Now THAT was a great game, hands down!
I just LOVE IT so far.
I've been waiting for it ever since I finished Project Kat which I also loved despite its short length, and now that we have Paper Lily I can say with confidence that it is a brilliant success.
It takes what worked in Project Kat and makes it bigger and better.
There are many things to love about this amazing game, from the stunning artworks to the heartworming soundtrack and to the simple but fun gameplay mechanics. Chef's kiss right there, ladies and gentlemen.
I also love how the game is kind of spilt into sections where we keep roaming arround a bit and talking to people and getting chased by motherflipping "almost-gave-me-a-heart-attack-type-of-sudden-monster-appearances" and being able to finally progress to the next area that hosts the next set of enviroments and people and arcs and stuff. That way it allows the game to be accessible, that is to say can be easily grasped and easily have recognizable stopping points when we run out of time to play. The game isn't thaaaat long, but I just seem to take my time with it, so this kind of pacing helps me remember where I left the game before I closed it.
I got eaten by the fairies, btw. lol. That also almost gave me a heart attack. It came out of ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE and I LOVED IT. It was a brilliant surprise, having a sign that says "don't walk here, cuz you'll die" and then exactly that happens, but in the most creative way possible. I mean... this is my first time seeing a game feature an entire gameplay segment unrelated to the story and is nothing more than a bad ending but has many fun gameplay mechanics and character interactions. More Please!
One critic I have is with the performance. Even though this game is made with Godot (which should supposedly run well on modern systems) it lags alot on my windows 10 64bit device. I think this can be easily solved by cutting the unncessary events (such as the MANY empty interactable spots like trees and bushes and other stuff) AND also cutting the map segments even more, because some of them are just big enough to cause some serious performance issues. Or better yet, how about simply making an alternative version desgined for high perfomance. That way anyone would enjoy the game. (That's IF you decide to look into the matter, hopefully)
The characters are maybe the highlight of all this. Their unique and fleshed out designs make them memorable. It's been weeks and I can still remember some side characters that barely had screentime. The MC especially is charming, both visually and mentally. (You know what they say. If you're gonna make a long game, at least make the MC something good to look at in the 99+ hours of gameplay)
In conclusion, this game is rad, it feels like a geniune evolution of the RPG Horror genre (minus the horror, which is a bit of a nitpick. Do more horror if you can), and it can stand up to games like Undertale or Deltarune if you continue to drown it in more care and support.
For anyone willing to get this game, I say it's worth your money. If you have any money, throw it on the devs faces right now. If you don't, you can still get it completely for free, which is a pretty big W.