My impressions through the Hello Charlotte series were pretty ambivalent, sometimes very negative, but after Childhood's End I can confidently say that I really liked these games, and especially EP3. It’s the best of the bunch, and just a very strong game. My grievances with former episodes never really went anywhere, but EP3 made a surprisingly good finale, both in thematic sense, and in the sense of tying most of the narrative's loose ends. It retroactively made former episodes a lot more interesting.

Hello Charlotte is a really interesting example of semi-amateur work that doesn't really have writing that I can call “good”, feels very juvenile, but also has an inner drive, a burning desire to say something, and it really goes through to the player despite all problems in the construction of its narrative that it may have. The way it operates all the elements of its story has glaring weaknesses, but it feels really sincere despite that. I still think that this story has way too broad number of themes it wants to touch, and point it wants to make is still barely comprehensible sometimes, but in EP3 it started to feel like torturous tangledness of this story is a proper artistic choice, an emotional state this game wants to put you in, a state which complements the overall story.

And I like this ardent juvenile energy. Sometimes not being “professional” contributes to the raw, sincere feeling of art. Hello Charlotte is one such case.

Ceci conclut parfaitement la série, là le jeu m'a direct accroché dès les 1ères minutes, j'ai vraiment trop kiffé tout le déroulé, l'ambiance encore plus pesante, comment certains mystères se sont éclaircis petit à petit et son dénouement (bien qu'il y ait quelques points de confusion vu que je pense que c'est pas un jeu que tu comprends dès le 1er playthrough) mais aussi les arts qui n'hésitent pas à être gore quand il le faut (petit côté malsain de ma part) Mais tout ça pour dire, HC a été une très plaisante expérience et découverte que je suis pas prêt d'oublier.
Je recommande chaudement si vous êtes à la recherche de jeux indés à l'ambiance unique qui saura vous marquer

fuck




theres something about this game. while i could start off this review by describing it succinctly with the help of a few words; quiet, slick, kinetic, psychotic, vomit-inducing, i dont think that would exactly convey across how it made me feel. theres something about this game, something about the universe and the characters and their worlds, their lives. normally any given piece of media would invite you into its world in this ritualistic dance of immersion, show you its literary teeth, its ideas, its context, give you a window into the lives of its characters etc. up until now that was also how we were introduced into this myopic world of Hello Charlotte, as the first two episodes despite making up the main story seemed more like worldbuilding exercises in comparison. but episode 3? as soon as you begin its story you can feel a presence, a something, beyond the grating dry wit and the tumblr esque tenants you had grown accustomed to, a real something within this game. a something that chafes at the restraints between art and voyeur, that spews out its characters and circumstances out like bile, crashing and gnawing at one another violent and abrasive repressive and cathartic all in one and all for nothing and nothing and nothing at all. it is but a barely contained violence that permeates the experiences of the characters, the very language of the story, of its medium, of its audience. hc3 cranks up the body horror and the psychological fuckery to eleven, it tears down what we thought we knew about the story and our very relationship with it with such force that it may as well be concussive. all for what? meaning? if only that was so easy to obtain. maybe that is the meaning of this game. but is that what we seek media like this for? for meaning alone? maybe i, like some within the story am only constrained to carry out what is written out for me. maybe by writing about this game right now meaning has infected my brain and everything is now lost on me. perhaps. regardless, i like this game. five stars.


SPOILERS AHEAD


n.b im so saaad vincent/c turned out to only be a vessel :((( he was my fav boy and when the option came up in 2 i chose to commit suicide and be in his arms forever without skipping a beat LOLLL

I cannot believe that 5 hours of mid led up to this hooooly shiiit!!!
I have thought a lot about this series but I don't think there is a reason to write it all so ill sum up my thoughts.
The inhabitants in the house felt very much like those types of ocs you make as a teen that youre supper attached to but that are bad and I still think they bloated the game.
This game has a soul that shines through the cracks of being an amateur project, so much so that I'm excusing a lot of stuff I would normally hate. It's inspiring and uplifting in more ways than I would care to list.

(im on a mission to finish some left over reviews from the games ive played and post them before the end of the year or else theyre gonna show up in the game count of 2024 dont talk to me so its been a while since ive played \insert current game\ have fun with what i remember about it)

sexy fweged recommended this to me as part of this list thanks dude

at this point we are at the third installment in this series and I can competently say that I didnt understand m anything that happened in this fucking game and I'm positive enough that there's some deep lore and understanding about characters worlds and relationships between the work of art and the creator behind it but I have absolutely no idea how i am supposed to know all this without looking it up or having someone infodump me the truth concealed behind this game in a 3 hours video essay about hello charlotte and its legacy but until then I will be talking about the game as its own thing because again I have no knowledge about the surroundings for now

needless to say playing hello charlotte 1 and 2 is nearly mandatory to even barely understand what is happening in this installment so yeah you're advised to play those before thank you very much champion

hello charlotte 2 in its own regard is possibly the greatest one of the bunch if you ask me its such a great leap in narrative and production from the first one that it could be its own thing if it weren't for hello charlotte 1 and then hello charlotte 3 somehow follows the steps of the other games and in particular the second one in all the worldbuilding around it and the setting AND the fucking theology/beliefs/whatever aspect which is something that I liked a lot in the second game and somehow I even enjoyed it more in that game

not entirely sure how I should even begin to explain the story of this game because I don't even understand it to begin with so ideally I will just explain the surface level stuff . you get to play as charlotte again but for some reasons she's absolutely fucked up and a jerk and to even get the point across that she's fucking unbearable every single character of the game all of the sudden wants to kill her although shes an immortal entity or whatever

this is already such a different direction from the very first game and even from its sequel theres nothing left of the charlotte you know and love she just got turned into a violent freak that just wants to punish anyone and everything on her path

this is certainly the main plot twist of the game and it still delivers such a haunting experience even though this time youre probably not gonna be relating to the protagonist lest youre a murderer but that being said etherane really makes it pretty obvious that this iteration of charlotte is to be hated in any way shape or form even when you have some kind of opportunity to be sympathetic towards her this thing is gonna get crushed in a second by the absolutely hideous stuff she does to the other characters

most of the relationships you grow accustomed in the first 2 games were thrown out of the window because most characters were either reshaped entirely for the purpose of this new narrative or the bond they have with charlotte are just ones of pure hatred and create a stark contrast to the usual narrative of found family that was present in the second game

ideally i would say that this is the core of the entire game but actually this is gonna get super metaphysical real fast and thats also where im gonna lose contact with the story . i genuinely have no idea what the charles eyler true story is really about and i cant even talk about this in full length because it would be spoiler uwu

that being said most of the real life implications and general ideas of the story actually surround charles and what is up with him , now this is probably the most haunting part of the game because it gets real heavy real fast with some themes like depression suicide and death so umh not really the funniest shit in the universe but its also where the game gets the most personal its like etherane is writing about their experience as an artist a creator and a human being and what this actually means for themselves and for the world around them

again im not clever enough to actually understand what is happening here and most of the stuff is probably gonna be left in weird hints that people arent gonna get anyway unless their big in the hello charlotte conspiracy theory scene which i am definitely not

i could glimpse a lot of different themes from this one but i definitely will need another playthrough to actually make up my mind about what this game is truly about but apart from the charlotte prologue and charles plot twist probably my favorite part of the game is probably the scarlett one

now mild spoilers ahead when you actually take the rein of scarlett eyler and slowly descend into madness to understand what the fuck is happening in this game altogether but its also my least favorite part of the game gameplay wise so im pretty conflicted

this game plays in the normal rpg maker tropes rightfully its basically just a glorified ao oni with some more puzzles in there now even though i dont usually like the “get items and use them somewhere” puzzles hello charlotte somehow managed to make some more puzzles that i absolutely despise theyre definitely some of the most mind numbing stuff ive ever had to experience in a videogame im not wise enough or clever enough or anything so i just resolved to using guides now for whatever reason they decided it was a good idea to just put the entirety of the puzzles in a late game segment while youre controlling scarlett and its SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BADLY PACED it completely breaks the momentum i have no idea why they had the idea to completely break the story pace to put a whole lot of puzzles in a climax for the whole game but i digress

so umh again i think charlotte/charles segments are the most story heavy and the scarlett one is the most puzzley part of the game and still i do think the scarlett epilogue is the most haunting one of the bunch absolutely gut wrenching and an incredible testament at how good etherane is to write these ethereal and nonsensical stories that manage to feel intelligent anyway because theyre probably games for smart people = not me

again while most of the story stuff is a mystery to me i cant lie and say that i didnt actually love this shit to hell and back the vibes are unmatched most of the themes actually resonated with me and when you actually add on top of that etheranes GORGEOUS character designs interesting music decisions and rpgmaker knowledge you get an experience in the genre that is nothing like anything else youve ever played

definitely my favorite etherane game together with HC2 but im sure gonna check heavens gate out because i want to actually understand something in this fucking series AND i want to fuck vincent in the ass so theres that thank you everybody for tuning in

de fato tudo acaba bem... mas ainda dói tanto, um final de fato marcante e bem merecido para a serie, a introdução de outras visões sobre o mundo e a historias foram muito bem vindas e quanto mais o jogador adentra e analisa elas, mais é perceptível que é um jogo que se propõe a passar uma mensagem quase que universal, uma mensagem que marca, que entristece as vezes, que as vezes da esperança, mas nunca uma mensagem vazia, Hello Charlotte mais uma vez nessa sequencia trás uma melhora notável em todos os quesitos técnicos que se possa avaliar e além disso nos da neste jogo uma expansão tão considerável do universo que chega a ser impressionante a profundidade que ainda prevalece em cada detalhe, ver personagens que já conhecíamos de diferentes formas e ver o outro lado da moeda realmente toca em lugares profundos da alma do jogador, uma historia que traz um fim solido e consistente pra historia fantástica que nunca cansou de surpreender, dito isso um fator notável foi o próprio amadurecimento da obra e como ela se propôs a tratar de diversos temas de forma mais direta, o que não só trouxe um bom aprofundamento das historias dos personagens quanto um enriquecimento no roteiro, o fazendo ficar algo mais interessante do ponto de vista sentimental. dado o exposto por fim é louvável a própria proposta e como ela foi comprida com tamanho êxito durante o jogo.

nota pessoal: eu chorei pra caralho, fiquei devastada, amei, simplesmente amei <3

Esse review vai ser bem superficial porque se eu pensar muito nesse jogo eu fico mal da cabeça mas é muito bom viu. o Charles é tão relatable pra mim que me dói no fundo do fundo do lado esquerdo do meu esôfago, a história desse jogo dói nas juntas de tanto que eu gosto parabéns viu ! além dessa parte a experiência de jogar esse jogo depois dos outros 2 anteriores é tão satisfatória porque tudo vai fazendo sentido e aí eu fiquei com vontade de jogar tudo de novo pra pensar mais nisso ! e eu def vou jogar de novo no futuro ! quem sabe trago uma review mais detalhada ! minha única reclamaçãozinha é que o jogo podia ser mais... bonito... aos olhos... mas eu entendo 100% as escolhas estéticas do jogo faz sentido ele ser como é ! então nem é bem uma reclamação snif

<After all... doesn't fiction exist to free the mind? That's why I will crush you, too.

I swing the hammer.

There will be no war. There will be no revolution. There is no need for it.
Our existence is meaningless. But that's okay.
There's no need for a meaning.
We will not fight god. There is no need to.
It won't change anything.

No matter how wretched we are...
No matter how broken we are...
No matter how lost we are...

We will hold our heads high and march on.
Our stories will continue.>

there's something particularly grimy about this one that wasn't present in the others. something instigating and coarse and spiteful and reactionary. "language as a virus" as interpreted in the most corrosive way possible. characterized by emptiness; overwhelmingly pro-nothing

HC2 was positioned like an anaglyph where the heightened elements were layered just askew of the seen&felt "human" elements despite their differences, and when paired they were able to speak earnestly to lived experience. HC3 bristles at the very thought; too suspicious and cynical to allow anything to resonate so cleanly; too preoccupied with how earned it is; too uncomfortable with its own audience; too busy wagging its finger at ghosts

this is a work defined by unpleasant, uncharitable metacommentary; the shock of gore, body fluids, and pointlessly cruel backstories amounting to little more than a yawning (bored, boring) void. violent death of the author offered the instant every page's been torn to confetti. one last mean little joke from a particularly mean little game

a neurotic stormcloud reckoning with creation and voyeurism and expectations and consumption. the reclaiming of catharsis thru punishingly overcorrective countermeasure. a last gasp chance to weaponize itself against that what came prior, itself, and the "puppeteer". denouement as calculated sabotage that can't be walked back

rpg maker's BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea - Episode 2 (2014)