I almost looked up how to get through two areas, but I didn't and really appreciate not needing to do that. The game had the right amount of puzzle complexity without any moon logic, and right amount of speed that my old fingers could manage.
They did some nice things with the story and quests. There was clearly a point where they released it without balancing the character creation and so some aspects of the character build make little sense. I ended up save scumming a lot after building a character that just wasn't functional until I did a lot of grinding. I just wanted it to end after a while.
As someone who is an older millennial and is partners with someone going through mental struggles, this felt relatable to life experiences. The protagonist is a brat, but the reasons seem mostly out of their control, and the game takes a steady approach towards showing you that. Great visual novel that might not work with audiences who haven't lived it.
Visual novel, solid UI, fully voiced, minimal choices, small amount of characters, no right answers. Played this through once and I don't intend to play it again because I feel that I would make the same choices again, and, it appears that alternate choices won't change the lead up to the end. I love the single play-through for its overall message of people trying to help others, the value of just listening to others, and for presenting the strain of suffering through mental gymnastics, whatever their cause may be. I felt like nearly every answer was important for creating a perspective of the character, even though the lead-up would end up the same.
I really enjoyed this, and the lack of a true ending is the only thing keeping it from five stars for me. I played it in one session, which I retroactively feel is important to make it more like an murder mystery movie. It's not long, but I feel that if a few hours can't be committed to seeing it through, engagement would wane. I generally don't like horror games, so going into this knowing it wasn't going to try to scare me got it off to a good start.
So many good qualities about this game that others have already mentioned. This is an exceptional game on the whole though. It was suggested to not concern myself with W1 and W2 and just go to W3, but I am very glad that I played this game.
I would definitely play the first one before this. They do some flashbacks in this one relating to content in the first one, but you really need to experience the world and characters to flow with the plot as it snakes through the Metro tunnels. The stealth in this one was great; kind of get a Deus ex feeling from this. Although, the whole 'punching the guy once in the face knocking him out instantly' is a little cheesy. There is an unexplained morale system that I would get familiar with before starting the game. I learned about it after completing the first one, and it made the story in this one more engrossing, hearing the conversations fully and interacting with the world as much as the developers made available. I really appreciate how I was able to load this game up and get lost in the world. It had been so long since a game took me to this level of involvement that I had forgotten the enjoyment of it.
I picked up this and Last Light and kind of burned through them because the story was compelling. This one, the first one, is pretty good, introducing an interesting environment: some supernatural mixed with WW2-shooter style tropes. Love the focus on immersion by presenting third-party conversations between residents or enemies. I didn't get much use out of the stealth system in this one because it didn't appear useful to the outcome of the game. Minor spoiler: it turns out that there's a hidden game mechanic that playing stealthy, leading to knocking out instead of killing, helps trigger. I can understand why they left the workings of the mechanic hidden because the idea of mentally checking accomplishment boxes does kind of break immersion, which is bad in a game like this where it helps to have your mind really focused on the story. Still I feel like it could have gotten a little more attention to help swing players away from shooting everything that moves. The weapons variance is pretty good. Some customization, but only a small amount. Unfortunately, unless you've played the game once before, you won't know what style of weapons to focus on for the upcoming chapter. Having three different guns helps, but if a person needs to buy bullets, they won't know which ones to buy. I guess the outcome of my review is that the game is worth it, but there are situations where things aren't explained and a search engine comes to the rescue. Considering the refinement in the sequel in gameplay and plot keeps this at a solid four.
