this game is truly an achievement. ep 2 expands everywhere where ep 1 left me asking, and boy what a world that unfolded from that humble demo. a cerebral force at times, and an achingly gorgeous coming of age story at others, this completely otherworldly yet so human parable of relationships, of identity, of happiness, of godhood was simply put a piece of art. there's just not enough i can say about this story, with the characters and their relationships being all so just captivating. all the little details, the fiercely intricate world built here that just screams character from every tile to every background. its a work of art. and without a doubt i will be thinking about it for a long time to come <3

The goal of any piece of art is to invoke an emotional response in it's viewer/reader/player, be it simple pleasure, self-reflective melancholy or militarizing hatred. Hello Charlotte, in being an opaque piece of traumacore, chooses to invoke desolate depression (or so my experience indicates). It's incredibly intelligent, blunt and well-executed as a piece of visual and literary art, yet it chooses with this talent to be unabashedly nihilistic. While I am unsure how the trilogy concludes, Episode 2 as a standalone piece is a work made to plunge it's player into a hopelessness, listlessness and determinism. Our darling pale princess is cursed with an incurable illness, swathes of bullies, dozens of gruesome game-ends and divine reconstructions of her flesh, all of which she (and us as her captors) force her to endure. The most credence is granted to the ideologies of C and Frei in their influence over Charlotte, and it forces an incredibly heavy philosophical onus onto both her and us, the player. While I would recommend this game off the merits of it's art-style and witty writing, these aspects of the experience cannot be isolated from it's spite for life and distrust for others. I do wish the creator the best if such thoughts truly are a reflection of their beliefs and the intentionality of their art. Hello Charlotte isn't edgy or scary, it's just occasionally painful. The cosmic gore and mathematical jokes made me fall in love, but my weekend was thrown into an absolute slump as the price of admission. Play at your own risk.

for all its messy sci-fi tangles and caustic irony and sprawling mythologizing this felt raw and tender in a way that kind of really hurt. doubles down on the eminently alien as a ruse to make its naked human ugliness more potent when the time comes, presenting a scenario where the essence of all stress, tension, and threat is mundanely, terribly, crushingly adolescent at heart

a wealth of increased design hospitality baits a hostility that draws from acrid power dynamics, self-destructive altruism, loss of autonomy, strained health, and the uniquely miserable feeling of being a fucked up teenager. that its concluding act leads with its most insincere, grating posturing only to directly pivot into end times earnestness makes for one of the most convincing tonal portrayals of angst and isolation I can think of

instant teencore classic (deeply affectionate)

I liked this game a lot more than EP1. Story has a little different style - it’s a lot more structured, less random, with a relatively clear theme this time around. Just like with the first episode, I like the vibes very much, and a more structured narrative is a welcomed change. However, I still find writing mostly weak - while having a more structured story is good, its themes are kinda banal. I liked to listen to this story, but I didn’t find the execution of its themes particularly striking.

Also this game has a battle system in school named “SOCIALIZATION”, where you need to defeat mentally stricken students with attempts at communication. Or blackmailing. This is brilliant.

I'm not going to deny it, I came into this game with a lot of hesitation, bias, and general judgement because I absolutely despised the first one, but had heard enough good things about the second one to give it a chance anyway. And because I played this game with judgement in my heart and mind, it was easy to spot a lot of tiny things, like inconsistencies in transfer spots (some doorways activate when you touch them, others are a-button commands, and half the time the a-button ones aren't tied to the doorway but instead the space in front of it, so even if you aren't facing the door, you'd still transfer if you hit a), or characters popping in and out during cutscenes without any animation or transition, which obviously aren't the biggest deal in the world, but at the same time are such easy fixes that it gives me a bad feeling. It's also hard for me to judge the merit of this game's story, especially when it (naturally) continues off the heels of the first game. I finished the first game in such a huff (and so long ago as well) that I don't really remember much of it. My memories of the first game are entirely of the frustration I felt while playing it. And so, looping back around, it really wasn't possible for me to come into this game without some of that bias still in my head. Luckily, though, it seems that this game stands on its own pretty well, if you disregard the stuff about the oracle and what not.

So for starters, this game has a battle system. It's all random encounters that only happen in the school, and it's framed as 'socialization', which I think is a really unique take and fits well in a game that takes place in a school. The game even gives you a single infinite-use item that fully heals you every time you use it. However, I completely ignored the battle system in its entirety, and that's for one reason and one reason only-- there's only one single save point in the entire game. I'm not always the biggest fan of when games only let you save at specific points, although I understand the merit behind it in certain games, especially as a means to prevent save scumming. However, for a game like this, having only one single save spot in the whole game is absurd. Especially when that location is made off-limits at random points for little to no reason. The game doesn't seem to punish you for always running from battles, since it doesn't really feed you that many to begin with, it kind of just seems like a side thing you can play around with when you want to.

The game also culminates (or at least I think it does, that's the place where it seems like it does) at a grand yes/no question. I chose 'yes' and I got the (or one of the) good ending. And for a moment, I thought I'd replay up until that point and choose the other option to see what happens. Then, I realized how far back I was because of how long it had been since I last saved, and I felt like it wasn't worth it.

The art and music are nice as always. And the game, as a whole, gave me this sick feeling that, for some odd reason, made me yearn for high school again. As context, I'm 22 and a recent college grad. I knew a girl in high school who Charlotte reminds me of. And although high school sucked, there was this weird comfort of knowing that maybe life afterwards would be better, as long as I stayed in school and worked hard. Of course, it didn't get much better, and the whole 'work hard and you'll succeed' thing was a total lie, but... well, now I'm getting off topic.

I'm not sure where this game leaves me in terms of the last 3 games in the series. Maybe sometime later I'll watch the rest of the endings on YouTube and use that to determine if I wanna play the rest of these. But as for right now, I'm kind of just uninterested. The best thing this game did for me was wash out my negative feelings towards the first game and leave me feeling truly neutral.

Ah uhm eh???
Idk how to write anything cohesive so ill just say i dont like how much epic lore there is in this series so far like i literally do not fucking care, i also think all the stuff with the ppl in the house is stupid, i understand plot wise why they exist, but I don't understand WHY they exist if you know what i mean.
I also don't understand how certain things are supposed to work logic wise which is something i dont actually give 2 shits about but when its put so front and center i cant exactly ignore.
The school and dream sequences are really good. Like Im not gonna talk abt it in detail but there are certain segments in this game I will remember my whole life. very excited for 3

EDIT: forgot to say the social commentary is laughable but the person who amde this was probably 16

starting ep3 tomorrow but wanna jot some thoughts on the duology as is. like both quite a bit, maybe ep 1 just as equally as this. in particular ep2 is more forthright in its suffering but cloaks what would be naked cries for help really cleverly. like the titular charlotte the text seems at both ends exorcising some necessary catharsis and questioning whether said catharsis is even helping anything, much less being therapeutic--characters abound with taunts and riddles for the audience investing in charlotte's suffering in hopes for some kind of didactic bow to justify the pain, yet same characters take interest in charlotte's suffering for their very own didactic lessons and utility. tries at all three to both ridicule altruism as an ethical doctrine, pathologize it as a psychological motivation, and dismiss it as a political utopianism---yet, also, offers only calming reassurance that your choice was understandable when you go to grave lengths just to relieve someone's else pain. both more of a 'RPGMaker' game in drawing up social interactions as random battles but also not a RPGmaker game in how ambivalent it is about you engaging with this system at all (could be misremembering but im p sure ep 1 at least had health values but in here they were just ??). conflicted conflicted but far from confused, i think the text is confident in its ambiguity, a read bolstered by the very ending coda being yet another dilemma that pricks at the audience's investment in the narrative. like drake said,,,,, its a combination. uniquely invested in the risk of vulnerability in relationships as shown by the drama and that same risk of vulnerability as a creator to audience as shown in the metanarrative, ane's cooking imo