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Now that's out of the way, let me waste your fifteen minutes blabbering about it. A lot of its genius is hidden behind subtle mixings and mastery of the visual, textual, and audio aspects of the game. In an average VN, I would typically focus on the text and my eyes would only look up to the scene when something major moves such as a character entering/exiting the scene. The facial changes would be barely recognizable and is often already imagined through text. Now we're starting to get more variety where sprites don't just change facial expressions but body language as well and yeah that's a big milestone for furry VNs and I'm so happy for that. Though I understand the problem's really more budget/time constraints so I'm not attacking VNs for having static sprites. BUT THIS. This ABSOLUTE UNIT of a game just takes it to a whole new level.

Spoilers from here on out!!!! The bunker scene, the anxiety attack scene, and the bench scene really, REALLY drives the immersion home. You get the creepy vibes from the bunker scene not just through text, but the way the flickering phone light sways, the dead silence except for the echoing footsteps, and the silhouetted characters that has their backs on you. I was so prepared for Kurt to suddenly look at Spencer and be all "HAHA M U R D E R T I M E".

The same creativity is applied to the anxiety attack scene, his vision blurs, he get wobbly, his ears start ringing. The visual aspect and audio has you clambering for some support BUT the text does not betray that by spoon feeding you what's happening. Instead it takes you to Spencer's head that's trying to put logic in the situation, trying to deny the thousands of thoughts going through his head, trying desperately to calm himself down.

But the ABSOLUTE best scene so far was the awkward bench scene, personal favorite. It is the culmination, release, and the subsequent transfer of stress within Spencer about the murder. Midway through Spencer dissociates from the scene, finally realizing the murder wasn't about him and he's not some ghost all along and that was a huge relief for him. BUT at the same time he was trying to console a stranger's loss of a friend. Seriously, everything about this scene; the music, the expressions, the visual atmosphere, the writing, was nothing less than a stroke of genius. It all culminates to when his eyes focus on one object, the cigarette, as a means to portray his cascading dissociation. And at the end of it, his thoughts were practically screaming at him to no longer have anything to do with this guy and these weird events but his own dissociation causes him to agree to helping Kurt find out the truth. Normally, I'd see it as breaking away from character to serve the plot because Spencer's got no stakes in Kurt or in David's murder and after being center stage as the body-snatcher, I'd think he wouldn't want to do anything with it. But the way it was portrayed and expressed, it was all within Spencer's character and I imagine that was a difficult plot point and scene to establish as a tiny mistake will break the immersion and make all the subsequent plot points less impactful. Just pure genius right there.

There was also some subtle breakthrough the first time you meet Ian. The space where the name of the character speaking is displayed has been brilliantly utilized. Normally that would just be "?????" followed by actual name after discovering the name. But nope, Cockhole flipped a big, fat middle finger on that and instead showed it as Spencer's separate thought that's trying to remember the name while holding a conversation with Ian.

The best part about all this is that these scenes cannot be experienced the same way if you use any different art form other than a visual novel. This only proves Cockhole's genius and mastery over the form. Now I've only described these scenes and not characters or story and that's simply because it's not finished yet. I can't talk about character arcs, motivation, or story elements if there ain't any yet. Lately I've been feeling more like Ego trying to swallow some not-so-good VNs out there but this absolute ratatouille of a visual novel hand-slapped me so hard I felt like I've never had any actual food up till now. 10/10, changed my view of what a VN could accomplish forever.

9:22

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