About how long is the game?

[Andrew R]

I'm a horror fanatic. :) Also: Are there a lot of choices to be made???

[BigTpsychoboy]

I just finished my first playthrough and it took around 15 hours for me.

[Tellah]

I read pretty fast and it took me 20+ hours to get through a single playthrough. I'd say there's a good amount of choices, and a good number of them can really make an impact on the story. It's not one of those where you can decide who lives and who dies BUT the game will hide away the dead ones until the last minute so it won't change the pathways TOO much... chapters really can play out very differently.

[Ellixer]

Finished it minutes ago. 15 hours for me. I reloaded a few save to try out a few variants so if I was just reading it without stopping it would have probably taken around 13-14 hours.

[DarkMachine]

It's a long interactive visual novel up there with Steins;Gate which is considered one of the longest and most complex VN ever made. You can easily consume 20+ hours if you are just taking your time reading through the texts alone.

[Goosie]

20 hours isn't "extremely long" in the VN space. Most of the really big and popular ones are 40+ hours long. This one is much more appropriately paced at that 15-20 hour mark for a first run, and it'll probably take another 5 or so to get the true ending. It's well worth it, and not only are there lots of choices to make, they're actually fairly meaningful choices that create huge diversity in how things play out.

[john doe]

it took me 33 hours to finish it.

[fiscallyfiendish]

How long it takes you to go through a single playthrough is definitely going to depend on your reading speed and whether or not you listen to voiced lines completely before going to the next one, I think my first route took me more than 20 hours. There are a tremendous amount of significant choices in the game though, and there's a lot of replay value here.

[MyCurrentObsession]

As others have said, the first run of the game probably takes between 15 to 20 hours - every chapter varies a bit in length, but most are between two to three hours of content. If you want to see almost everything the game has to offer with multiple runs (using instant skip to save time), you can do so with about 50 hours total. I've played through the whole game numerous times with different variables and seen the majority of differences (I've got 100% on the 1st, 2nd, and 4th chapters and am pretty dang close to 100% on 3rd and 5th as well) - seen all the epilogues with the exception of a few variants and one mysterious Individual Bad ending that I can't figure out, done all the possible romances...

Outside of the epilogue, relationship scores don't have MUCH impact on the story, but it will determine things like how Ashton responds to Rebecca's confession (if she's alive to tell it to him in person) and how Isabella responds to Ashton's (again, if he actually tells her - he won't if he has a really bad relationship with her or if he's already with Rebecca). One of Hannah's endings is also tied to having the lowest possible relationship score with Luke.

Which ending you get for Isabella's chapter also has a big impact on the scenario you get in Zach, Rebecca, and Ash's chapters, and Luke's chapter will play out differently depending on the Hannah ending and other factors from other chapters, so there is a LOT of replay value. But yeah, to experience most everything the game has to offer takes about 50 hours - all I have left are a few pesky acheivements and ending variants (as well as 100% completion for later chapters, but I'm not THAT dedicated), while the first run is about 15-20 hours of that.

[Andrew R]

Thank you.

There is also optional voice acting??? I don't mind reading but this would be very refreshing. ;)

I'm a huge fan of psychological stuff like "The Cat Lady" and "Downfall" so I think this would appeal to me?

[bologna ghost]

Originally posted by Andrew:

Thank you.

There is also optional voice acting??? I don't mind reading but this would be very refreshing. ;)

I'm a huge fan of psychological stuff like "The Cat Lady" and "Downfall" so I think this would appeal to me?

There's full voice acting if you're asking for that.

I'm not sure if The Letter falls under the genre of psychological and it's more based on mystery and horror. Sure there's ghosts and whatnot, but I don't think they fall under the category of human psychology anymore. There are psychological aspects, as each character is well-developed, but there's also some reactions that make me question whether or not a real person would have such a thought process. I think The Cat Lady, in comparison, examines the psyche of their characters deeper simply due to the smaller cast (better focus). Note that also barely remember the plot of that game lol. Of course, that's just my opinion and maybe my standards for what is psychological different. Still, it's a great game if you're a fan of horror and mystery as well. Hope I didn't spoil anything.

[Tellah]

Unless it's some character's thoughts or the narration, everyone has voiceacting, even characters who are minor enough not to even have a sprite. I'd actually say that it's pretty good voice acting too- I never really felt the urge to skip through any of it.

I'd say there's psychological horror as well- sort of the impending dread sort and the questioning whether or not things are really happening/hearing voices.
I'd kinda say playing The Letter is a lot like playing some characters living through like The Grudge, if you've ever seen that movie.

[Pasta0La0Vista]

Originally posted by DarkMachine:

It's a long interactive visual novel up there with Steins;Gate which is considered one of the longest and most complex VN ever made. You can easily consume 20+ hours if you are just taking your time reading through the texts alone.

How is Steins;Gate long complex brother - it takes like 60 hours and the choices are whether to send a d-mail or not. That is not complex or long compared to many VNs