I'll be pretty upfront: I didn't really like this game. It felt a lot like a visual novel broken up by sections where I had to walk to areas and interact with glittering objects. Not that there's anything wrong with visual novels, they're quite a treat and Higurashi remains one of my favorite games of all time, but I'll admit I'm a simple man and when I jump into a game I generally would like to be able to affect things with my interactions with a world.
Learning that collecting the cryptic notes and checking the skeleton friends didn't affect anything in the long run really took the winds out of my sails, and the only real branch in the story being based on a choice at the very end felt...very anti-climactic.
I suppose if I had to sum up my thoughts of the story as a whole, it would be "anti-climactic". Without going into spoilers, the revelation that the Lord who fights off heroes is actually a bad person who does bad things isn't exactly a far reach to make. And given that the protagonist is apparently quite fond of him, that the ending hinges effectively on taking someone else's word for it and then moving on immediately afterwards feels very much like a rush to a climax. There's no rising action where he slowly comes to terms with what happens, no conflict where he has to second-guess himself, no verification of certain things, just "is that why this happens?" "yeah br0" "damn".
I don't want to seem like I'm just pounding the negative button endlessly, though. I was really impressed with this game right from the getgo. You've got a wonderful introduction that sets a dramatic, mysterious mood right away. The character being verbose would probably turn off a lot of other folks, but I love how much you could interact with and how much he could say about a lot of things. And kudos for making use of self-switches to have a long, wordy first-interaction and then a shorter follow-up on further interactions! The character portraits were also all extremely well-done, and everyone had unique designs, and your mapping game is absolutely on point; shit's gorgeous, is what I'm tryin' to say.
You've got a wonderful introduction, a cool world, some neat characters (I got very attached to the skeletons), and it just...felt like it all fell flat at the end. It felt like nothing I actually did from a mechanical standpoint really mattered.
I really, really don't want to seem like I'm just pounding the negative button. I was actually leaning back in my chair going "do I really want to post this? everyone else seems like they're having fun" earlier. So please feel free to completely disregard all of this.
But a game like this just ain't my cuppa joe, and I felt it'd be good to be honest as to why.
Still, thank you for your hard work. I'm eager to see what you make next, and I hope you continue writing stuff like this for a long, long time.