You know, I saw the bit at the top about "Echo" not being for the faint of heart and thought "oh hey, it's just a VN, it can't be that bad"... oh boy how wrong I was.
To clarify, when I say that, I don't mean the VN is bad; on the contrary in fact. I fucking LOVE the writing here. I simply mean that this VN is very taxing. It seems crazy to me even typing that out but I am honestly so drained from the experience I have so much to say and yet it's just so difficult to articulate without just delving into plot points (which I will do shortly I just wanted to go spoiler free for a second and give general thoughts on the VN to where I've played).
SPOILER WARNING BELOW READ WITH CAUTION!
Ahhh, where do I begin. Honestly I feel almost bad writing this now having only finished one of the routes (currently halfway through another) but I severely doubt my views on the game will change over the routes. The first route I played was TJ's. I think he's definitely one of the more genuine characters with a very interesting conflict which is probably why I gravitated towards him first. As I said previously, my experience of the game is incomplete so forgive me if I simplify stuff to what I understand as of now.
The presence in Echo, I don't know what to call it. From what I could tell, there is some supernatural entity with the ability to make people hallucinate and give them delusions, which cause them to do bad things and sometimes go insane. It's equal parts devastating and horrifying to see this entity warp the MC as he's interacting with TJ. Chase's kiss in the woods took a lot out of me.
The death of Flynn in that route shook me to my core; I found myself actually crying as it happened. It occurred to me then that only two VNs have elicited that kind of reaction from me, this one, and, wouldn't you know it, Adastra. Damn you EchoProject! Of course, the tears came in very different circumstances but still it was such an incredibly tragic moment.
To left turn a bit, after finishing the TJ route, I've moved on to Leo. Oh boy, he's insane. I've not yet completed the route but I found my heart drop when you find that he's been intentionally isolating you from the group. I almost wished it wasn't true. I already feel sorry for Clint; I know something bad has clearly happened. Despite everything, I feel he's probably not that bad of a guy from what I can tell. I read a comment below saying something like "Leo is a psychopath" so I can't wait to get to that part. Just clarifying, I wasn't reading for spoilers, I just happened to glance at the wrong comment. Still an incredible experience, albeit an emotionally exhausting one. This VN keeps you on your toes, despite not actually having too much intractability (not necessarily a complaint, I don't mind not having to worry about whether I've made the wrong choice constantly).