i am not done with the game, but i sure as hell want to talk about its crazy game design and why it might be one of my favorite games of all time.
wrote this on discord, so i'm saving it for posterity:
- the worldbuilding is crazy and elaborate. unexist is already big and ambitious, so nonstories being somehow bigger is wild. i can't believe how many plot threads there are and how they are continued. even "plotholes" are actually intentional
- the plotting is extremely abstract so far. if you count unexist (a 30 hours game), you'd need to play like 90 hours of two games where you won't understand the plot
- that said, the worldbuilding is so rich and detailed that i felt like, as a player, i was seeing a new world and it's fun to see old characters return in different contexts
- the cast is very good and the character writing is good. i like setsuna and koto a lot, i ship them the most. but i honestly like everyone, even the het pairing in route i-1. you get a lot of atmosphere playing as seiji. it kinda reminds me of eustia and i wouldn't be surprised if the developer played eustia since they know eroge
- speaking of eroge, the writing is fantastic. you get good fantasy, the metafiction is interesting, and the Actual Emoi scenes have this kinda tanaka romeo cadence that i dig
- the gameplay, especially in ii-t, is incredible and intense. the dev understands how rpg maker combat and inventory work. there's a lot of balancing, resource/item management, and (macro) routing that i really enjoyed. it was fun to plan and figure out what the hell to do in ii-t while recognizing the sacrifices i must make
- i'm pretty interested in what the hell iii will be. it's crazy how much the eien series is just running off Vibes for most of its runtime, but it's extremely good kamige vibes. the themes about Monogatari and Eien/Setsuna that are common in eroge like sakuuta are so cool to see in a self-aware jrpg context. i'm ready to be surprised again for the nth time lol
oh yeah, the yuri especially That Scene in ii-t's ending is very good.
