It was my first Elder Scrolls game and most certainly not my last.

I was instantly hooked and played for hours everyday. I still find myself coming back and playing fresh new files so often that I lost track of how much actual time I’ve spent on this game alone.

I have yet to purchase this game on VR as I feel I’ll get sucked back in lol.

Class of '09 is a game that will not resonate with men, It's for the girls. As a woman who is has always participated in mostly male spaces in both my hobbies (gaming and gym) and my studies (comp-sci). This game while hilarious resonated with me so much.

I don't think many guys really see how differently you get treated. Even men who seem to fully accept as a friend can have ulterior motives or other you in different ways and I think a lot of the humour in the game relates to that. I found it funny even as someone who was heavily bullied in high school because a lot of what they're alluding to is correct.

I see a lot of the other reviews getting put off by the pedophilia jokes but tbh that's the reality as a woman. First time I was cat called I was 12, first time a classmate put his hands on me I was 13, and all of that just taught me to be open to getting groomed by older men at 15. It's the experiences some women face and I think the jokes are very cathartic for me in that 'you have to laugh otherwise you cry' sort of way. I don't say all this for any other reason than expressing why I enjoyed this game and that I think we should be able to talk about our experiences without it being taboo.

In total I thought the game was witty and towed the line incredibly well. It's not for everyone but it is for me. I think it requires a lot of nuance to fully unpack the game and I enjoy that they don't vilify men by portraying the fact that the main character is a sociopath and a terrible person who makes decisions out of her own self interest with little care for who it affects.

Everyone is horrible, it's funny and it's based on real experiences that people have. I don't think these ideas need to be mutually exclusive.

Anyway it's peak.

The cool thing about being an adult is that you can look at a game with a ton of Discourse surrounding it, and just play it for yourself because you know that fiction is allowed to include Dark topics, and what matters is how its handled

The Coffin of Andy and Leyley is........fine. Almost unremarkable if you remove the Discourse. The gameplay is peak bog standard RPG Maker walk and talking, where you press space on an object and maybe pick it up to bring it somewhere else. The kind that's perfectly servicable but occasionally slows the pacing down if you can't figure out what to interactive with, and therefore just start trying everything. If you take a break from the game and come back, you might stumble trying to remember where you left off

The writing is unabashedly edgy, and I think it would still be very polarizing without all the dialogue about Ashley wanting to fuck her brother. I actually found myself reminded a lot of Jhonen Vasquez's work, which I will admit I haven't read since I was 15 so maybe my memory is off, where they share that same slightly immature and incredibly cynical strain of humour that occasionally falls into the territory of trying too hard. There's a scene where you're in a public park and if you interact with a tree, the game is like "you picked up: used condom - you decide not to bring it with you". There's an billboard advert that says "are you tired of being alive? ask your doctor about euthanasia today!". Maybe RPG Maker is slightly to blame for this but a part of me is surprised Andy & Leyley came out in 2023, because it really feels like something that would've been made while I was in High School, and that someone like me would've loved back then

As for the incest stuff, I do think it's a bit disingenous to say "oh it's just a bad ending" when Ashley makes repeated comments that boil down to "I would like to fuck my brother". You don't need to justify your enjoyment of the game with "actually, it's a commentary on toxic relationships", because sure it is, but the game never really commits to it and that's fine! you're allowed to like this because it's a bit edgy and fucked up, that is okay. Alternatively, there's nothing wrong with saying "I'm not a prude but the gameplay is boring and the writing tries too hard"

I do think the game struggles a little bit with knowing what it wants to be, and because of that, it tends to go in circles sometimes. I did find myself getting surprisingly invested in the world and the characters, but kept wanting more since each episode length is pretty short so far. I wanna see more consequences for the fucked up things these characters do and feel, but maybe that'll be in the later chapters. I will say, the artstyle is very nice - every character is very expressive with their portraits. You can tell you're in a world of RPG Maker tiles but I think they make the most of it and the artstyle is there too