Burden Street Station was a short but sweet walk through the lives of (5) interconnected individuals, feeling more like a written story of the developers past more so than a fictional story, of life, death, love and loss. I liked it.

But I would say that some features that were present in the demo version, seemed to not be improved upon at all since the full release, that, and the lack of length means it's roughly about a 2 and a half hour game, of you stumbling over those few mechanics that really have no right to be in the game in the first place, as it pads out time, without adding any depth.

The candle burn out mechanic is still here, just slightly altered, now it tells you exactly what you need to click on to progress, which is very, very, helpful once you've reached the final sections, where you've accumulated a ton of different emotional faces, bodies and legs to respond with, all of which offer the same repeaing question after a sudden "Uh... what did you just say?" or "Bold choice of conversational words" kind of reponse from most of the characters, multiple times with multiple prompts. It's as I said, artifical padding to make the game longer, which isn't fun because the future locations are kind of labrathyn in their emptiness, making it boring to have nobody to interact with, until you meet the main cast again to get back to messing up until insight is available.

Despite this. I still enjoyed the story, but less so, knowing it was more or less a 1 hour game with an extra hour of pointless features that didn't offer anything of note, not even further information of each character to get to know them better. A shame.

Even if the game feels padded, its story is truly special and worth supporting. The writing is so emotionally charged that you’ll want to spend more time with these characters and understand them on a deeper level, which we unfortunately do not get. Their designs reflect their desires beautifully, like Lydia, whose connection to her guitar is a metaphor for amplifying her own voice as her tail jacks right in, both in music and in expressing herself. It’s simply lovely and shows real care from the developers.


Video Review TBD
https://youtu.be/LJUkzeJs8hI

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I would have loved to play more through this game if it didn't completely destroy my PC near the beginning of the game, but I'm not gonna be negative about this game because of that.

The art style is just incredible and was the main reason why I bought the game and why I really tried to replay this game to attempt to get farther in it, the gameplay (while I didn't see much of it) was really interested and the idea of just getting to get more answers and having it take longer to find what you need to say to continue on was really cool.

8/10 game, I would rank it higher if I could get past the 40 minute mark but seriously this game is sick and is at least worth trying out.

(gonna disclose that I am acquaintances with one of the creators, Iodine, so might be biased a tad)
(also spoilers)

Burden Street Station is a short, sweet, and sublime visual novel about making conversation with peculiar individuals and building a rapport with them on a quest to locate a missing God. You're a librarian who sorts out moments of individual lives who gets sent on this aforementioned mission to a mortal planet, accompanied by a book that is missing its vital contents. All in all, I enjoyed my time with Burden Street Station and especially admire making a game with such a unique presentation that also doesn't rely on any combat-oriented gameplay. A game subverting the usual requirements of gun or ball for wider appeal. I respect it a ton!

The story moments intersect in ways I'm yet to fully digest or appreciate but, overall, the importance of valuing life's transience, of forging your own reasons to exist, and establishing connections weaves into a pretty tale that did strike a salient chord (albeit, I feel, a little imprecise in how it all exactly connects together). I like how the three moments you help orchestrate reflect the moon, sun and storm shelves you sort books into right at the start. I like the similarities between the final conversation, the reasons of the schism that leads to the whole premise of the game, and how that is kinda paralleled by the individual moments you discover; ones about religion, art, and relationships. Whether is a reflection of the creator(s) individual experiences, who is to say, but I'd be surprised for a game that so specifically highlights aspects of faith for that not to be the case.

This game is a visual novel at heart, which I respect even as a genre not really for me, and while I appreciate the variety offered through the multiple dialogue choices, I felt after a while I could very easily game the system. Lotown quickly taught me that the real way to advance conversations was to just find the response that prompted the person to keep speaking. At first, that might sound reductive because that's quite literally the goal, but I mean that I realised it was usually things that were specific questions that would advance the conversation. The other options would usually default to cookie-cutter lines that were wholly irrelevant or statements that would outright stop the discussion, meaning I never felt any need to use the insight or even rest on a bench. More crucially, I actually never felt I needed to pay much attention to what was said, because I really just had to notice patterns in the speech and not the words actually being used. It is a cool idea for gameplay, and I think it works fine for it's humble 3-hour runtime, but admittedly not as in-depth as I hoped.

On this note, I think LoTown was pretty load-bearing regarding gameplay amenities. In LoTown, there are bus stops to ferry you across the map, as well as a hotel to fully recover from multiple burn-out levels if you'd been abusing insight. These things, oddly, do not appear in the following two sections of the game. Sure, it makes sense you don't have bus transportation in some areas, but it did make having to run back and forth to check things a little inconvenient. It also felt like a bit of a design oversight considering we had it at all during LoTown.

Also, I will add that while Ruth's final interaction with Lydia was conducive to their 'moment' and all, I do think there was quite a bit of whiplash going from LoTown's happy reunion between Lydia and her brother to suddenly an intense argument where she swears to never talk to Ruth again. It's not that it was negative inherently but that Lydia's involvement felt odd, like she'd just been thrown in for the sake of drama, and I think there could have been a way to resolve Ruth's conundrum without the whiplash.

Despite the above criticisms, Burden Street Station is an admirable piece of stylised work that maintains a player's intrigue all the way through. I enjoyed it and I'm sure people more privy to visual novels would enjoy it even more. Well done to the people at Critical Reflex for picking this up and especially well done to Iodine, who I know worked so hard on this. Pat yourself on the back!