Wish I could write a more eloquent review, but I was literally yelling throughout the course of this VN and it's a disservice to the game not to mention that first. If only I could link the unhinged live reactions I was spamming my friends with!

I've been looking forward to All Scars and Starlight. It is a canon-universe AU of All Ashes and Illusions that (imo) depends on having played it much more than All Idleness and Ephemera (another canon-universe AU). I would say that this is a successor to Ashes while Idleness can somewhat be played as a standalone game. If you're at all interested in Yuel's original story, please check out Ashes first, as Scars will heavily reference scenes from/outright spoil what happens in that VN. Scars' narrative also holds less impact without the context of Ashes. Because I loved the original storyline so much, I had high hopes for Scars, and yet I was still pleasantly surprised by all the love put into it!

The art is gorgeous with accompanying vfx. I loved how dreamlike the cg work was, and sprites were expressive down to the highlights of their eyes. Backgrounds were beautiful too. I never found myself bored while looking at the screen. Music is fitting and pulled from the same soundtrack of Ashes, along with 2 new tracks. Bought the theme song off the composer's bandcamp because it is Just That Good™.

Unlike other installments of the Yuelverse, Scars has branching pathways with a handful of very significant choices. I wouldn't say every single choice dooms you to a certain outcome and that paths are rigidly set, but endings do seem to hinge on some specific choices and groups of some others. It was somewhat confusing to get all of the endings because assigning choices to outcomes wasn't exactly intuitive, but I did manage to finish all routes after some trial and error. All of the endings are very different and deeply impactful in their own ways. Length was pretty good for the price.

About the characters... Wow, the characters! Scars is Tavi-centric; it revolves around his POV instead of Yuel's, which I found refreshing in the series. It is an angsty story with angsty characters at heart. There may be some moments of hope and connection, but they are often transient and mired in much uglier events. It felt like a good kind of hurt to read Tavi's musings, but please heed the content warning as many scenes focus on heavy topics and are emotionally taxing in nature.

I'd say my main gripes with Scars, which may just boil down to personal preference, is that some dialogue is repetitive and Yuel stuttered so much in between words that it was kind of difficult to read the sex scenes. The sex scenes in particular are my least favorite part of this VN because of the stuttery, moany dialogue lol.

All in all would recommend, especially for those who like a lot of misery and malefailing.