This game isn't like any other I've played before. The art and music are beautiful, the gameplay is simple but not boring, the difficulty is adjustable, and it's incredibly clever how the characters and their surroundings are all metaphors telling a deeper story. That story is much darker than the fantasy story on the surface, but both tie into each other so well. The content warning is there for a reason...

I think it's important that this game deals with the issue in a way that is subtle and told from a perspective we don't usually get to see. It's important to see abusers as humans, to see their good parts as well as their bad parts,so we don't just brush off abuse "because the person is too kind to be an abuser." Abusers are not entirely evil. They can be both kind and cruel, and there's usually a twisted kind of logic they use to justify their actions. I feel this game represents that concept very well. It's also interesting to see how the game handles the topic of one action ruining the lives of several people. Even those who were not directly involved in the incident have to deal with the aftermath.

I understand why some people don't like this game. It deals with sensitive topics and you could argue that it makes you sympathize with an abuser (although in my opinion the victim is still much more sympathetic). But I think it tells a story that needs to be told. No one is 100% good or evil. Everyone has a conscience. What's important is that we take responsibility for our actions and try to become better people. We can't undo the harm we've caused, but we can learn from our past so we don't repeat the same harmful actions. This game is far more than a fantasy adventure, and I believe there's a lot to learn from it.

It's not long (can be finished in 2-3hrs) or difficult. Combat uses a novel radial-motion attack where you direct a flame around yourself in order to hit weak points. It's simple, but manages to fill the game's short length before it can get too stale. The story touches a sensitive topic about emotional abuse, both onto others as well as oneself, but the game just isn't long enough to address anything significant about it. So it's easy to find it metaphorically obtuse at best, or offensively self-centered/pity-fishing at worst.

It's a modest project, but does some surprisingly brilliant little things, such the "purpose" that its equipable items serve. A huge gameplay spoiler: Avoid this if you have any interest in actually playing it.
Equipment stats offer boosts to Attack, Damage reduction, and Cold resistance. The equipment's flavor text all revolves around how they're pieces of increasingly radical rationalization, coping, and deflection of wrongdoing. But their stat boosts in actuality do nothing. Absolutely ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ nothing. They're placebos. Over the course of the game, you'll be forced to give up equipment slots (thus losing aspects of your maladaptive behaviors in favor of "truth"), tricking you into feeling vulnerable even though nothing gameplay-wise has changed. This is an actual instance of "video games as art," drawing tangible parallels that no other form of media can. It's the one thing this game must be praised for.

It frequently goes on sale for less <$1. Well worth the admission to satisfy morbid curiosity.

This game was alright. which means I wouldn't recommend it unfortunately. However, I would still like to share what I thought was done well and what brought down the game.

If you decide to get this game, I recommend playing with difficulty on the lowest setting, as the gameplay was not that fun and the story is THE game.

Quick disclaimer, I played with a keyboard, so I will not be mentioning clunk (idk if other reviews speak about it)

So lets start with the best parts. The story is good, and quite sensitive, as the disclaimer at the beginning of the game warns. I think the message is good and the characters are also good for the short time we have with them.
The voice acting was overall good, I liked the voices and how they said things. There was a consistent problem of spacing words though, some pauses were too long or felt unnaturally placed.
The 2d art is great. I love it.

Now the negatives.
The 3d art was very lacking, brick textures in some places were blurry and I couldn't affect this through any settings I changed. The demon poles also looked very ugly. The rest of the 3d art was quite uninteresting, and overall it just felt like it was added afterwards as a budget/time thing.
The gameplay. I honestly think we didn't need a lot of the battles presented. It made the enemies feel boring and repetitive, and the enemies later sometimes stood around and attacked 1 or 2 at a time (except for ranged enemies of course), which limited the difficulty a lot. There was an interesting enemy at the end, however the hitboxes were so jank I couldnt hit the spores on him because he layered over them, so this was very frustrating.

so yeah, tldr:
Story good, not exceptional but still good,
gameplay average at best and very drawn out,
Art is split, "ruined" by 3d visuals
Voice acting is cool

get if you are interested in the story, ignore if looking for gameplay or anything else (unless you come for voice acting?)

TW: Sexual Assault
So this game is a tricky one. I knew as soon as I read the trigger warning and some reviews that this would have some narrative weight. First of all I love the gameplay, fighting, visuals and every other part of the game itself. It is just amazing and I highly recommend it for those facts alone. However when it comes to narrative, I think that the story will be rather dividing based on interpretation. First off if you have any sensitivity to the subject of SA DO NOT play this game. The narration can be uncomfortable but that's kind of the point. You should feel disgusted. That's actually done very well as well as the progression of the story being revealed. The use of the npcs and flavour text all add to the narrative and it's done masterfully well. The divisive part is how the narrative concludes. I will not say the specifics but I don't blame anyone for disliking this choice. I actually think that it's okay. I feel that the story isn't asking for your sympathy but an acknowledgement that Daniel was wrong but life also has to move on. In order to not spoil anything else I'll just say that though the ending is testy, the storytelling is also very well done. I actually really liked this game.

I hated absolutely every second i spent on this game. The story is stupid in the beginning and completely uninteresting. The combat is annoying and just trying to prolong "play"time. The bossfights are painful, especially the last one. Even on easy they are just too long, too hard and completely unfitting.

In addition the story is just problematic. A woman was raped/ sexually assaulted and we are playing the guy who did it. Thing is, this issue is not being dealt with in a healthy way, the assault is excused. The dude is the typical "nice guy", blaming the woman for everything. It's disgusting and i cannot recommend you support the dev who has this vile idea for a game and message.

in under two hours, 'the other half' is a character self-exploratory journey after a traumatic experience in which said character is the culprit and perpetrator. as soon as you open the game you get a warning, this is about sexual assault, a theme that is not only very sensitive but also extremely difficult to get a satisfying ending. i don't think there's ever a satisfying ending to such theme, so the point we reach with this game is at the very least acceptable.

the gameplay is not exactly interesting but it's very responsive and the scenario has parallels to what is being said during the monologues/dialogues. i will recommend this game because i think it does a good job to show MEN the mistakes of forcing themselves onto others, after all we follow daniel's path, not annalise's. if this game helped an incel or two to have some enlightenment towards their expectations and ways they treat women, this is a win already.

It's a very exciting game with challenging yet manageable fighting, excellent voice acting, it's short, might take you around 3-4 hours to complete yet it makes you think and shows you are not the only one who has similar problems. Absolute must and highly recommended.

This ranks among the most wonderfully horrible games I've ever played.

A dark-fantasy short story, where at half of the plot the fantasy part disapears and the story became dark...very, very dark.

Love it.

This game honestly just seemed like it was trying to build sympathy for a the perpetrator of sexual assault. I saw what they tried to do, but it came off as "I feel bad for assaulting someone, give me sympathy." Honestly a story that really didn't need to be told