one of the rare times a spiritual successor, should actually have been a successor
Tedious to get through, might finish it one day but it's unlikely.
Emily <3 Is a decent game at best, the plot gets very boring through the game IMO, but it has decent features that makes this game a time travel machine at best.
Gameplay
Very interactive gameplay with nostalgic value elements, the game is a literal parody to facebook. The developers were not joking and they even made special sites clickable only through the game that looked like old media stuff back from 2008. In this game you talk to people and check the news feed and that's all. It gets very boring after sometime because you will play a full 4 chapters that are 1 hour each, you can check profiles see pictures and stuff like what facebook is today.
Story
AIM is dead, a social network that you and your classmates talked in the beginning of high school. It's a teenager romance story between you and a girl called Emily, you talk with people and attend parties, things get emotional when you have feelings for Emily and after high school everything ends between you and her because college separated every plan. The first 2 chapters are boring, only 3 and 4 are somewhat good because you start to stalk emily out of jealousy to find stuff about her friend called jeff helped by a mate of yours called matt.
Conclusion
You want teenage years? go outside, yeah I wish i told myself that eariler lol but seriously this game feels tiring as fuck after sometime but it is a pretty long game for a conversation simulator and if you feel the energy you could try it.
BONUS STAR FOR MENTIONING PENDULUM
Gameplay
Very interactive gameplay with nostalgic value elements, the game is a literal parody to facebook. The developers were not joking and they even made special sites clickable only through the game that looked like old media stuff back from 2008. In this game you talk to people and check the news feed and that's all. It gets very boring after sometime because you will play a full 4 chapters that are 1 hour each, you can check profiles see pictures and stuff like what facebook is today.
Story
AIM is dead, a social network that you and your classmates talked in the beginning of high school. It's a teenager romance story between you and a girl called Emily, you talk with people and attend parties, things get emotional when you have feelings for Emily and after high school everything ends between you and her because college separated every plan. The first 2 chapters are boring, only 3 and 4 are somewhat good because you start to stalk emily out of jealousy to find stuff about her friend called jeff helped by a mate of yours called matt.
Conclusion
You want teenage years? go outside, yeah I wish i told myself that eariler lol but seriously this game feels tiring as fuck after sometime but it is a pretty long game for a conversation simulator and if you feel the energy you could try it.
BONUS STAR FOR MENTIONING PENDULUM
I think I enjoyed this one more than the prequels. The story was more engaging and exciting, though the replays for the other ends are still far too repetitive to do it over and over.
Más nostálgico y con más contenido
I'm so glad I'm out of high school so I don't have to deal with this kind of bullshit highschool drama anymore.
Simulador de Friendzone que te ensina a não largar amigos por mulher
A gripping visual novel about high school relationships told through the lens of facebook-- neat! I usually don't play games like this, but I enjoyed it; the unique storytelling devices were really cool.
This review contains spoilers
Emily is Away <3 feels like it's telling the same story for the 3rd time in a way that just feels old at this point. The emotional beats hit and are written with the same down to earth feel they always do but god, how many times do we need the story of having a gf in highschool who no matter what you do will leave you before you go to college.
From a presentation perspective though, the game is gorgeous, it nails the early Facebook feel, and getting to stalk and wander through people's pages and photos is such fun - as is listening to the curated 2000s playlist, they add a really nice touch and feel to the game, especially when playing them in the background of general messaging. If anything I'd have liked more to mess around with and find on the various Facebook pages but I realise at a point that takes away from the story.
Speaking of the story, there are two major things that bug me about it. First off, you get locked into a route real fast and there's very little room to breathe in the paths, for example, I was more interested in Evelyn than Emily but making the decision to not ditch a friend to go to a party locked me onto Emily's route super early on. I realise that this was supposed to be a "pick ur gf" binary choice, but it felt poor that there was no wiggle room esp since from my perspective I chose Emily's option because it was pre-organised and I didn't wanna be a dick. But yeah no matter how hard you try to friendzone Emily afterwards you physically cannot not date her after making the choice to play Mario Kart with her one time, love that for me.
The other issue is probably more contentious? But basically it sort of bothered me how the game acted as though the mc could be any gender. For context I'm a girl-ish and I'm queer so upon getting the profile picture options I chose one of the more femme looking characters and went into the story with the mindset that I was playing a girl. And just- the story is so clearly about an mc who's a guy, I don't quite know how to articulate it but it's such a straight guy story, which isn't a problem inherently but I kinda wish like the earlier ones I'd gone into it with that mindset in advance and only ever considered my character a boy. Like just none of what happens would happen to a wlw character in 2006 like it just wouldn't. Idk maybe there's someone out there who has had this experience but it just felt weirdly performative to give you a choice of gender presentation and then tell a story that was so clearly meant for one specific kind of lead character.
But yeah, ignoring the negativity expressed above, I still had fun with the game, if you think it'll interest you it probably will, the facebook aspect is well done and I don't regret playing it - the story aspects just left a lot to be desired for me personally.
From a presentation perspective though, the game is gorgeous, it nails the early Facebook feel, and getting to stalk and wander through people's pages and photos is such fun - as is listening to the curated 2000s playlist, they add a really nice touch and feel to the game, especially when playing them in the background of general messaging. If anything I'd have liked more to mess around with and find on the various Facebook pages but I realise at a point that takes away from the story.
Speaking of the story, there are two major things that bug me about it. First off, you get locked into a route real fast and there's very little room to breathe in the paths, for example, I was more interested in Evelyn than Emily but making the decision to not ditch a friend to go to a party locked me onto Emily's route super early on. I realise that this was supposed to be a "pick ur gf" binary choice, but it felt poor that there was no wiggle room esp since from my perspective I chose Emily's option because it was pre-organised and I didn't wanna be a dick. But yeah no matter how hard you try to friendzone Emily afterwards you physically cannot not date her after making the choice to play Mario Kart with her one time, love that for me.
The other issue is probably more contentious? But basically it sort of bothered me how the game acted as though the mc could be any gender. For context I'm a girl-ish and I'm queer so upon getting the profile picture options I chose one of the more femme looking characters and went into the story with the mindset that I was playing a girl. And just- the story is so clearly about an mc who's a guy, I don't quite know how to articulate it but it's such a straight guy story, which isn't a problem inherently but I kinda wish like the earlier ones I'd gone into it with that mindset in advance and only ever considered my character a boy. Like just none of what happens would happen to a wlw character in 2006 like it just wouldn't. Idk maybe there's someone out there who has had this experience but it just felt weirdly performative to give you a choice of gender presentation and then tell a story that was so clearly meant for one specific kind of lead character.
But yeah, ignoring the negativity expressed above, I still had fun with the game, if you think it'll interest you it probably will, the facebook aspect is well done and I don't regret playing it - the story aspects just left a lot to be desired for me personally.
The nostalgia is definitely one of the core aspects as to why I enjoyed this game. Considering that I had appreciated the gameplay of the original Emily is Away back in 2017, it was great to see how built upon this version was compared to the predecessors (1 & 2). Again, another entry with relatively interesting characters and a good use of interactivity within the vicinity of Facenook gave a relative amount of realism to this game.
Very nostalgic of a bygone era of the internet
This review contains spoilers
Needing to beat the game twice to get the best ending is really stupid.
cute!!! first game i 100%'d so sentimental value but its sweet
short but still good
Didn't hit quite as hard as the other games for me.
pretty fun for a first playthrough but any playthrough after is pretty much a carbon copy of the first.
It worked for me, right place right time and then made me cry. I think if you aren't its exact target demographic it will not work nearly as well for you, but if you've had an experience close to what the game's done here and hadn't yet recovered from it (which, honestly, you should've by this point) it's just not going to do it for you.
FUCK YOU STEVE
the rare times where the sequels are better than the original
Yeah the story feels kinda stinky
mat a real one, never forget the homies
mt bom fiquei com raiva de todos
Review EN/PTBR
I didn't feel much difference from the others in the script honestly, it's the same story being told for the third time with a more Facebook way.
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Não senti muita diferença dos outros no roteiro sinceramente, é a mesma história sendo contada pela terceira vez com uma pegada mais facebook.
I didn't feel much difference from the others in the script honestly, it's the same story being told for the third time with a more Facebook way.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Não senti muita diferença dos outros no roteiro sinceramente, é a mesma história sendo contada pela terceira vez com uma pegada mais facebook.
This review contains spoilers
it's a good game and the story is really good but when i realized that emily and evelyn have the exact same personality it just lost some of the magic for me
absolutely ruined me for no reason. cried the most at text on a screen since a breakup in high school
why did i buy this shit i didn't even like the first game. my god this was dull. i got an ending with emily and was like oh ok im heading out
Astonishingly accurate in so many ways. Like I was whisked back it all. Someone who worked on this must be my exact age.
Obviously, this will vary wildly, how real and/or annoying you find all the various characters, but I found myself seeing the reflections of people I knew so quickly.
A bit of a bummer to look behind the curtain and see how it pushes you to replay the game, but by and large, I was happy to watch that "Emily is typing" message blink, with nervous anticipation and excitement.
Obviously, this will vary wildly, how real and/or annoying you find all the various characters, but I found myself seeing the reflections of people I knew so quickly.
A bit of a bummer to look behind the curtain and see how it pushes you to replay the game, but by and large, I was happy to watch that "Emily is typing" message blink, with nervous anticipation and excitement.
I regret getting it.
Long and personal review ahead, be aware. (Not really that long nor personal, putting this up here mostly as a cringe disclaimer)
Ok, so I started playing on December of the last year, I got to finish the first two chapters and never touched it ever again until yesterday, when I decided that I wanted to finish some leftover games I had started but dropped for whatever reason, mainly because my computer got bricked on January and I lost so many saves files that I had to drop half of my Steam games from the 2000s. But I didn’t lose the save file for Emily <3, I just didn’t want to finish it. I played Emily Too at the start of the same year, and while I kinda liked it, it didn’t click with me like the first Emily game did. The reason being that playing Emily Too was like revisiting the same story all over again. Tho in reality, it isn’t the same story.
The first Emily, for me, was a game about realizing that not everything needs to go as you pleased and moving on, because it didn’t matter how many times you replayed it, the ending will always stay the same (or worse if you wanted to), so the best thing to do is to stop lamenting yourself and move on. Now, what was Emily Too about? Emily Too was about getting the girl, achieving the good ending, and there wasn’t only one girl but two, so you got to choose which one did you prefer. I know this is an oversimplification of what it actually does, but the outcome was (if you weren’t acting like a jerk) starting a relationship with the girl you wanted. So, what is Emily <3 about then? Emily <3 is a relationship simulator. None of these games follow an overarching story, they’re self-contained stories, but they repeat characters (the titular Emily and Evelyn, the second girl introduced in Too) and the gameplay and narrative are pretty similar.
Now, when I say Emily <3 is a relationship simulator I mean it literally (again, if you aren’t acting like a jerk). You get to choose the girl that you want again, but now the game doesn’t end there, you get to see what happens after, because getting the girl is only the first two chapters, the next three chapters are about facing relationship issues. This game differs with the previous two on the character cast, now there isn’t just Emily and Evelyn, like in the last entry, you get to talk with a friend, Mat, his girlfriend, Kelly, and many, many more, you keep getting introduced to new characters as the story goes on. In fact, the branchings of the story are way more than in Two because of this. There are many more actions you can do and things you can say. And while this may look more profound, it is here that the message gets lost. See, the first Emily had a clear meaning, not everything was under your control and Emily had her own stances and opinions, like a real human being. That meaning got lost in Two, where the things you said had an impact on the characters so they’d act according to what you, as the player, want, instead of what they (Emily and Evelyn), as characters, wanted. I know this was done in favor of making your decisions actually matter, but I just don’t get what it was going for. I mean, yeah, I got the happy ending everyone who played the first Emily wanted, but was it worth it if everything really deep that the game had to say got lost in the way? What you think of this is up to you, but for me is a clear no.
When I got to finish Emily <3 and saw all the branches and paths I could have taken, how much decisions I could have made, I just… didn’t feel anything. Yeah, I get to have the ending I want, but what is this all about? What do these multiple endings mean? That my actions have consequences? I already know that, even if I hadn’t played Emily Too beforehand, I could have played other games with similar meanings, but even if I hadn’t, I would already know this because of real life itself, because that’s what real life is about. So Emily <3 is just a repetition. A repetition of the same game Kyle Seeley had made four years before. A repetition twice the length, with more characters, more paths and more… nothing. All the characters just are there to give the illusion of more, they work as a reflection on the player’s ideas about relationships. But hey, at least it’s better than getting the girl you want like if it is some binary option instead of another human being.
What I’m trying to get to after this long talk (and by the way, thanks for sticking this long), is that the first Emily is Away was an important game to me because what I extracted from it was the message of letting things go. Apparently I’m the only one who thinks this way, because it’s not just that people wanted a sequel where they get the good ending they wanted, but more significant is the fact that its creator, Kyle Seeley, hasn’t published anything different besides Emily games. And I hope he’s out there, living his life at the fullest, but what this feels like is the exact opposite thing I always thought that Emily is Away was trying to say.
Since concluding the summer of last year, I’ve been playing other games, I stopped playing non-stop COD games, I broke free from Payday 2 and finally moved on to new games that really interested me. I got into Resident Evil and the Survival Horror genre, I started to dip my toes into other genres, I got to play games that meant something and spoke to me, like Silent Hill 3 or OneShot among other titles, games that will stick with me like the first Emily is Away did. I moved on. Emily did not. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the forthcoming years a hypothetical Emily is 4way or something like that gets released. But I’m done with Emily, I’ve moved on and I think that’s for the best. Because the summer is half-way through and I just can’t keep thinking about what life will be after it ends, my life is now and I can’t just keep coming back to experience the same downer story every time. If anything, Emily <3 reminds me that the best summers of my life are gone forever, for better or for worse, and there’s nothing I can do, because as with Emily, there are things that will never come back and all I can really do is move on from that and look at the future with optimism and not relive the same bygone summers. Emily is away, and I hope it stays that way. I’m done.
Ok, so I started playing on December of the last year, I got to finish the first two chapters and never touched it ever again until yesterday, when I decided that I wanted to finish some leftover games I had started but dropped for whatever reason, mainly because my computer got bricked on January and I lost so many saves files that I had to drop half of my Steam games from the 2000s. But I didn’t lose the save file for Emily <3, I just didn’t want to finish it. I played Emily Too at the start of the same year, and while I kinda liked it, it didn’t click with me like the first Emily game did. The reason being that playing Emily Too was like revisiting the same story all over again. Tho in reality, it isn’t the same story.
The first Emily, for me, was a game about realizing that not everything needs to go as you pleased and moving on, because it didn’t matter how many times you replayed it, the ending will always stay the same (or worse if you wanted to), so the best thing to do is to stop lamenting yourself and move on. Now, what was Emily Too about? Emily Too was about getting the girl, achieving the good ending, and there wasn’t only one girl but two, so you got to choose which one did you prefer. I know this is an oversimplification of what it actually does, but the outcome was (if you weren’t acting like a jerk) starting a relationship with the girl you wanted. So, what is Emily <3 about then? Emily <3 is a relationship simulator. None of these games follow an overarching story, they’re self-contained stories, but they repeat characters (the titular Emily and Evelyn, the second girl introduced in Too) and the gameplay and narrative are pretty similar.
Now, when I say Emily <3 is a relationship simulator I mean it literally (again, if you aren’t acting like a jerk). You get to choose the girl that you want again, but now the game doesn’t end there, you get to see what happens after, because getting the girl is only the first two chapters, the next three chapters are about facing relationship issues. This game differs with the previous two on the character cast, now there isn’t just Emily and Evelyn, like in the last entry, you get to talk with a friend, Mat, his girlfriend, Kelly, and many, many more, you keep getting introduced to new characters as the story goes on. In fact, the branchings of the story are way more than in Two because of this. There are many more actions you can do and things you can say. And while this may look more profound, it is here that the message gets lost. See, the first Emily had a clear meaning, not everything was under your control and Emily had her own stances and opinions, like a real human being. That meaning got lost in Two, where the things you said had an impact on the characters so they’d act according to what you, as the player, want, instead of what they (Emily and Evelyn), as characters, wanted. I know this was done in favor of making your decisions actually matter, but I just don’t get what it was going for. I mean, yeah, I got the happy ending everyone who played the first Emily wanted, but was it worth it if everything really deep that the game had to say got lost in the way? What you think of this is up to you, but for me is a clear no.
When I got to finish Emily <3 and saw all the branches and paths I could have taken, how much decisions I could have made, I just… didn’t feel anything. Yeah, I get to have the ending I want, but what is this all about? What do these multiple endings mean? That my actions have consequences? I already know that, even if I hadn’t played Emily Too beforehand, I could have played other games with similar meanings, but even if I hadn’t, I would already know this because of real life itself, because that’s what real life is about. So Emily <3 is just a repetition. A repetition of the same game Kyle Seeley had made four years before. A repetition twice the length, with more characters, more paths and more… nothing. All the characters just are there to give the illusion of more, they work as a reflection on the player’s ideas about relationships. But hey, at least it’s better than getting the girl you want like if it is some binary option instead of another human being.
What I’m trying to get to after this long talk (and by the way, thanks for sticking this long), is that the first Emily is Away was an important game to me because what I extracted from it was the message of letting things go. Apparently I’m the only one who thinks this way, because it’s not just that people wanted a sequel where they get the good ending they wanted, but more significant is the fact that its creator, Kyle Seeley, hasn’t published anything different besides Emily games. And I hope he’s out there, living his life at the fullest, but what this feels like is the exact opposite thing I always thought that Emily is Away was trying to say.
Since concluding the summer of last year, I’ve been playing other games, I stopped playing non-stop COD games, I broke free from Payday 2 and finally moved on to new games that really interested me. I got into Resident Evil and the Survival Horror genre, I started to dip my toes into other genres, I got to play games that meant something and spoke to me, like Silent Hill 3 or OneShot among other titles, games that will stick with me like the first Emily is Away did. I moved on. Emily did not. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the forthcoming years a hypothetical Emily is 4way or something like that gets released. But I’m done with Emily, I’ve moved on and I think that’s for the best. Because the summer is half-way through and I just can’t keep thinking about what life will be after it ends, my life is now and I can’t just keep coming back to experience the same downer story every time. If anything, Emily <3 reminds me that the best summers of my life are gone forever, for better or for worse, and there’s nothing I can do, because as with Emily, there are things that will never come back and all I can really do is move on from that and look at the future with optimism and not relive the same bygone summers. Emily is away, and I hope it stays that way. I’m done.