SPOILERS: Let's start with the gameplay. It's the usual adventure game schlock: moon logic puzzles, puzzles that hint toward their solution after they're solved (looking at you, hospital heart). For an adventure game, it's par for the course: stupid, but usually doesn't get in the way too much. Aesthethically, it looks fine at first, but as the game gets more and more confused about what it is about, the graphics stop complimenting the story. It's not pretty, but it doesn't have to be. The voice acting is horrid, but not entertainingly so. The story starts strong. The first chapter is great, but as the game goes on and the number of plot-unrelated (!!!), contrived psycho killers skyrockets, the suspension of disbelief gets strained. Mine lasted right about the fourth one, right around the time he got eaten by cats (don't think too hard about the supernatural elements, they don't make sense and are a red herring {!}). For the most important element of an adventure game, this plot doesn't seem to know what it is about. Ghosts, psychopathic murderers, disturbed minds, suicidal persons, loss and dealing with it, alienation, All sorts of topics are fired like grapeshot, hoping that at least one plot pellet finds its mark, with about as much accuracy or subtlety. Sadly, the game is an overhyped, preachy and misguided mess. For a work of art touted as life affirming (that particular review rumbled me enough to write this one in response), it is absurdly misguided. The game's take on misery is not merely naive, but is downright stupid. It uses concepts like crutches until they break, so they get discarded and replaced with other ones. As a result, it's a mess. The first third of the game has nothing to do with the second or third, characters are introduced and retired quick. The game has a loyal following, but I strongly suspect it is because it mentions emotionally charged topics like suicide and depression and so forth. It's successfully pretentious, but not good.
