haha i'm glad you found some parts interesting, admittedly i got attracted to the game because i'm one of the people who unironically likes the yandere genre. don't get me wrong, it's cool to imagine but if i were to handle it irl it would definitely put a toll on me. thats asking for a death wish lol. either way i'm glad by how honest you were on your personal thoughts of the gamePatatitta wrote:
Saihate Stationdidn't play the DLC because it wasn't available on a language I could understand
short horror/toxic yaoi game with a point and click adventure gameplay loop. The game doesn't do anything that is that new or that shocking, everything it does i've seen it before, however, that doesn't make the game bad by any means, if anything, I tihnk it's a really polished game, lot's of small detail that I really enjoyed.
I think the story is tight, the paranormal/horror feel is a good way to tie into the psychological story they were trying to tell, the dialogue is well written and I really appreciate placing stopping points in some of the sentences so the text would take a few fractions of a second longer to scroll from that point giving part of the dialogue more emphasis. Some set scenes, like the optional mirror scenes, while nothing revolutionary (been a tried and tested thing in indie games since undertale did the "despite everything, it's still you", tho, omori REALLY popularized this set piece, having a mirror that after a specific point of the game had a small % chance of jumpscaring you which is honestly so sick because not everyone will see that scare), I think the mirror scene really serves a purpouse and is well done, it's not copying for the sake of copying, not because they liked the visuals and the feel and tried to emulate it without understanding the actual depth of it, the dev clearly understood what they were doing and they told their story in a really effective manner
now, the actual story, i'm more conflicted on. It's again, something I know a lot of people enjoy but something that I never quite understood the appeal. As I said on the beginning, this is a toxic yaoi game, there are two main characters, and there is a lot of romantic subtext between them which is basically confiremd on one of the endings. Spoiler warning, tho I think you may figure out reading reviews and the synopsis and screenshots of the game. turns out, your coworker is mentally derranged, essentially a yandere. And this is the part that I have conflicted feelings on. While this is a horror game, a lot of the scenes feel like they're meant to be arousing,
Again, not a new concept, yanderes have existed since forever, and some people have always been lusting over them, but recently it became more popular. This popularity surge I feel actually came from outside that otaku internet space, but instead, with the popularization of dark romance novels. This type of novel are mainly books targetted torwards women, which follow a female protagonist whose life somehow get intermingled with a male who is usually in some sort of position of power torwards her, for example a common trope is a mafia boss that kidnapped the protagonist. After that a relationship starts to form. These relationships are unethical, toxic, horrible to be in IRL, often consisting of coaxing or rape, but you know, fantasies like that are something that a lot of people find erotic.
This also happened in online LGBTQ+ spaces with toxic yuri and toxic yaoi, which are very similar, just very, as the name implies, toxic relationships, that would be hell to be in IRL, but are arousing.
The problem is that in the current era, sexuality is very much a taboo subject, it's considered a more valid reason to say "I enjoy this game for the story" rather than "I find this game to be very arousing", which I feel taints a bit of internet discussion, like, I'm sorry but you're NOT playing nikke for the story. Not saying that these people are lying, it's very easy to gaslight yourself to believe other elements of the game are peak just becuase you at a personal level don't want to admit it's arousing.
All of this IMO kinda muddies the message of the game, it's not explicitely erotic, but instead all covered in subtext and mashed in with what would be a typically artsy videogame. I've completed the game but I honestly struggle to find a takeaway from it. In normal videogame logic, the ending that is hardest to get is the true ending, and in this case, the true ending would be the one where you decide to stay with your newly found mentally insane dominant boyfriend. I didn't get that ending, and while I enjoyed going through the motions of the game, some cscenes got me to really feel stuff, I don't know if the story really meant anything to me.
It's a very well done game, undeniably so, I just don't know if this is exactly for me, C rank.
also while you're at it i'm requesting you to do an analysis of azatus (literally my oc). it's just an excuse for criticism in order to improve my characters more