lmao, love your short verses Tim, but wish you'd gone into more detail.

@RedBackLoggd Thanks haha sometimes it's just hard for me to get anything more out but I can definitely elaborate especially on command. Do you want any more detail on what I thought felt self indulgent or just other things I didn't like about the game?

The self-indulgence I felt was mainly in the game's writing. It revolved around its premise of multiple universes surrounding your interactions with this boring girl rather than actually giving you very many interesting interactions. The most interesting it ever gets is like "Oh man she cut off her arm that's so hardcore! Ah our game is so edgy!" but like there's not really much of an interesting build up to any of these situations at all they just happen. Also the lines are just super wordy like a kid in Jr. High school trying to achieve the required page count for their essay if that makes sense.

Also semi-related but I really thought the voice work felt really out of place. Like the delivery for a lot of lines was either stilted, overacted, or said in a mood not fitting the actual line. Just very not believable kind of like a beginner acting student pouring whatever emotion they're feeling at the time into their lines instead of choosing a correct emotion to convey.

I mean, as someone who knows nothing about the game other than that it's a VN, I'd definitely have appreciated any kind of explanation as to why its story (the core facet of VNs) falls apart. You proceeded to do so in the comment of course, and I thank you for that.

And yeah, bad voice acting or bad directing can really bring down a product.

this coming from a persona 5 fan... look in the mirror buddy

@EmptyNight I'll be the first to admit persona's writing needs some work. (I did play it with Japanese text/voices though so I don't know to what degree the localization of persona is better/worse in English) However persona makes up for this by having actual character development and actual gameplay among its other merits. This is a visual novel so everything here rides on the writing.

To me a lot of metafiction gets the kinda smarmy "ooh, I am the story! did you see that cooking, hoo hoo!" vibe going on when it lacks the connection, logical or emotional, to its events. But I thought the Princess was at the very least interesting based on the scenario, and it gives you plenty of time and reaction to your actions to create that connection before the reveal and trying to sell you into the actual setup. I found the lofty ones where the princess is all-commanding a bit less effective, but the more personal ones like the Witch or Wraith that are centered around the minutia of your decisions between you and the princess felt very appropriately claustrophobic and reactive. The way it's written around those decisions were engaging enough to me that I never minded rereading pieces to see how the voices interacted, and by the point it was wrapping up I felt attached to the characters... Then the Stranger ending reflected that, doubled down on it, and I felt satisfied. Worked for me, but I get it.

Re voices I'm not as crazy about Sims as some people seem to be, the main voice does feel a bit too smug and overacted at times, but that same annoying smugness slotted perfectly into the Contrarian. I stopped minding any of the issues once his and Goodnight's range came out and I had some favorites.

@Lapbunny
I definitely can't deny that the Princess had some interesting moments at least contextually and the scenario honestly got me really hyped to try the game out. I will also admit I didn't go very deep into the game after like 6 scenarios because I was sick of the overall game feel, voice acting, etc thus I abandoned it so I didn't get to see the scenarios that you said you liked. Maybe it'll be worth playing through again when I feel more patient. I'm abandoning games more frequently these days when they don't catch me enough early on.

Six scenarios seems like a good sample, honestly! Might just come down to taste.