there and its a bug, its not. Its just the tiniest of thing you didnt do to be able to progress! Check the window, bear, projector etc and stand just right when you hack certain things to be in range of all. Something I didnt always realise I had to do, like in the very end with the staircase and the gun/shutters. 🧩🤔 The ending puzzle can have some ppl stuck on for one of the 5 boxes. Its suddenly twist differently and it can be hard to know what to do to align it and I had to look up on YT for that one. The other 4 was easy. Focus only on the EDGES and allign it to a straight square line, forget the images. Then its easy too. The ending was okay but it also felt a bit underwhelming and cut short? It was predictable in terms of what Joey and the city stuff was about, b/c we can all predict how AI would interpret and want to please in such a case and take it literal. But its not a bad thing here, its unavoidable to not see that coming and it didnt make the story bad for that at all. Its just how it is and a good way to show us what can happen. It was also sad tho, and I felt it was almost heartless to just leave Joey in the room like that. After all he only did what he thought you wanted him to do and used his logic based off that. At least burry him ;( Its a good game! Lots of good in it, some bad. Its a game everyone should play sooner or later and most will enjoy it for sure. But if you hate dialogue with a passion, this game is not for you tho. So be warned, its a story focussed game. And some of the dialogue is like half the game with its sarcasm and fun scenes, so dont skip pls. Ending this with a quote from Joey the Supreme Being: 'Sing for me slave!' 🐧 Arch Linux EndeavourOS
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