For personal reference more than anything else.

First playthrough. Played on the medium difficulty.

Before I even started playing these games I was keeping an eye on them as they released because they interested me and all the games of the first season piqued my interest in one way or another except for this one. I just didn't find the concept to my taste and once I learned that it was about vampires it did not change my feelings towards this game.

I think this is the weakest one storywise for me but it feels a lot closer to Man of Medan rather than Little Hope which I felt made it work more for this type of game. There's some interesting stuff here and there but ultimately I just wasn't really into most of it. Another thing is that like the other games this one felt like other horror things but it was mainly films I'm not really that keen on like The Descent.

The characters here seem to have a lot more to them than the two preceding games but even with that I feel like this was my least favourite cast, I liked Salim, Nick was fine, Jason was interesting and while I liked his turnaround towards the end he is pretty insufferable before that point which is most of the game. Rachel was a prick and Eric was a creepy arsehole, I was trying to keep Rachel and Nick together and the amount of times Rachel tells Eric no and he still pushes is just gross. Obviously she and Nick are very much in the wrong for having an affair behind Eric's back but at the end of the day no still means no. I think the biggest thing with the characters is they all feel so generic, I feel like I've seen these types of characters so many times before and it made me struggle to get invested in them. It also doesn't help that most of them only get interesting towards the end of the game. I managed to save them all though.

This feels like more of a game than Little Hope which is nice (although there were so many points where it felt like there should have been gameplay but there just wasn't). I felt like characters could actually die at any point, I didn't care whether they did or not but its the thought that counts. This game was not scary in the slightest though, I usually don't have a problem if a horror thing isn't scary but this kinda felt like it may have needed it. There's barely any jumpscares which was nice.

If I'm being completely honest, I was bored throughout a lot of this game, it picked up in like the last hour but even then it wasn't a massive improvement, I just didn't care about what was going on for the most part. Man of Medan had a weak story but it had a pretty good cast and was tense as fuck, Little Hope had crap characters but had a good story. This game had an uninteresting story, boring characters and wasn't scary or tense, I genuinely have no idea what this game has that appeals to me enough that I want to say is it's strongest aspect.

I think the game did manage to have a decent final quarter or so but everything that came before it just kind of sucked, in the end I think it was just okay.

For personal reference more than anything else.

First playthrough. Played on the medium difficulty.

Going in I knew mostly what the main twist was but didn't have the exact details, it didn't really matter though because I knew nothing about the witch plotline which I actually really liked. I've seen the whole characters transporting back in time and being able to change things, but not quite like this where the characters are so deeply linked (in this way) with those in the past.

I was thinking going in about the different witch media I've experienced and how a lot of it is quite different from each other, even though it doesn't really feel like there's that much of it. From this I did get some of the more adult horror vibes like The Blair Witch Project and The VVitch but I was more getting some of the children's horror with the way the plot was going, namely Hocus Pocus, Paranorman and Scooby Doo & the Witch's Ghost. It could be kinda bad that I'm reminded so much of other things whilst playing this but in all honesty I actually really like seeing other things' DNA when they're not the usual popular choices to take inspiration from. Its also nice to see more stuff surrounding witches as they're quite interesting to me and as I said before, it feels to me that they don't get as much representation in horror as a lot of other supernatural beings or what have you do.

As for characters, they're kinda worse than Man of Medan in that I didn't really feel that strongly about any of them, I quite liked Angela and Andrew was decent, but Taylor and Daniel were just fine and John was kind of annoying and sort of weird. I just didn't really care if any of them died outside of Angela, I did manage to keep everyone alive except for Taylor and I did feel something, but that was more annoyance as I lost her to one of those aim for something and press R2 bits which I don't think I'm the biggest fan of.

Gameplay is mostly the same here although movement feels better which is good and I do appreciate having a symbol that tells me when something will progress the story or is just something to look at. Something that did kind of annoy me throughout though and something I noticed more here than Man of Medan was struggling to know what certain dialogue options actually meant. There's a section where the group are trying to cross this dilapidated as fuck bridge and playing as John, the game offers you to go first or consider other options, I was kind of unsure but I went for the other options thinking it meant trying to find a way in that direction that wasn't the bridge, but it was actually just shifting who would go first from John to anyone else, I feel like it would have made more sense to just have something more normal like 'Someone else should go across first' put there instead. There was another section where Daniel and Taylor were running away from one of the creatures and Daniel gets the option to run or hide, I chose run as I assumed that it would make more sense as the creature was pretty slow anyway but apparently it meant Daniel running from Taylor as well which just felt kind of dumb (it did lead to the funniest/worst QTE event where you have to do QTEs as Daniel, switch to Taylor and do the same QTEs then rinse and repeat like 3 or 4 times). I don't know though, maybe its just me being thick.

Also having the same jumpscare be the transition to the olden days which happens fucking constantly is just annoying and comes across as trying a little too hard, sure it got me a few times but it just felt unnecessary. As for horror though this game was less scary than Man of Medan, it wasn't stressful because I didn't really care whether or not most of the characters would survive or not and it also didn't help that it felt like for the first half of this game, only Angela was actually in danger.

I think my biggest problem with this game is that, while I really liked the story, I don't think it actually fits in one of these games. It felt like most of the time I was just watching what was happening rather than being a part of it, the game feels a lot less interactive than Man of Medan. As I said before as well, having characters linked with versions of themselves in the past and once the past self has died it puts the present one in danger is a really cool concept, but because it takes to about the half way mark for the first past version to die it means that most of the characters just feel like nothing bad can happen to them.

I didn't have a bad time or anything with this game and I don't think its wrong to say I enjoyed it but I think it would have worked a lot better as a film or book or even a different kind of game.

For personal reference more than anything else.

First playthrough.

These games have always interested me and I initially thought that I wouldn't be able to get into them as I had tried Until Dawn and this one before and thought that they felt kind of awkward to control. But I decided to just stick with this and thankfully it worked out as I got quite into it.

Gameplay wise its not quite as bad as I thought, although I can't exactly say I'm the biggest fan of how everything works, I don't like the way you interact with objects and I also wasn't exactly the biggest fan of the heartbeat sections either. The rest of the gameplay was fine though, the timed nature of a lot of things really helps add to the stressful nature of the game.

Storywise I was a lot more into it, going in I did know what the big twist was but I don't think it really mattered all that much as it seemed really obvious anyway. I actually quite liked the story, it was kind of generic but I was a fan of the whole 'gas making characters see things that aren't actually there' and I also got pretty strong Triangle vibes (both the 2009 film and the X-Files episode) from it which was really cool (there also seems to be a fair bit of inspiration taken from Ghost Ship but I only saw the first 15 or so minutes of that so I can't say for sure). The characters themselves were kind of a mixed bag, Fliss was my favourite although I think she could be a little over the top at times, I quite liked Brad but he faded into the background a lot, Alex was good but he seemed to keep making really dumb decisions or just said dumb stuff, Julia was kind of annoying and Conrad was really bad but thankfully he fucked off on a speedboat early on and wasn't there again until the end of the game.

Speaking of which I managed to apparently get everyone to survive although Conrad seems to be stuck on the freighter now and will probably die of fright eventually (this scene like a few others in the game felt very stupid), I was quite pleased with this as I at first only wanted the characters I liked to survive with a higher priority for Fliss to get out of there but as I went on and everyone was still there I quite got into the idea of managing to keep all of them alive. This made the game really stressful for me as I was really worried that I would mess something up or make the wrong decision somewhere. I also felt incredibly stressed because of the over-reliance on jumpscares, while I love horror and I don't really have much issue with being scared, I'm really not a fan of jumpscares as they nearly always get me even when I can tell they're coming. This game does it so often and it does get kind of annoying, I think the only time I felt any amount of fear when I wasn't anticipating a jumpscare was during the section with Brad and the repeating room (although despite not having played P.T, I could kind of tell that it seemed to be mostly inspired by that).

This does lead to something else though, this game feels kind of messy, to better explain, things just kind of happen with no real reason or warning, scenes will just stop and start with no sense of flow and it was a little hard for me to tell what was going on at times. If it was just on the freighter and was supposed to be adding to the horror or weirdness or whatever I'd get it, but the game is like it the whole way through. It took me out a little when a scene would change aspect ratio for a second and then revert back a second later or whenever something like that occured.

Anyway, even though I had a few problems with this and it was quite a high stress game for me, I still really liked it and am excited to try out more games in the series. Not entirely sure if I'd play this one again though.

For personal reference more than anything else.

First playthrough. Played on Medium difficulty. Got the Good ending.

I don't think I've really played many standalone DLCs before, the only one that comes to mind is Gat Out of Hell for Saints Row IV and I think I really only put a couple of hours in because I didn't like it much. So I wasn't too sure what to expect and in the end it felt like more Dishonored 2 which to me is great, missing the stuff that really pushed that game into really good territory, but still great.

I tried to get into the story but I just couldn't, I found it kind of boring and uninteresting, meaning I got to the stage where I wasn't really paying as much attention as I could have been and was sort of lost as to what was happening and why it was happening. There were two positives for me though, first was that I really enjoyed the discussion between Billie and Daud especially at the end about what the Outsider deserved and whether or not the people who gained his mark needed to take more responsibility for their actions. Because I wasn't following as best I could, I didn't really have much of an opinion on any side but I thought it was a really interesting conversation nonetheless. I also really like Billie Lurk as a character, I think she's probably my favourite protagonist in this series (at least out of her, Corvo & Emily) as she's just the most interesting, her backstory, the way she carries herself and kinda stupid but I really like her voice, its just kind of pleasant to listen to. I didn't read many of the notes or books or whatever, with some exceptions being the mission relevant notes and the story of the rat boy, but I did read Billie's notes and it was interesting hearing about her dreams and sweet but tragic reading her writing about Deirdre.

Gameplay wise its still mostly the same as Dishonored 2 but it does change some stuff up, only 3 powers now and they're genuinely really good. Displace seemed iffy to begin with but having a teleport you can almost save for later ended up being really useful. Foresight felt like a combination of a few different powers with the main one being Dark Vision and it was pretty neat being able to quickly scope a room or few out before actually going in, I also enjoyed when both Displace and Foresight were needed together but it only came up twice for me. Semblance seemed to mostly be Corvo's possession power and it was pretty useful in the second half of the game. I think only having three powers really worked out well as it felt like I (for the most part) was regularly using all three of them whereas I may end up forgetting some even exist in the other two games. Also, being able to explode someone by teleporting into them is amazing and I am so grateful its in the game.

Mission wise, I appreciate that the contracts and side missions were there but the only one I did was by mistake, I would have done more but I just wanted to stick with doing the main game stuff. Areas seemed mostly new which was a bit surprising, the only area I knew for a fact was a reused one was the Royal Conservatory in mission 4. I don't think any of the areas really stood out though except for maybe the last one. It may be because I played 1 & 2 recently or because this isn't another main game but whilst I knew most places in the game were new, it still felt really familiar. The towns themselves and the interiors to buildings all just feel like I've seen them before in the first two games, I think it may be to do with how these games look as they have a particular style but if they don't really go for something different then it just feels like I'm in the same areas again even when I'm not. During the bank mission, I couldn't help but think of the bank mission in Hitman 2 and how much that felt like its own thing compared to the rest of the levels in those games, the bank in this game on the other hand just felt like it could have been any of the standard mission buildings from the first two games. I don't think its the biggest issue and I can completely understand that of course they're not going to start reinventing the wheel for a DLC but at the same time I think it just makes me realise I should have left a bigger gap between playing the other two and this one.

Some scattered thoughts:

• I enjoyed the new tools, especially the hook mine.

• It was pretty nice seeing references to things from the other games like Addermire and Jindosh's inventions, it helps the world feel that much more real.

• I quite liked having no powers during the first mission, it made the stealth quite interesting and the game still felt good without them. I was initially worried that it would make the game not feel like Dishonored but once I got into it I actually think it could've worked if they stuck with it for the rest of the game.

I really liked this game, it was a nice little experience and getting a game which is just essentially 'more Dishonored 2' absolutely works for me.

For personal reference more than anything else. Just in case though, I do spoil the first two games at various points.

Second time playing through this game after the first time last year. Did the main story on NG+ and alongside it completed all of the characters FTEs (except for the ones I completed in my first playthrough, Gonta, Miu & Maki) (also only the ones you get playing as Shuichi) in either the main game or the Love Across The Universe mode.

Gameplay in this entry is so good and feels like such an improvement over the first two, out of trials its mostly the same but the slapping mechanic is really fun and probably my favourite way to get monocoins. In trials there are a lot of changes, V-Spots are a great addition and help add a little more to the non-stop debates. Lying is one of the best additions as not only does it replace that kinda shit 'hold down one statement and shoot it at another one' thing from the first two games but its just a really interesting idea that seems almost unbelievable that its only just appearing in the third game. I do think that an option to cancel a lie bullet or see what each lie bullet would be without charging the shot should have been added though, I also wish that there were more back routes in the game as they're really fun and provide an extra challenge with the reward of unseen dialogue.

Mass panic debates, debate scrums and the reworking of the truth blade mini-game are all also really good additions, I love argument armaments and I wish that they had some kind of presence in the casino. Psyche taxi is fun enough but kind of long and easy, I will happily take it over the surfing mini-game from the second game though. Mind Mine is just boring and my least favourite mini-game in this game. I do think the game is the easiest one though and for me at least needs to be played on mean difficulty. Another thing about the trials I'm a fan of is the presentation, the trial grounds which just look so good and the UI which is so nice. The school overall looks really good as well and I'm so happy that they went back to a similar style of world from the first game where its just one big world with everything connected. I just think it really helps with the atmosphere and it feels so much easier to get used to.

The soundtrack just might be my favourite in any game I've played, it all sounds amazing. Darkness Time is such a haunting yet beautiful track that really evokes a nighttime feeling and during Chapter 3 really pairs well with the student council employing the curfew making it feel like you're really not supposed to be outside. Any time I hear Closing Argument V3 I just think of the more emotional cases and there's something about it that just feels so final (probably doesn't make sense but I don't have a better way of describing it). Finding Peace Party is an absolute banger. Even the bonus modes music is really good, the Hope of songs and the Ordeal remixes of other songs from the series are all great. There are literally so many songs in this game that the soundtrack had to be split over two volumes and I genuinely think I'm a fan of about 75% of it, which just feels wild.

Case 1:

Storywise I think the first case is one of my favourites in the series, I think I've come to the conclusion that the more emotional cases are the ones that I feel the most positively about and stick in my mind more. It has its problems though, there are a couple of small things that don't make too much sense to me and I think the writing could have been better when it came to Kaede's moments when she's setting up the murder as there are some parts that just don't feel like what gets said properly represents what actually happens. I think for the most part though its fine.

One of the main things I like about this chapter though is just how much is going on and alive it all feels, Kaede & Shuichi doing their thing, Rantaro carrying out his plan, the strategy meeting and the characters in the dining hall seemingly having accepted their deaths. And that's one of the things about this chapter, the threat of the time limit expiring creates such a tense atmosphere that still works even having played this before and knowing what happens.

But the best part for me are the moments between Kaede and Shuichi, I love their conversations together and it kind of hurts seeing Kaede go from the conversation where she mentions wanting to play 'Clair De Lune' for Shuichi because they're both worried but Kaede feels optimistic so she's just trying to make Shuichi feel better to the conversation in the lift where you can just tell she knows there's a good chance the mastermind won't get found out and she'll be executed, so she prepares Shuichi to not just be ready to look after everyone after she goes but to also be ready to call her out as the killer. But the section with the protagonist switch is genuinely fantastic to me, the UI powering down for Kaede and then powering up for Shuichi, the fact its not even a real conversation between the two of them but they just know what each other would be thinking from looking at each others' facial expressions and then just Kaede apologising to everyone even though she was trying to do the right thing. I think her voice actor does a incredibly good job. I really do love the friendship between Kaede and Shuichi because even though they haven't known each other for long, it still feels real. Its a strange circumstance they've found themselves in, but through it they managed to find each other and give each other strength.

As for non story elements, the investigation is actually quite fun, it goes at a good pace and there's quite a lot of humour in it which is really nice. The trial was very fun gameplay wise but there were points in the trial where it did get a little boring I felt, this is a replay though so take that with a grain of salt. Also, during those duller moments, the soundtrack was usually going so at least I had something to enjoy.

As for the characters, Rantaro is a kind of interesting character but only because of what he brings to the plot, his personality is sort of boring, he’s a nice enough guy and a couple of his FTEs are good but the interesting part of him comes from his having been in a prior killing game and being able to remember things that other characters can’t. He could have really been anyone and I don’t think it would have mattered, as long as he was the ultimate survivor. I don’t think its a big issue to have a character like this but it does result in him being one of the weakest characters in this cast for me.

Kaede on the other hand is a character I love, she is such a breath of fresh air compared to Makoto and Hajime, she’s confident, persistent and just an overall great character. Her desire to get everyone out of the killing game no matter what and not allowing shit to get to her is amazing. I think one of the biggest things that draws me to her is just how kind and caring she is, whenever we’ve had a character like this in the first two games they’ve usually just ended up being boring because its all they have or went a bit too far and became annoying, but Kaede manages to not fall into this trap as there is more to her than this. I am admittedly kind of annoyed that she died in chapter 1 not only because she was such a good character and it would have been interesting seeing how she would have fared throughout the rest of the game but also because she’s the first proper female protagonist in one of these games and it just felt different. I really like Shuichi as a protagonist but I just wish Kaede got to last a whole game as well.

Case 2:

There's a lot of great stuff in this case, its kind of hit or miss for me when these games do a 'solve something else before you solve the murder' like in 2-2 and 2-4, but I really like the whole solving a magic trick thing here and I don't think it takes up too much time of the trial. Kirumi's response when she's about to get executed is one of my favourite moments of the series, its so weird that they hadn't done something like that before and having the little detail of her avatar running away with Monokuma chasing after her in the 'Game Over' screen is really nice. I also really like Kokichi's idea of having two potential suspects essentially argue for their innocence against each other and its a shame it didn't actually go anywhere.

I do like this case, which I don't think I could've said when I first played it but it has one massive problem, it is far too long. I genuinely got to a point about 3 quarters in where I had no idea how it was still going and it felt like the whole magic show stuff from the beginning was a different trial completely. I wasn't exactly bored but I also wasn't having a great time with it either. I can't fully explain it either, like it goes from the magic show to the alibis and then the next thing I can think of is discussing the ropeway. It all blends together and I was just waiting for it to end after a while.

Ryoma is a character who I like but I don't feel quite as strong on him as I do a lot of other characters. His FTEs are pretty good even if they feel weirdly serious and tragic compared to everyone else's, I also feel kind of weird about how the game treats his whole 'will to live' plotline. Its an interesting idea for this series but... I don't know.

Kirumi is quite good, she's one of the few characters who I didn't really get much of anything from when I first played the game but this time I felt that I noticed her more often. Her FTEs are great and I kind of love that a character as normal seeming as her gets some of the weirdest shit attached to her character, her being revealed as the secret Prime Minister of Japan is exactly the kind of shit I come to this series for. My biggest gripe with her is that she kind of sounds like the female text to speech voice at times, which sort of fits I guess but it did take me out of it a little bit. However she sounds great when she's just losing it after being found out as the culprit.

Case 3:

I quite like what a lot of this case is going for, the inclusion of a cult is a really good idea for this series, although I think I would have liked it a bit more if the storyline lasted a little longer as it just feels a bit rushed even with the build up to it from the last chapter. The idea that one character could have killed another and then that character gets killed by the spirit of the person they killed is pretty interesting as well. The stuff with the Necronomicon is good as well and while it doesn't interest me much as a motive, I do like that it shows how different characters think, like with a couple of them saying that they could bring someone back to life to then kill them if they need to later on as it makes the conversations more interesting as not everyone is saying the same thing. The Caged Child song is a whole bop and genuinely one of my favourites from the game. Kokichi's death fake out is iconic.

Unfortunately I thought the class trial for this case just sucked, gameplay wise its fun but storywise it was just so uninteresting to me. I was more interested in it when I first played it so maybe it just doesn't work to be replayed but even then there are other cases that still work for me on a replay so this one not doing that is kind of a shame. I will say though, I think its less to do with the actual mystery as that part is pretty decent despite being on the simple side which really doesn't help with the longer trials the games have been doing since the second one. The main problem I have is the way the trial changes direction, it feels a conversation is going somewhere but then Kaito pipes up with some bullshit about believing in each other and the rest of the characters go along with it, unnaturally shifting where the conversation goes. The other games did this as well but it felt like it came at a point when they were using their belief to push through what could be a difficult situation (the characters having to question Mikan in 2-3) but in this game it feels like its instead used to rule something out without doing any real investigation. There's a point where the group is questioning whether or not Tenko killed herself and tried to disguise her death so the rest of the characters will vote for the wrong person and all die, its certainly on the outlandish side but rather than actually discuss it, they just instead decide that she couldn't do that because they believe in what she said before she died. Kokichi tries to say that she could have been lying but gets shot down because the other characters want to believe in her so much. I really like Tenko and I believe that what she said was genuine but it feels incredibly short-sighted to just dismiss a potential thing that could have happened without having the proper discussion beforehand. It feels like the game needed to bring up this possibility but didn't know how to prove it wasn't true so it just did this and to me just comes across as shoddy writing. There was something about this class trial as a whole that just felt like it was worse written than the prior two, I can't really explain it, its just weird.

Angie is such an interesting character to me, I think she's just generally likeable but the game makes her an antagonist of sorts and it works. I do think that the game could have done a much better job with her admittedly though, it seems a bit too focused on wringing comedy out of the 'isn't she and the culture of her home strange' which alongside the whole Atua being an actual God in the real world thing feels pretty bad and uncomfortable at points. Its a shame because I think her relationship with Atua is one of the more interesting things about her, I really like where the game went with it too, as it doesn't exactly confirm or deny whether she truly believes in Atua or not but at the same time, her just being a teenage girl who hasn't been told no before and that's why she constantly does as she pleases feels pretty grounded compared to a lot of things in this series. I feel like if the writing for her was just better she could have been one of my favourite characters but at the end of the day I think she's good and I do like her character.

Tenko is a character that I really like, when I first played the game I found her 'degenerate male' shtick to be quite funny but I wasn't sure how I felt about the rest of her personality, this time though, I thought she was great. She wants to help her friends get stronger and she doesn't exactly get it right every time, but you can tell she cares and she's trying her best in her own way. Its also easy to see how much love she has for Himiko, not just in a romantic way but as a friend, their last couple of interactions together are really good. As for how I felt about the 'degenerate male' stuff this time around, I still enjoyed it and there were some very funny lines that I hadn't noticed when I first played, but I do think the game relies on this joke a little too much to the point where it feels like every time she talks it will come up (this isn't only a her problem though, Tsumugi, Himiko, Korekiyo and Keebo are a few other characters who feel like they're repeating themselves a bit too much). Tenko's FTEs are quite good as well, they're not my favourite ones but they're all either entertaining or interesting. One more thing about her though is kind of to do with the game as a whole and its how much the game seems to acknowledge the player's expectations and either meet or subvert them in many different instances. Because of this though it results in a genuinely lovely if cliché as all fuck moment when the characters are about to do the séance and Tenko gets to say goodbye to Himiko, its cliché as I said and seems to be a bit of foreshadowing for the main twist of the game but I just really love this moment.

Korekiyo is a character I somewhat like but he has the same problem that Angie does where the idea of the character is a lot better than the actual character. The 'finding beauty in everything' and him connecting everything to his interest in anthropology gets a little old, although he does have some interesting thoughts and lines throughout though. I quite like his motivation and him saying that he was pleased when Tenko (without knowing) basically sacrificed herself out of love for Himiko as it meant that his sister was getting a very good friend, really took me off guard and made me feel a way I can't comprehend or describe, but it certainly wasn't a positive feeling. I think my biggest problem with him though is the fact that once he gets found out as the killer of Angie and his Tulpa begins to show, the game almost doesn't know what to do with him and relies on the Tulpa and his relationship with his sister rather than go anywhere interesting with him. There's a couple of points where it seems like he wasn't either aware that he killed Angie, he seems genuinely freaked out in these moments and his sister has to calm him down, this seems kind of interesting but it doesn't really go further than this (which makes a level of sense considering the next case does the whole culprit not knowing they killed someone thing). I think the game using the Tulpa isn't the best idea as it feels like it needs more of an explanation of what is happening which the game just doesn't do outside of possibly pointing to how he developed it in his FTEs. It may just be because I'm really unfamiliar with what a Tulpa is though as I only learnt about it from reading what other people were saying about this game after I played it the first time around. His relationship with his sister is weird and I wish the game didn't show that one image, but at the same time its kind of interesting and a bit tragic after hearing his FTEs and hearing how much he loves her (not in a romantic way though) and knowing that she took advantage of that.

Case 4:

This case is so good and I really love a lot of things about it. First is the virtual world, the setting is already great and evokes a lot of detective fiction vibes, I also think the art style is great too and the characters look cute while still being reminiscent of their normal designs. I'm also a big fan of how much the game itself and how it works ties into the mystery. One of my favourite types of horror is where the horror comes from the idea of what it would be like to be in a horrific situation. My best example is 'The Long Dream' by Junji Ito, something about having to live through an incredibly long amount of time, anytime you go to sleep and not being able to do anything about is horrifying. So, for me the idea of realising that you killed someone and being assured a painful death with no way out is fucking scary. The fact that it happens to Gonta of all characters as well makes it so much worse, watching him struggling to accept what he's done and not even understanding it by the end but having to put his faith in the hands of his friends was just upsetting.

The tension in this case is another highlight as you can really feel just how much everyone is at their breaking point which ends up causing people to act out. I do think that some things come out of nowhere though, there didn't really feel like a steady rise with Miu's desire to leave or Gonta's frustration with not being able to help everyone to the extent that he wants. They had mentioned this things before but it felt like a constant that stayed at the same level and then all of a sudden these issues are really impacting them.

I really like the class trial here as well, the main reason being the turning point shortly after Kokichi announced Gonta was the culprit and Shuichi is beginning to question Gonta himself. This kind of goes into my issues with Kaito (who I'll eventually get to) but it should really be brought up here, Kaito dominated a lot of the second and third trials which resulted in too many instances of him destroying any hope of an interesting discussion to just endlessly go into one about how he wants to believe in his friends and how he's going to, which for some reason the game takes seriously. The point where Shuichi actually goes 'no we really need to think about this' is genuinely great and makes the rest of the class trial even better than it was before because not only is it less repetitive, having the 'difficult' conversations is so much more interesting as it gives the player more to chew on and think about but also gives the characters more character development or at the very least more to do. Also Shuichi essentially telling Kokichi to fuck off and then treating Gonta with kindness and love just before the closing argument might just be my favourite moment from the game.

Miu is easily my favourite character from this series and one of my favourite characters in gaming. She makes me think of characters like Chanel Oberlin, Eric Cartman and Byakuya Togami, just incredibly unlikeable pieces of shit but are just so entertaining to watch. There are so many quotes of hers that just stay in my mind and are really funny to me. I don't even really think she does much in the game, sure she helps out in a few trials either with her inventions or observations and her growing desire to leave the killing game is what sets off the events of the fourth case but she mostly just seems to be there for comedic purposes and to cause some friction in the group. One of my biggest issues with Goodbye Despair was how many characters could fit in to the box of just not really offering much outside of entertainment and maybe an incredibly small amount of character development or story, but where that problem was present with the majority of characters in that game, in this one she's really only one of a few who do this and it creates a nice change of pace from the more serious stuff with the other characters. I do quite like how in chapter 4 though, Miu seems to be doing the dirty jokes more and more frequently as she's clearly getting more and more desperate to leave and stressing over her plan succeeding, its a neat thing and really shows off how freaked out she is. I used to be quite unsure on her not being able to handle any criticism herself and having moments of weakness, but I've sort of come around on it because its pretty funny and I think its good that her character isn't literally just one thing the entire time.

Gonta is another one of my favourite characters from this game, I love how sweet he is and how important helping his friends is to him. His backstory is definitely weird but I do quite like it, especially him wanting to become a gentleman so that his forest family can be proud of him, it doesn't make the most sense in the world but it is really nice. I think he can be kinda one note in the same way that Miu can and I don't think it works as well as it does with her as what she is actually saying varies a bit, whereas Gonta can very much just be 'I want to be a gentleman' and 'I want to protect my friends' without going as in depth as it could. His response to finding out he killed Miu is heartbreaking but it is such a strong moment when he accepts it.

Case 5:

I really like this case, the section where everyone learns the "truth" behind the outside world and then Shuichi in a state of depression just doesn't do anything in his room while days pass with only the Monokuma Theaters playing really leaves an impact. The unsolvable crime is really good for a case idea and I think it mostly works quite well. I think there are some parts that just lose me though and it does make this case confuse me to an extent. Another issue I have is that I think the emotional aspect of this case doesn't really work for me, a lot of it seems to be hinged on the player caring about Kaito and his relationships with Maki & Shuichi but I don't really like Kaito and those relationships slightly piss me off so, eh? Its a really good case for both Shuichi and Kokichi though. Also, the characters bringing up shit like Junko, the Remnants of Despair and hope & despair while Kaito & Kokichi have no clue what they're even talking about is so funny to me, especially that scene where Maki brings that stuff up to Kokichi and he is just confused as fuck.

Something this case does pretty often that the game does a lot of is implement or reference things from the first game. The case feels a fair bit like 1-5, Maki attempting to get everyone killed by calling herself the culprit is a lot like Aoi in 1-4 (even if their reasons for doing so are different). The big moment where the characters are standing at the vault door as it opens is a clear reference to the end of the first game. Kaito's execution is literally just the very first execution again (if changed up a bit). I think that sometimes it does go a bit too far and could do with being a little more original, but at the same time I really like it as its the final game (for now at least) and I do enjoy the callbacks and it also kind of works with the whole 'this is the 53rd of these and we're kind of running out of ideas' thing.

Kokichi was easily my most hated character of the series when I first played this game, I despised him and all the shit he would pull just fucked me off. But this time, he has become one of my favourite characters, a little shit who keeps creating drama and pissing everyone off is exactly the kind of character I want in this game. I think I've come to look at him more as an antagonist rather than someone who I was trying to like and he excels at being an incredibly fun villain. I also noticed how much he was saying things I agreed with this time as well, he says the things that the other characters would be too afraid to say and is willing to put forth ideas even if they get him flack. His honesty and dishonesty is something I kind of struggle with though, I do enjoy this part of him but I can't fully tell when he's telling the truth or not, which I understand is the point and it makes him an interesting character to think about and try to decipher.

Kaito is my least favourite character in the game, I can see what the developers were trying to do with him and there are things about him I do like but I think the way he is and the way he acts just doesn't work for me. A character who is always looking on the bright side and wants to help their friends grow as people is a commendable thought (although this playthrough made me realise that they kinda did the same thing with Tenko but I think they made it work a lot better with her) but the game also wants him to be the idiot who is quite brash and goes too far down that end. Kaito has a habit of opening his mouth and coming out with the dumbest shit far too often, I genuinely think he may be the dumbest character in the mainline games, like sure characters like Yasuhiro, Ibuki, Kazuichi and Akane are all dumb as shit but at least they have some semblance of self-preservation. There's a scene in the first Scary Movie where a character comes across two signs, one marked safety, the other marked death, looks at them for a second and then goes for the one marked death in a joke about how dumb characters in horror films are, this is the best way I have of describing how Kaito acts throughout the game. He will hear something like Maki telling him she is an assassin who has killed many people and then proceed to poke and prod at her, drag her to places she doesn't want to be in and insult her multiple times, all because he believes in her, with literally no valid reason for this other than him being into her. Characters who've proven to repeatedly fuck the other characters over will come up with a plan and Kaito is the first to go 'hey guys let's do what they say because they're our friend and we need to believe in them'. The worst thing is that the other characters do listen to him and I think the way his actions are framed and how the game treats him, the player is meant to find this endearing (if a little stupid), unfortunately, I just was constantly bewildered and at times kind of annoyed because it makes no sense and it gets so repetitive because he repeats the same shit over and over again.

Then there's the issue of him being brash, he quite often acts like an arsehole in the hopes that it will help his friends get stronger and inspire them. In the first chapter after Kaede has just died, he attacks Shuichi because Shuichi didn't stand up to Monokuma because he was trying to deal with the fact that the person he got closest to in the game and had helped him a lot, not only killed someone under his nose but would be killed for it herself. I get wanting Shuichi to fight back against Monokuma and to honour Kaede's wish but at the same time, he's in the middle of grieving. Kaito does apologise for this but continues to act in a similar manner throughout the rest of the game. Maki makes it abundantly clear that she wants to be left alone but Kaito doesn't really give a shit, so he pushes her boundaries and pulls some weird shit like in the third case where he forcibly embraces her because he's scared. The fact that all of this works and she is grateful by the end of it isn't the point when he didn't know that it would work and to anyone it would just seem like he's not taking no for an answer and doesn't care what she wants as its what he only thinks she wants.

I don't think he's an awful character or anything and I've definitely come across worse (even in this series, I think Mikan and Kazuichi are a lot worse than this). As I said, I do like that his intentions are good even if his actions aren't, there's also a few scenes with him (like the one between him and Shuichi in the hangar in Chapter 5) that I think are really nice as well and I quite like his FTEs too. His FTEs felt like a bit of a mess to me for a while, the last one is really good and he comes across as so reasonable and caring in a way that he just doesn't throughout most of his screen time, but the other events just felt kind of out there. However, for one or two of them he talks with Shuichi about all of the people that he has had as sidekicks, he lists all of these amazing people and states that it was because of him that they got to where they are now. To begin with it just seemed like bragging, but afterwards I thought about it and I came to a different conclusion. I think its not a stretch to say that these people probably weren't his sidekicks and I felt like the reason he said they were, was because he probably thought that if Shuichi believed him, then Shuichi would feel more confident in the fact that Kaito could help him as well, as Shuichi can be kinda pessimistic at times. Even if Kaito doesn't think that Shuichi will believe him then instead its probably just that he hopes that if his statements get too out there then it might amuse Shuichi and at least relieve him of some stress or something. I don't know for sure at the end of the day and it could just be bragging, but this feels kind of in line with Kaito and I think its pretty nice, so I like thinking that this is why he's doing this.

Case 6:

Its kinda difficult for me to view this as just one whole thing considering how different it feels from before the big reveal and after it. The first half is quite good though, if the game had ended with the 16 characters being the last of humanity and forced to kill each other in the killing game being the actual main plot, I think I would have really liked it as I do enjoy endings that are quite dark and ironic sometimes. It also got to me in this case how freaky the flashback lights are and how they're used, having random fake memories implanted in your head and then learning that they're not even real is kind of terrifying. Also scenes like the fake one after the wardrobe change and the interview scenes with Shuichi, Kaede & Kaito (if they are fake) make it even more creepy as it seems to be implied that it is actually the characters themselves doing it yet it appears to have been done without their consent and they have no recollection of it.

The second half of the trial though, I love. I really like fourth wall breaks when they’re done well and this is so up my alley, it also helps that there’s a lot of great moments and a lot to chew on and think about as well. The protagonist switching, the solution to a few minigames being to just not play and the argument armament. There is a lot to think about when it comes to what the game is saying, I don’t fully get all of it but since I first played this game a year ago it has occasionally popped into my head and I still find new ways to look at things or I’ll see some discourse to do with other games where people are saying or implying things that strongly resemble some of the argument armament quotes which make this game feel weirdly prophetic or very observational. I love how much of an importance this game puts on the power of fiction, how it has the courage to say that (for now at least) its time for this series to stop and I also love how it isn’t scared of pissing people off in order to say what it wants to say. There is one pretty hefty issue though and that’s the repetition, the game has had this issue already with pieces of information constantly getting repeated (especially with the psyche taxis) and also a few of the characters regularly saying the same line or a variation of it, almost like its a catchphrase. It seems to be more of a present issue in this trial though as its already quite long and it becomes a lot more noticeable when its just one word getting repeated, in this case, fiction or fictional. Tsumugi mentions the situation the characters are in being fictional so often and it gets really irritating, it initially seems like its because its straight after the revelation and the game is trying to make sure you understand how shocking it is but she just keeps doing it well after that point as well. Overall though I think I can easily say that I love this case despite my problems with it.

Tsumugi feels like a bit of a mess in all honesty, she’s really boring for ages but once she’s revealed as the villain she’s so good and it makes me wish that the game put the effort into making her more likeable beforehand so that it would have been a bigger twist of the knife once her role is shown. After I played the game for the first time I remembered the part in the fourth trial where she questions Shuichi’s lie about checking the salon for Kokichi and while I already really liked that part, the twist really improved it as it was clear she was just trying to cause drama for views or whatever. This made me curious if she did more things like this and I just hadn’t noticed, so when I played this time I was keeping an eye on her, but she didn’t really. She does do this thing where she asks questions to add to the mystery or repeats what other people say for dramatic effect and you can just see the cut to commercials straight after some of her lines but other than that, the only thing that stood out to me was how she latches onto Gonta. Gonta being an incredibly likeable character and her obviously knowing that he will be well liked makes her constantly be nice to him, stand up for him and look out for him, it feels really disingenuous, but there is a moment towards the end of the fourth trial where he’s practically known as the culprit and Kaito comes out with a reason why it can’t be him, this happening before Shuichi states why it doesn’t matter and that he is still the culprit. Tsumugi says to him when he’s a little confused, that he’s not the culprit anymore and congratulates him, in the moment I wasn’t sure whether she was genuinely trying to make him feel better or not, but after this last trial it seems very likely that she was letting him have a moment of hope before being brought back down to despair again as she’s kind of a piece of shit. Something else though is her FTEs, I think that they were my favourite out of any of the characters, the first one is sort of funny but the rest are really good because its just so nice to hear someone speak so passionately about something they love, talking about the good memories that that thing has brought them. I think I do really like her character but it is difficult considering how dull she can be (even if that is the point).

K1-B0 is a decent enough character, I really like him being a voice of reason in the group and not letting feelings get in the way of working out the truth in the class trials. I love the jokes about him being kinda crappy and having some cassette tape recording function or a polaroid camera as some of his best features, it makes me feel really bad for him but also find him absolutely adorable. His persecution complex is just kind of there, a few good lines come of it but otherwise its just his catchphrase which I can sort of tune out. I don’t really like how the rest of the characters treat him though, Kokichi and Miu I get but everyone really just seems to see him as below them and it stays like this until chapter 5 where he risks his life to save them and then the next chapter has him spouting about their friendship, it just doesn’t really make much sense to me and I’m confused as to why he treats them as well as he does.

Himiko is good, I really like her character development and how it feels like actual effort has gone into it so that there is clear growth, I also enjoyed one of her interactions with Shuichi where she’s trying to go a bit too fast with changing as it felt right that she would make mistakes and not really know how to change given how she seems to have acted like this for a while. I also quite liked her FTEs for the most part as well. I do find her design and voice to be unfortunate though, I really don’t like that she looks and sounds so much like a small child, its a shame because I think the voice acting for her is really good but among all the other characters she just feels out of place.

Maki is quite good as well, I think her backstory is really interesting and like with Himiko, I really enjoy how present her character development feels. Her relationship with Kaito is neat but I really like how she is able to bond with Shuichi after Kaito’s death as they were all friends, its a dynamic I feel like I don’t see all that often so it made for a nice change of pace. My biggest thing that makes me not think that she’s great or anything though is how she feels quite similar to Kyoko but really not as good.

Shuichi, I love as he grows so much throughout the game and he hits this really nice balance of being kind yet assertive when he needs to, there are so many moments that stick out as just being great character moments, like the ones I mentioned earlier but also how he acts during this final trial. I also really liked how he truly comes across as a detective even when he’s just having normal conversations with people, quite a few of the FTEs have him kind of interrogating whoever he’s talking to and making deductions in his head which I thought was cool and helps make him feel like a more solid character. I’m not the biggest fan of his relationship with Kaito, especially how he seems to get quite easily influenced by him at times that end up feeling like a regression of the growth he had shown up until those points. Even with this, I still think that Shuichi is a great character and along with Kaede, goes into my personal favourites when it comes to video game protagonists.

Overall, I love this game, it has quite a few problems but I think everything is just so good that it makes up for it. I do think that I need to take a bigger break between now and the next time I play it though as I have learnt from this experience that one year is not enough for a mystery game this dense and long. I don’t think how often I play it truly matters though as its something that has really stayed with me since I first played it and I know that it will continue to have a special place in my heart.

For personal reference more than anything else.

Third playthrough of the base game. Didn't do Longest Night or Lost Constellation.

I don't really think I've connected to a game as much as I have this one, there's elements of it I can see in other games where I have a similar opinion on them in both. Possum Springs is one of the worlds in a game that is just feels so real and somewhat homey, yet I feel the same about the worlds in games like Bully and Stardew Valley. The time spent with the characters in this game allowed me to get a deeper connection to them and feel somewhat sad when I was getting close to the end of the game, which makes me think of the characters from Persona 5 and Danganronpa. There's a lot of things like these but its just different here because the majority of things in the game feels like that rather than just one aspect and it brings it all together to truly feel solid.

To go into a little more detail on some parts though. Possum Springs is one of my favourite worlds in a game, its not in the best shape its ever been in and there seems to a be a struggle of sorts between the residents to try and change for what they believe to be the better or to try and make it the way it used to be, all the while the town seems to be staying the same but slowly dying (at least some parts). Despite all this its still a lovely town with rich history and residents who make it feel somewhat alive.

The residents of Possum Springs are not only what helps the town but for me also help the experience of playing the game. Getting to know various people and forming bonds with them like Lori, Mr Chazokov and Pastor K & Bruce, listening to other people share their experience(s) like Selmers and Miss Rosa or even the slightly jokey ones like porch guy and window guy and the ones who Mae doesn't even really interact with like the Telezoft workers, the Smelters fans and the town council. All of these characters bring something to the table, even its just making everything feel so familiar as you go to see them each day or every other day and when they're not there, its noticeable. When I was talking with Miss Rosa for the third time, something felt different and I was worried I wouldn't see her again as I knew that would confirm my fears about why she was acting the way she was and after that third interaction she didn't show up again. Its not brought up by Mae because she couldn't really pick up on it with their last interaction, but Miss Rosa's absence really leaves an impact. But to be a little more positive, while I had a good time with basically all of the characters, I really did enjoy the time spent with the ones that it felt like Mae was making an actual bond with, Lori, Mr Chazokov and Pastor K & Bruce are all such great characters and I'm so glad they were in the game.

Another aspect about this game that I love is how what you do has an impact, not just like when Mae gets the two musicians together or whatever but the fact that things gets talked about by the characters, I never experienced Germ's full plotline before this playthrough and was kinda surprised that it was a big talking point in the conversation between Mae & Gregg at the end of the game, even the rat babies came up there which was cool. But there's some really nice moments like when you have control of Gregg for a couple of minutes and if you talk to Angus, Gregg thanks him for going with Mae to the park even though it doesn't hold the best memories for him. On that note as well, I realised at one point that the windmill fan things on the rooftops could be spun and after a couple of seconds something would fly out, I had a slight memory of something like that happening before but couldn't remember if anything came of it, so this time I actually made sure I did all the ones I could find. I assumed that once I found the last one something would happen or Mae would make a comment or drawing in her journal but none of that happened, so I forgot about it until I hung out with Angus and there was this whole little scene that I don't think I ever got before. One of the things about the game seems to be the impact you can have on other people, even in the smallest ways and stuff like this really helps with that I think.

Speaking of Angus, its important to note how I feel about the main four characters and honestly, I love them all. I always kind of wished that Mae could spend the same amount of time with Angus as she could Gregg and Bea but this time I think I appreciated how it actually feels a bit more realistic the way it works and how it gives Mae and Angus a different kind of relationship where they're still friends who clearly love each other but their friendship comes from this almost silent bond they have of hanging out mostly in a group setting or because of their shared love of Gregg. Still though what we do see and learn about Angus is so good, he's such a sweet guy and the way he was treated in the past is depressing but the fact he was able to turn the shit he endured into wanting to look after and be there for his friends because no one was there for him when he was younger is beautiful. The talk he and Mae have whilst stargazing is such a fantastic moment and I think it may be my favourite moment in the whole game.

Gregg is a character who I really enjoyed before but couldn't love, this time around I think he still may be my least favourite of the four but I do love him as a character. Any hangout session I could have in the game, I spent with him as I did the whole mixture of him and Bea before and I wanted to try out just hanging out with one of them, I think this may be my preferred way of doing it as it makes the events feel more cohesive. Either way, Gregg is a really fun character and I think his story is great, when I first did most of it, I got a little annoyed with how the blame for Gregg getting back into his old habits was put on Mae and I think I still feel a little like that but I was able to see where the game was coming from more this time and could agree that she is kind of enabling him as apparently he doesn't act like this with anyone else (I still feel like he should take some responsibility though, which I don't really think he does, but maybe I just don't get it). Other than that though, Gregg's events are mainly just fun and I think I kind of prefer the slightly more serious stuff in this game (to an extent), like my favourite part of his events was the moment in the second event by the lake where he's worrying about whether or not he's a good person and about losing Angus.

The relationship between Gregg and Angus is another one of my favourite parts of the game, they're so lovely together and I enjoy their dynamic and little pet names for each other. I also think that its good to show them struggling a bit though their disagreements and desire to leave Possum Springs and move to Bright Harbor, its just one of those things that makes it more interesting and feel more real. But another reason I love their relationship is that for a game to have a queer couple as part of its main characters and not be afraid to show it and talk about it is honestly kind of refreshing to me. After seeing a YouTube video a while ago about a lot of games only being queer if the player makes it happen and realising that even games that do have queer characters are either side characters at most or are just not really allowed to have that aspect of them have its own story, I really do appreciate that this game allowed their relationship to not only be present but be so good as well. I am slightly biased as I can usually be won over by good LGBTQ+ stuff though as I just really like the representation but its important to me and that's all that I think matters (to me at least).

Bea is a character who I don't think I'll ever really forget when it comes to any fictional characters, even though I didn't really spend time with her here, I didn't really need to as her plotline has stayed in my head ever since I first experienced it. Its so easy to completely write her off because of how she acts driving home with Mae the first time but after learning her story, I feel like I can't really blame her, she's been through a lot and has at what I can only assume is a pretty young age already felt her life stop being hers. I think that's why her fun events (as fun as its gonna get for her) feel so different from Gregg's, she needs to be able to relax and just enjoy herself but most of the time she just can't. Because I wasn't spending time with her, I felt so bad when I didn't choose her or when Mae would talk to her on the computer at night and she just stayed at home or was still doing work, during the last hangout event where if you hang out with her you go to a party out of town, if you instead hang out with Gregg (and by extension Angus) Mae asks how Angus got Bea's car, he tells her that she didn't go to the party in the end because she lost her nerve or something and it just feels so sad. But I think outside of her story she's still really good, she's mature, caring in her own way and resilient, she's still a really good friend to Mae even if you don't spend time with her (or do and she has to put up with Mae's bullshit).

Mae is more than likely my favourite protagonist from a video game, she's flawed but its done so well, she tries to be a good friend, tries to be there for people and has a good heart but at the same time she's self-absorbed, insensitive and a bit of a dick. So many games I play seem so scared to write their protagonists like this, they're either completely perfect or a different kind of flawed where they act one way the majority of the time and the other way once or twice. Mae feels like someone who could actually exist in the real world, she has her problems but there's enough good in her to balance it out and there's even a couple of points where she acts shitty but its either understandable or you can tell she's just being an idiot who is trying but doesn't get it. I feel like on some levels I can relate to her, coming back home after time away and in this weird space where you just feel kind of lost and like life isn't really going anywhere but at the same time feeling like everythings going to be shit and not being able to properly navigate it hit pretty close to home for me. Even down to leaving College or Uni and being a proper adult now yet still feeling no different than how you felt as a teenager, but being able to recognise that you should feel and be different and everyone else in your life is doing something and seem like actual adults, I really think that this is the best depiction of this I've seen and I've felt spoken to by characters with little things in games and the like before but I feel like this game truly understands this position. Going back to Mae though, I noticed this time around how much she seemed to be scared of being stuck in Possum Springs and eventually being forgotten, there's a lot going on with Mae in this game and when she is just exploring or hanging out with the residents of the town it shows how much she's going through even when she should just be having fun or not thinking about difficult shit all the time. This game gets heavy pretty often, especially in the second half and it was somewhat hard for me to get through as it just felt like I'd have one depressing section immediately followed up by another.

Its not all depressing though as the game has a lot of comedy which would usually worry me as I have ran into too many games that are trying to be funny and just end up being insufferable but thankfully this is one of the good ones. There are so many jokes and lines that are incredibly funny here and its one of those games where you can miss some stuff on a playthrough or have something hit for you after it hadn't before. This time around, when I was using the microfiche in the library I read a couple of the articles and came across one about a statue built of a guy called Stanley something or other and the article had a line like ' for 2¢ you can enter Stanley' and it really got me despite being quite a juvenile joke. That wasn't the only one but it was one that I don't think I noticed before, Mae and Gregg are both consistently really funny but there are times when characters who aren't usually as funny like Angus come out with a really good joke or line and it really hits due to the unexpectedness of it but also makes a nice character moment.

Storywise I really like it even though it kind of feels like a lot of other stuff, I got pretty big Ghost World vibes from this game this time around (probably because I watched that film since I last played this game all the way though) and it was pretty neat. I think the stuff to do with Mae's personal journey is the most interesting as she explores a lot of different things like religion, politics, history, her place in the world and it all seems to have at least some effect on her and show that she is growing somewhat. The cult plotline is kind of weird, I used to agree with the people who say that it doesn't fit with the game up until that point, I have kind of changed my mind as I think it makes some amount of sense and feels like it works with Mae's journey but at the same time I think it still did lose me a little bit.

Some scattered thoughts:

• The music is great and Die Anywhere Else is such a great song. I'm not the biggest fan of the rhythm sections though.

• I love the artstyle of the game, it all looks so nice and I really like during the dark scenes how all you can see are the characters' silhouettes but they're still instantly recognisable.

• I kind of like Germ but I do feel kind of indifferent towards him for the most part, he's neat but I don't really like how he just feels kind of there when with the main group.

• I enjoy the relationship Mae has with her parents, her slightly tense relationship with her mum is really good and the conversation they have on Harfest is kind of painful but in an intentional way, I think. Her relationship with her dad is really nice too, the moments spent watching Garbo and Malloy with him are so sweet.

• Demontower is good if a little stiff for me and I hate those dipshits that teleport and throw knives at you in the later levels. But because Angus seems to enjoy talking about it, I feel bad if I don't play it so its just become part of my routine whenever I play the game.

• Something else that I noticed this time around as well was how much I wanted to explore the town and try to do as much as I could in it, even with having done most of it before. With other games I normally only do some of the side content and just don't feel up to doing too much or even completing it but in this game I wanted to do everything and I wanted to soak it all in. It meant that I could spend about an hour or hour and a half on one in game day but I was having a good time and I didn't want it to end.

I adore this game and its easily one of my favourites of all time, I'm not entirely sure if it is my favourite or not but its pretty high up on the list. I love so much about it and it just means so much to me.