I adore this game. I'm the most biased person who can review this because I just genuinely adored this game so much.

I know it's not the prettiest looking game. It does look cheap. The lightings messed up and the models aren't high quality.

But I fell in love with all these characters. They're not easily relatable and they do things that are awful but normal. They engage in all the prejudice that society forces people to conform to. When it's eaten at them, it amplifies and explodes. They've felt so cut off from the rest of the world through their own battles and they're just so, so alone. And they have to rebuild those connections on a 1-to-1 level before they can even think about how they face the wider world.
And progress is so slow. It's so hard. And I love them for it. I love them for being messy. I love that I can't relate to all of them. I love that I have to just understand them and their experiences.
There have been other media where they've tried to show me "outcasts" and they're just the most. Popular people with a tiny little edge shaved off. They're able to quickly adapt to a new friend group no problem, no apprehensions. While Caligula gave me people who are too scared to try, who over attach, who assume whatever they feel must be romantic because they've nothing to compare it to, who struggle and spiral at the slightest rejection.
I loved that you could get locked out of the routes. Sure you could reset them, but I think it was such a good idea. You said the wrong thing and now they can't trust you. You did the wrong thing and they closed off again. It felt so right.

I loved this game so much.

The difficulty scaling is a mess. It gets too easy pretty quickly, but I overall liked the combat system. I like how it linked into the musical themeing.

Good ideas, terrible execution in every regard narratively. Let’s start with what it's good at. The characters are flawed and seem quite real as the game shows the ugly side of the characters and tackles heavy and taboo emotions and topics. Additionally, the characters' problems don’t get magically solved by the power of friendship but by facing their fears and trauma, revealing the worst parts of themselves. The villains are also quite sympathetic and receive their own scenarios, which help flesh them out. Portraying the characters' ugly sides and the refusal to shy away from heavy topics was refreshing.

Now, what do I mean by terrible execution? The main story itself is kinda bad, but it shows some promise with the characters. It felt like the main story was just an excuse for the writers to delve into the character stories. Each of the stories tackles heavy themes but does so to a less than sufficient degree. The themes are often more tell than show. By the end of my playthrough, it felt like I was reading a case study of various psychological profiles instead of relating or feeling something for the characters. The quality of these scenarios ranges from “wow” to downright abysmal, with more scenarios being mediocre to bad than impressive. This leads to the characters being a mixed bag. The inconsistency in writing between character episodes and between the characters themselves is a major issue.

That leads to my biggest problem: the characters are by no means generic or tropey, but they do feel unimpactful. In a character-driven game such as this, it really undermines the entire story.

Honestly, props to the writing team for giving it a go, but I do not recommend the game as there are other media out there that can be more entertaining and informative regarding psychology.