What is Scarlet Hollow? Horror VN? Dating Sim? Choices matter RPG? Narrative-based adventure game? Immersive graphic novel experience?? Somehow, yes to all of the above, and also so much more. Scarlet Hollow is beautifully atmospheric, with a fantastic soundtrack and incredible hand-drawn art. It's a compelling and genuinely unnerving story. However, I think its strength lies in the complexity and *incredible nuance* of a) its character interaction system and b) branching choices-matter narrative structure. Together, these features make Scarlet Hollow really unique within the story-rich games scene, as well as adding way more replayability than you might expect from a VN. When interacting with characters, the game uses a 5-axis system to determine how each character views the player (i.e. reliable vs. unreliable), based on dialogue and actions the player has chosen so far in the game. This info is used to make characters respond differently to the player in an interesting way that can change every time you play. Similarly, even the most subtle player choices can have a big impact on the tone or direction of the story, or how much information you get. There's no "good" vs. "bad" route, just a lot of branching choices that combine to create different results and reveal different dialogue. There is already so much divergence in the first 3 episodes; if the devs continue this trend for the other 5, this game will go down as a narrative masterpiece. As someone who doesn't often play visual novels, dating sims, or horror games, I absolutely recommend Scarlet Hollow. So excited to see where the remaining episodes take us and how the rest of the mystery unravels.
