bro this game was so tense?? they absolutely nailed this oppressive, claustrophobic atmosphere, to the point where I was reluctant to play it late at night for fear of being TOO wound up to sleep afterwards. plughole's appearances were always a breath of much needed levity for me. as a coward, maybe this is a biased experience. also, as a coward, you could not pay me to play the abyss route.

my consistent feeling of unease while playing was encouraged by my deep attachment to the cast. they were all multifaceted, carrying their own sympathetic motivations and deep-rooted flaws and personalised brands of Idol-Industry-And-Media-Representation Trauma. i didn't want any of them to be the attacker. even when i started noticing some signs of the culprit early on, i allowed myself to live in denial during the whole internet troll arc. "it can't be them", i would say, putting on my clown shoes, "because there's no way they'd avoid getting any blood on their clothes." the ultimate reveal was appropriately heartbreaking and i care them. i care them so much.

while i thoroughly enjoyed the plot and characters, the gameplay itself was a slog. i loved scrolling through phater and despairing at how tragically realistic it was, but aside from that, the communication sequences were rough, and that's coming from someone who followed a guide religiously. the pacing almost always slowed to a crawl at these points, which created this bemusing stop-and-start pace as we moved back and forth between communication sequence and traditional visual novel. given the trial and error nature of these sequences, i don't envy those determined to play the game blind.

that aside, i still believe this game is incredibly underappreciated. among the positives i've already mentioned, it's stylistically beautiful, and do-yoon is a fantastic protagonist. i might never recover from the emotional trauma <3