cw: mentions of ableism, transphobia(?), and rape

Reeling from his recent break-up, Haruaki Fusaishi stumbles into the remote village of Yasumizu. Before long, an ominous fog descends on the mountain, trapping Haruaki and the residents within the town. The residents begin holding a ritual known as the "Feast." Its essentially a game of Werewolf. One of your friends and neighbors has been replaced with a murderous "wolf." You have to vote to hang the wolves before the wolves kill you. On top of that, Haruaki finds himself time looping and repeating the feasts over and over. In a community that already distrusts outsiders, can he find a path to escape?

Hard to get a read on my feelings on this. I think there's compelling stuff here. Major themes of how societies and religions form. How isolation or ostracization shape how people view themselves or others. How anyone, no matter how strong a will, can justify a cult mentality or mob violence.

I found myself getting pretty attached to some of the characters. The post-game revelation mode lets you hear the internal monologues of characters you had trouble reading for most of the game. When the main game is a paranoia run of who you can trust or fear, its a great way to add layers to the experience. You can understand the pain the characters are going through when they have to fear their loved ones or how someone is slowly convinced to become a wolf. Some of the stand-outs is Haruaki himself. Starting off as a generic mc man, he quickly reveals himself to be one of the Most Characters I've ever seen. He's a prankster and a liar, and for a game of paranoia and manipulation it makes him the kind of rogue-ish hero that a narrative like this needs. It also shows how he's not above the village's legends. He's a skeptic by nature, but in the route where he's forced to become a wolf, his desperation to survive sinks him to the same depravity he tried to stay above.

At the same time, there's elements of the character work that feels... weird? Yasumizu is established as a town of people who were exiled from the more affluent nearby town. There's a fascinating class and prejudice angle that the story digs into multiple times.

But then you get characters like Mocchi. Mocchi was exiled because he's an eccentric and his family thought he inherited some family instability. It makes sense that Yasumizu wouldn't exact have a robust mental health system to support Mocchi and provide the language or aid he needs for himself. But one of the ways they show that Mocchi is "weird" is that he wears dresses. Haruaki goes out of his way to ask "are you uncomfortable with your gender identity?" and Mocchi literally responds, I quote, "No I'm just weird." No one ever judges Mocchi for this and its never brought up again but it makes the intentions of that writing decision even harder to pin down. I don't THINK its transphobic but the fact that I can't even tell is some kind of damning.

The final villain runs into a similar problem. Without getting into details, its revealed that the villain needed to sleep with almost the entire cast for their plan to succeed. This includes minors. Whether or not sex was actually involved or not, that's just a bizarre writing decision to make? At the same time, the villain tragic past involves some weird sexual aspects that are also horrifying to untangle? It just seems like a decision that didn't need to be a part of the story and was thrown in as a last minute gross out factor.

Its a weird game to decipher. I think it has genuinely great themes about social conflict, but some of its decisions are so baffling that it completely takes you out and makes you question how intentional those themes are.

Bizarre little game.