hoooo wow. It's been so long since a visual novel has immersed and taken me on this much of an emotional ride. It is so, so cinematic and professionally made. Yet another one of these things that I feel I shouldn't have had the privilege of experiencing for free, but alas, I'm glad I did. Came into this expecting a slice of life adventure dark comedy like, scp/lab-like short story, and my expectations were far far exceeded.
spoilers from this point onwards!
The music, though I don't often tend to notice it as much, I can say certainly did WONDERS for the mood of the game. What I really noticed was the directions taken with art and atmosphere. The artstyle, though relatively consistent, did not remain stagnant in the slightest. It perfectly mirrored the realisations of the MC, starting out bright, clean and polished, only to become gradually dim and grey and the grim reality set in. One thing that I really thought exhentuated the more horrific, tense and story climax parts towards the end was the simplistic, black red and yellow sharply boldly coloured framing. I'm no artist nor do I study it, but I can certainly say it achieved it's goal and felt really, really atmospheric.
The voice acting was great, and super emotional. While I'm not one to be particularly fond of children, let alone motherly, Pav's crying monologue post-seizure really tugged at my hearstrings. No kidding, I almost actually bawled; teared up. In the playtime, the story feels perfectly paced and it really feels like you're just taken on this journey with the narrative. I also quite enjoyed pondering the wider philosphical takes on the nature of medical/scientific ethics, and quite enjoyed how, for a little while in the beggining, we too were lulled into this false sense of justification for the organisation. Also much appreciated the bitterly realistic acknowledgement that, no matter what MC did, they could never truly win against a big government funded organisation. They couldn't ever save each and every child.
All in all an immensely impactful experience that had me taking a moment to just. Let settle for a little while post-play. And that's a deep-reaching impact not many games manage to achieve for me. 5/5