“I think meeting you is the good divide in my life. I think what happened here, and what's going to happen after, I think it’s the bad divide. Devon, whatever happens after this, I love you and I'm so happy I met you.”

damn fuck im already crying

played the 0.8.1 information thats relevant only for me because the game is definitely FINISHED and you can get to itch.io download it (its free !) and play it i mean it is pretty insane to me how these games are entirely free and still one of the best experiences ive ever had

arches was one of the echo project vns in development that i was looking forward the most to play because its branded as a sort of sequel to echo and again echo is one of the most incredible shit ever so of course i was excited for this one

echo project somehow delivers in every single visual novel a story so powerful it lingers in my mind for weeks or months after ive read them be it the chaotic horror mess of echo or the emotional drama of adastra i just cannot win with these vns the only thing i can do is let these furry stories eat me alive

for the newcomers arches is a psychological horror gay furry +18 whatever the fuck visual novel where you see the aftermaths of what happens in echo from the eyes of boyfriends cameron and devon but to my incredible surprise arches got very little to do with echo theres some callbacks here and there some secondary characters and obviously the town is a link between the 2 stories but apart from that this is an entirely standalone story and can be consumed before reading anything about echo . granted it has more sense to read echo first to get to know the backstory of the town and some characters but ideally you could play this game first if youre here for the first time and ironically this is a great game if youre not that used to the entire furry gay horror extravaganza but im really surprised by the fact that the sex parts are definitely toned down in this one . now i wouldve love to see some good cgs of cameron and devon fucking but you cannot get everything in this life

if you played echo (probably most of the people here already played echo thats why theyre here lmao) you can definitely see the incredible glow up and overall the production value got out of the window presentation is absolutely insane every single character portrait has a lot of different expressions and conveys some kind of emotion to the player in some ways and this is just coated with an incredible art style im pretty sure this could be my favorite art style out of all the echo project art style out there even though adastra one is pretty close and this vn is BRIMMING with cgs im pretty sure this has more cgs than the entirety of echo and its only 5 or something hours long like this is unreal and theyre all incredible to look at theres some really good cgs that need to be printed and put in my room right about now

and they all of the sudden got the gist of how to actually make a visual novel thats technically working and not with some really bad ui and design choices but i mean echo has its own charm ALSO due to that but im not really gonna complain for this visual novel polish

storywise this game absolutely nails every single horror aspect that was the main gist of echo and gives a new perspective on it theres some kind of paranormal horror here and there but also gets into some great thriller segments that reminds of leos route in echo with the main duo confronting brian and shit like that and although it doesnt get to the high points of echo this is actually pretty fucked up and kind of scary throughout plus the fact that this game is really short it means that youre gonna get horror after horror after horror boom boom boom non stop fucking nightmare where you get no chill absolutely no time to catch your breath

as you probably might expect this game also features some of the most emotional cuts out there i have no idea how echo project does that but the music in these games just evoke a kind of nostalgic feeling that resonates with me and creates a void into my heart and it only gets worse after you actually finish the game you just feel like you had an incredible experience and now its over and now youre left with the remnants of what was there one time and it doesnt help when you think that arches has a pretty bittersweet ending to it all that compared to adastra is pretty chill but it really fucks you up from the inside i stayed up till like 4 am to finish it and after bawling my eyes out i just thought about this game intently throughout the night its just that kind of experience that really leaves you hollow

if you actually listen to the main theme you can understand what im saying they get this really sad vibe and nostalgic vibe but rest assured that the music department not only helps with the touching parts of the story but also for the horror parts like if you listen to this you can listen how good they manage to convey dread and fear with this incredible sound design and it really drives home the hideous things youre gonna read in this fucked up game theres A LOT of great tracks here and i invite you to at least listen to the ost if youre not convinced to play this game (you should play it and thats it) and honorable mention to this one this is for me THE theme of arches its so bittersweet and beautiful and really drives the vibe of this story home for me anthemics really did an incredible work on this game its such a beautiful soundtrack and also really reminiscent of the times of echo im really just in love with this game guys i have to praise every single part of it or im gonna go crazy like this one ? im IN LOVE with this soundtrack you dont get it this made me cry 10 times more than i shouldve for the love of fucking god

thats the main stuff but from here on out im probably gonna go get into spoiler territory so for starters im gonna put a SPOILER WARNING DONT GO AHEAD BEFORE READING ARCHES YOU DUMB FUCK please dont do this to yourself just read the novel already

and also read the cw before playing CW: Arches is a horror story and can be an emotionally intense experience that may not be for everyone. Themes of drug addiction, mental illness, and abuse are explored, along with descriptions and imagery of violence. Please consider your mental well-being before downloading.



cameron suffers from some kind of psychosis and his boyfriend is into paranormal shit and wants to get some answers for the death of his sister (i think its his sister ? its not really that clear or at least i didnt fully get it) so they decide to get to the most out of this world town there is in their vicinity and it could be none other than the town of echo

devon is convinced cameron doesnt have some kind of schizophrenia but hes actually just psychic and can get in contact with stuff thats not visible to the eye and even peek into the past or the future and somehow thats how it works they get to echo and cam begins to get all psychic about it he gets some weird visions he begins to hear some voices here and there and gets into some paranoid state where he thinks his friends are trying to kill him some normal shit in the echo universe if you ask me though

then possibly the scariest part of the game for me cam hallucinating devons hanging himself on the ceiling while he calls him on the phone and tells him how a shit boyfriend he is and everything else

when the situation gets increasingly worse they just decide to get out of this fucking town and as always echo gets in the way and makes their escape absolutely insane and long story short theyre trapped here due to their car being crushed without any type of help coming from them apart from a friend of devon arturo who actually got unknowingly into this mess and im really sorry for him actually

cams situation worsen hes even more paranoid than ever maybe even due to some weed he did or whatever devon and artie also get more stressed about the fact that echo ends up being a more hostile place than they thought theres no signal theres desert everywhere theres drunk people psychopaths and people with shotgun around them and safety gets increasingly lower the more they stay in this ass town

allegedly this also shifted theyre perception of their surroundings and themselves since cam begins to believe that he actually got some sort of psychic powers and wants to stay in echo to find out more about that while devon is shitting his pants and wants the fuck out of here mainly because this is definitely taking a toll on camerons mental capacities and he suffers when seeing him like that

stuff gets even worse when brianfrom the first game tries to act friendly towards them but in reality is just there to abduct them and torture them until their minds and souls break to a point of no return

and this is where the arches horror cascade begins

on another note i really enjoy the main trio here i love how they actually focused on a small group of people this time and really made them resonate with the player this much in only 5 hours thats fucking insane if you ask me cam and devons relationship is super cute you get to see glimpses of how affectionate they are towards each other how they manage to complete the other person and trust them accordingly

cameron might be one of the most interesting people in the echo universe apart from being one of the hottest one hes so cute i love my mentally ill baby too fucking much his written incredibly well and during most of the game you can see how much of a broken person he is and how hes trying to heal from it he got this weird psychosis phenomena since he was a kind and slowly learned to live with them something that he probably got from his mother who actually loved him but gradually lost sense of reality and became obsessed with the arch shapes she would find around her until her own death and this clearly scarred cameron for life turning him into an addict to every drug existent to try to lessen the symptoms of the psychosis and he then also got into an abusive relationship lemme tell you this coyote went through A LOT in his life and i want to protect him i cant go on like this

he finds a good companion in devon who is overly protective about his boyfriends since he cares about him that much hes just always checking if hes fine hes always supporting him even if he is in the wrongdoing and really is a sweetheart even for the standards of this series characters hes just an all around great guy i want to hug him

while their relationship kind of reminded me of the leo x chase dynamic where one of them is more physically dashing always trying to protect the partner and clearly the dominant side of the couple instead of like other couples that are created during echo its pretty astonishing to me how they nailed such a great chemistry for these characters every single thing they do has a reason and it could be from the outer situations or the inner states of the mind and still they are through and through a loving close couple i enjoyed theyre little interactions and every struggle was actually for the purpose of their relationship thats just so sweet i love them so much what the hell you can also see how they act different when theyre with each other usually cameron is a really quiet and reserved person and in general a really anxious one probably due to his past but when hes with devon he kinds of looks at ease he can get more playful and more sarcastic and thats so good to see i want my baby to be happy but its also interesting to see how cameron isnt all that willing to talk with devon about everything that is going on with him he never shared what his hallucinations were like and havent mentioned a lot of stuff about his upgringing or addiction or abusive relationship in the past

its not a perfect relationship but they really polished the interactions to make them feel genuine and warm they have their own hardships and conflict arises more than once but thats actually what makes their couple great every time something gets in the way they just push forward and try to solve these issues with all theyve got even in front of the horrors of echo you get to understand how their love works and to what extent they love each other so youre left to cheer them on to find each other again or be genuinely sad when you see them argue and then relieved when things start getting better between them

arturo is your hetero must addiction to the cast and although thats the case i really began to love the guy throughout the game he really got into this stuff by mistake or by bad luck and somehow ends up being the more (physically) scarred of the bunch thats what happens when you help your friends lost in the desert i guess and is some kind of mood setter during the earliest parts of the game cameron gets more psychotic and dev gets more stressed but when he comes into the scene everything turns kind of upbeat and relaxed for some time because thats just the guy he is and the energy he exudes granted he couldve maybe not have given cameron drugs but who am i to judge also hes kinda goodlooking if i can say that here

brian is the last main character of the bunch and oooooooooooooooo if you played echo you know the guy a bit too well hes still the vicious and cruel bear you know and love he still enjoys torturing people and still have sadistic/sexual fantasies towards anything that moves but here it is absolutely fucking wild to see that he can actually get into a more compassionate and sympathetic side maybe due to the fact that cameron has a similar situation as him with the different psychoses and hallucinations he lives through and kind of feel a sense of kinship with him i mean before he chokes him almost to death but that happens to every gay guy ever once in theyre life i guess and thanks to cams intimate insights into brians mind you get to understand how his particular sadism towards gaymen is motivated by a hatred towards open homosexual behaviour and obviously as he is the vessel of internalised homophobia he takes all that hatred out on the open sweet gay couple next door hes still a jerk guys who wouldve thought

also hes shirtless the entirety of the game i have no idea what happened to his clothes

brians inclusion to the story is when this game actually gets into nightmare fueled stuff cam begins to have hallucinations that really resemble the ones of brians with the UFO in the sky the victims killed in front of him and due to the weed he starts to hear different voices that act as intrusive thoughts for him in this situation

cam and devon reconcile until they then get kidnapped by brian where devon is chained to the white van and cam is just laying in his bed (scene that emulates the scene of chase looking at himself on the ceiling) and this is where everything gets leos route

brian blatantly lies and tells artie and devon got the fuck out of here and tells cam how he actually can see hallucinations too and this gets into the most empathetic conversation ive ever seen brian lead till now and then he just throws that out of the window by drugging cameron with shrooms and forces him to take some xanax and this actually makes cam more receptive to the hallucinations and stuff and begins to see the previous people that brian killed and all of this was for cam to talk to some demons that are haunting brian and therefore he needs his power

cam understands that he can read minds and does so with brian tries to get in contact with artie but truthfully he got a bullet in his head and somehow hes still alive and SOMEHOW even more shockingly DUKE helps that a sight to behold and then also gets in contact with brian and theyre so cute i love them they just want to be happy but then brian just decides cameron may just be better as a cock sock and a prey so he chokes him but he gets the key to the handcuffs and in a later detour to the van cam just tongue kisses him the key

cam is led through the mines by brian and he begins to see pulsating arches again and he feels the presence of his mother with them and just wonders how shes doing and stuff and thinks about the fact that the past 5 years were the best he ever had IM SORRY THIS IS TOO MUCH

brian gets out of his drug induced state and just begins to hit cameron and that cues the screaming of devon nearby they get into a cavern that is the same spot where brian took chase in leos route then devon enters the cave and a fight ensues the bear points the gun at cam and apparently kills him but in reality its his ability to look forward in time and the vn seemingly rewinds and this time cam is able to shove the shotgun away from them and the shot kickbacks into brians chest and hes left there almost dying

the duo gets out of the mines where some luminous arches are lighting up the tunnel an are able to get out and get saved by an helicopter and the last arc is one that he thinks is her mothers arc

and this is the fucking 1 hour epilogue that destroyed me

even though they get out cameron gets nerve damage that worsens his somatic symptoms and he begins to struggle with dissociation and depression and a growing sense of unreality as if hes not present

some time skips ahead show you the aftermaths of how devon and cam are doing and how they are dealing with everything that came out of echo theres some different dates in their life here and there where you can see how cameron is probably the most mentally affected by the situation due to the different damages to his body and the fact that he has regular intrusive thoughts a shit load of medications for his schizophrenia with brutal side effects and relationship issues and fights

now possibly the most haunting fucking part of the game

cam glimpses into the Cameron dead future and sees that somehow the spirit of cameron came back to devon and took him as his vessel and i kid you not this was absolutely fucking sad for me i just cried throughout the entirety of the scene like devon saying “i want to hold you” that shit hurts man

slowly cam recovers a bit at a time and feels like hes living his life again and go to see artie that is absolutely fucking destroyed by this experience but mentally at peace and kind of intuits that artie is scared of him and sees the remnants of echo in him and thats why theyre probably gonna share less and less moments together in the future

main couple get married theyre living their life together more happily now due to cams delusions and depersonalisation having subsided they wonder about their relationship about the chapters of their lives and what actually happens to those who are gone but that is something they dont want to think about now because they agree to live long lives together

what a FUCKING story

i started this game thinking it wouldve been less emotionally deep than echo because echo really is a high standard for this kind of games and being a sequel / standalone story i was 100% sure it would not succeed to make me as invested as echo

i was wrong

arches probably packed stronger emotional punches for me instead of echo because echo is just a fuckfest of depression fear and dread and everything that happens and even something as simple as loving someone turns into something of a malicious and demonic nature probably due to the town itself but its crazy how good the romance aspect of this is to the point that of course it would be my fav couple of the entire echo project (I mean its not a route thing so they could just go all out in their characterisation) and the story of cameron and devon really transcended that for me I really was a crying mess during the 1 hour epilogue I got too attached to these characters and thats what echo project gives to you when you get too into some characters: a crying fit

i love how the horror aspect is yes very similar to the one of echo but it's also fundamentally different in echo usually the main focus of the horrors youre gonna see is the town itself and its inhabitants this time around the focus is more shifter on the characters and their delusions OR brian being his fucked up self so thats an interesting change of pace and the fact that cam is damaged by these recurrent psychoses acts both as a pivoting aspect of the thriller and as a great character aspect and also the main point that escalates into the kind of Trauma Arc that is the last 1 hour of the game the horrors of echo are more based on external nature and thats pretty chilling already but seeing how most of the horror in this one instead comes from internal psyche causes is dreadful I hate these games

and this is how profoundly different they both are in that echo is focused on the core of the tragedy while arches explores the aftermath of a tragedy that somehow can be even scarier than the tragedy itself does that even make sense

this is the story of deep trauma a trauma that the characters bring with them even before echo and how they learn to deal with that trauma after echo the things these characters go through are beyond humane and probably most of the stuff they talk about isnt even remotely relatable to the reader but howly is just so good at writing characters that feel alive that you understand what theyve been through its like a therapy session you get to know what these people suffer from what their wishes are and what hurts them the most and so many different facets that are hard to pin down because this is not a The Hopelessness of Arches - A video essay but i wanted to just convey how much i loved this game and how of an impact it gave me in the present moment

trauma even afflicted the couple to a certain extent and you can see them struggling in the face of their love even enduring some sacrifices like the complete absence of sexual fulfillment or the knowledge that your partner is suffering through it and the inability to do anything about it and still this is also where the hope shines brighter when youre at the bottom and slowly you can get back to your feet and heal

even though the main theme of this is suffering its never treated as something to be looked upon or romanticized its just treated in such a humane way that it can really resonate with everyone theres philosophical and even religious topics brought in the mix about death and the hope that theres something actually good after that and i think its a really beautiful way to put it

we will never be freed from our past traumas and the only thing that can help us with that is just moving on keep living the scars may be healed but they always leave a mark

ive been in a real loop where i would just think of death for a lot of reasons and for a lot of time and this game dealing about loss really helped me out made sense of most of the stuff ive been through and am going through

this cannot surpass echo for me echo is such a masterpiece that this cannot even come close to that but i really do think this game gives a really dope new light to the echo chronicles and the story was so bittersweet i ended up more emotionally attached to it than i did with echo this could be seen as a closure to echo as a concept but i do believe this is more of a reinterpretation and a change of pov in the great scope this “series”

this is not adastra which made me bawl my eyes out till the very end and this is not echo which made me indefinitely scare throughout but as the third complete visual novel of the echo project i can say for sure that this is something special

im gonna think about this for a lot of time after this like i did with echo and adastra and i just miss my sweet babies already every time i finish a visual novel by echo project i always feel like i departed from some close friends and that i will never see them again thats the kind of feeling im left with right about now

probably i did not make justice to how much actually this visual novel meant to me in this exact point in time and i never will because im shit at expressing my feelings and putting them into words so lemme finish this with some words of wisdom

cameron are you free on saturday lemme know if youre free on saturday the day that im free

always said echo project nailed the feeling of nostalgia and they succeeded yet again to make me feel this bittersweet emotion once again i could not get into words what i thought about this for hours after finishing this i had to just take it all in and breathe and now after thinking it through im really glad i experienced it to begin with

and now some more words of wisdom from brian: “youre cute but not that cute and im not that stupid i hate fags like you sucking up and sucking dick so you get what you really want”

thank you will always take these words in my heart

SIDENOTE

i read the side story that you can access through the main title clicking on cameron its a really interesting insight on how they came to the decision to go to echo for some investigations but i wished they actually gave me a sex scene cmon you cowards echo was full of sex and now youre scared i dont like furries