This game is literally one of my favorite games of all time, along with the second game, this wraps up everything perfectly. In fact, this game felt like several different games all together that if you told me they were I'd believe you, and how all of the stories cross over and make you think, I really love it. Just as I said for EP2, I still think about this game to this day and feel like I have every bit committed to memory. This game shaped me as a person, helped me improve and made me really think about aspects of myself.

I usually don't think about rewriting things on here, but my prior HC3 review is currently the most liked one on this page and, Unfortunately, one that I have a deep embarrassment towards. Not that I didn't speak my truth, but lots of time has passed since my first interaction with the game, and my words on it were much more of a riposte of the thought-cyclone the game left me with than anything, like, substantial. And frankly, the feeling I get when I receive a notif about it, that someone assumes I still ride with those thoughts is - boy, no wonder I gave this shit a 5 - enough to coax a second try out of me. After all, as I said in my old review, to confine it to one conclusion would do it a disservice (though now I mean that in a more direct way than I ever did before, lol).

As far as more formal things go (character depth, conciseness, visual splendor) it could be argued that etherane has outdone HellChar 3 a few times by now, but to be honest, the more I sit with it, the more I think the circumstance of Hello Charlotte as a series is a worthwhile feature more than any kind of problem. Playing HC1 and casting it off as a study of RPGMaker more than a developed game in and of itself feels almost necessary to eventually get to the part where HC3 throttles some purple and blue into your cheeks. To put it more directly: even if I didn't see myself in it (which I do), I still think it's incredibly worthwhile to see this rare glimpse into the game creator's artistic trajectory.

What makes this game part of that trajectory, let alone the extremum of it? Well, with all its internet-coded self-reflection, the nihilistic lashouts at just about every aspect of the game as an object/piece of entertainment, the audience as a collective entity (crucially, the audience of people who were there at the time of HC3's release, who played HC2 and asked, "please may I have some more"), and the ensuing story as the byproduct of an intellectually and emotionally laborious creative process. It works through that initial stage of self-awareness games this metafictionally occupied have and into a world of razor-thin separations between idea and story. And none of this is strictly contemptuous, but etherane does not mince words and speaks to certain things so directly that the aforementioned separation of fiction is liable to break down, if only for a moment. (I believe the less-nice way of saying this is "preachy", but stick with me)

Hello Charlotte always has been very artificial as a fiction, but here its worldstate is so rebellious that it's a wonder any coherency occurs. Though, I will say, the conceptualization of creator and creation here is perhaps more vital and centers more than that explanation leads on, and there's a layer of, for lack of a better term, knowing bratiness that IS SO IMPORTANT TO INTERNALIZE by the end or else you'd just fuckin' hate this shit. But, even then, these things are likely to someone's distaste (understandably so) given how brash and just straight up trying it all can be at the best of moments.

BUT, that's the thing, and I'm gonna just come out and say it, HC3's rigor and vulnerability remain unmatched in the space of games, even in the rolling wake of personal games or w/e tag you'd ascribe to them. It has a pinpoint line of sight to the core of tumblr's now-ruinous identity and truth politics and proceeds to shred the Earth's mantle to get there. You could not make this up if you tried - etherane shoveled the trenches of that distinct blog-era mental-to-digital-to-mental anguish and isolation, and the dirt and clay, cracking in the fiery kiln, forms this completely unstable work that cannot be any less angry or confused than it is, lest it fail to... be itself. But it succeeds, and I am so fucking thankful that someone out there spoke to it with such bare intentions, because it's a cultural aftershock that affected me and continues to affect me on multiple levels - I reckon this is at least partially why the game gets such a strong response years after its initial release, because it's prodding the tender points of a life so common among its demographic but also one that's, from my own experience, hard to come to terms with. I've seen some people struggle to understand or even outright despise this game for this, but in my case, there's no way, man. This game got it.

ALSO sneak-attack Heaven's Gate review because I finally played it: so much more than the AU tag gives it credit for, at least in the sense that it doesn't feel at all out of step with anything else in the series. I mean, rigid fiction HellChar is not, so what's a couple of smudged details to stop you from feeling out Charles, Anri, and Vincent as a graduating class? It pretty much sledgehammers the layers of abstraction left in HC and becomes unfettered conversations with these ideologues that the True Realm characters have assumed the roles of. Despite that, though, it's maybe the most natural dialogue of the series and every conversation with these three ends up being just SO emotionally fulfilling and a great treat for those who already liked the sprite versions of them. I guess that is etherane's twisted idea of an AU? God, please miss, just once.

Muchísimo más caótico, complejo y, a la vez, especial que sus dos predecesores. Entre las sentencias suicidas, la rabia de la incomprensión adolescente y la confusión social hay una amalgama de capas complejamente orquestadas que terminan por hilarlo todo quizás no de la forma más elegante o limpia posible, pero sí de la más sincera y emocional.
Hello Charlotte 3 es una historia agria como el limón y triste como las olas del mar sobre saber rendirse, sobre que a veces debes aceptar tu derrota y, simplemente, dejarlo ir, pero también es un cuento valiente y lleno de corazón sobre dar la cara por quienes nos rodean y tener la audacia de intentar insuflar algo de amor y belleza en este universo cruel

Hello Charlotte

This game is raw, and at a lot of times, very uncomfortable. I think, all in all, I prefer the 2nd game, but I think about that, and I think about this game and I can't help but sit uncomfortably with that. This game isn't written to be liked. In fact, it feels written to be disliked. Like the creator, etherane, wants you to stop, or to be mad, or uncomfortable, or even hate the game. I think in that regard the story is highly effective.

I'm glad I played this series.

Goodbye Charlotte.

“Come gather, both the young and the old!
Come enjoy the show
A show of lies and gods”

It’s as existential as horror can get and, in the ocean of indie top-down horror RPG, it’s the only trilogy worth the entry price from beginning to end. This time, the world is broken from the very start, every wish for everyone to be happy has failed and death is destined to come no matter what. After three games of journey through etherane’s personal hell-scape, we are addressed directly to accept that nothing in it is alright, and probably can never be as long as we think of it as a story. Individuality is questioned to rationalize the game logic that make it possible to treat people and feelings as items. It is worthless. The only normalcy that can be achieved is to recognize ourselves as individuals that need to be together.
It’s corny to treat your own story as a parasite, to see it being carried over into the world outside, trying to scare the viewer with the idea of being endlessly, helplessly seen, to no end. Stuck is a world soaked in ugly colours, being tainted, incapable of achieving the pure white. It’s a world of regrets, but it’s also a world where we can inject love. Because, all this time, we have listened.

Comecei a jogar após o termino do segundo, a evolução de um jogo para o outro é uma crescente tão saborosa de ver, na arte, música e a história.
A história desse simplesmente me virou de ponta cabeça e zombou da minha cara com tudo que eu havia entendido no primeiro e segundo jogo, um deleite de uma boa história, pode ser meio confuso no começo, mas assim que você vai encaixando os pontos e tudo vai fazendo sentido, tu é esmagado pelo peso de cada coisa que vai passando por essa trilogia. Obrigado Etherane
Valeu o preço pago pelo jogo, muito bom encontrar bons jogos de RPGMaker.
Vlw pela recomendação https://twitter.com/Iamniiko

De mis favoritos, con diferencia, me encanta que leí El Fin de la Infancia de Arthur C. Clarke y podías ver la influencia en como una raza alienígena invade la Tierra para hacerla mejor. En general un juego memorable, sobre todo por el apartado gráfico y por el OST, la historia también, pero no es fácil de entender.

Edit: En retrospectiva este juego cambió un poco mi perspectiva respecto a los videojuegos, Etherane hizo lo que quiso y quiero creer que seguiré su idea a la hora de crear. Thank you Etherane!

Привет Шарлотта

Игра была очень интересной, прошёл я все эпизоды за 3 подхода.
Первый эпизод - заставил почувствовать интерес к игре
Второй эпизод - понимаешь, что привязался к Шарлотте
Третий эпизод - переворачивает всё, что ты узнал за последние два эпизода