If I had a button to selectively erase memories of a game so I could play it for the first time again, this would be right up top, maybe second. This was a rollercoaster I was not expecting, sublimely crafted to mess with you on a mental and emotional level. It got me, and good.

It's a Visual Novel, so there's a ton of reading, don't expect a fast-paced start! It can be very tempting to skip over things but I plead you not to, this is very much worth investing time in and paying attention to every little thing. Also don't count yourself as done until the credits roll.

Set aside 4-6 hours depending how fast you read, 6-8 if you're streaming and reading everything out.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to play this with as little prior knowledge as possible, spoilers of any kind really ruin the experience. Glance over the game description and the disarming visuals with the peppy music then dive right in. You will notice there are content warnings. They are not messing around.

If you're streaming I'd advise turning off chat, setting it to emote-only, or having someone proxy non-spoiler messages to you, as excitable fans as well as trolls will give too much away.

Spooky mansion has a spooky letter in it, if you read it then a ghost will occasionally come and do bad things to your blood pressure until the bad thing is that you don't have any left.

That's the story in a nutshell. Picked up for Halloween, looked cheap and cheerful, good for a few laughs and maybe some jumpscares.

Before I knew it I was deeply, DEEPLY invested.

Around 28 hours for a first playthrough (with all voice lines playing and reading out anything unvoiced, cut that way down if you're going at a solo reading pace) but I took around 60-70 hours total to explore all the routes and get the true ending, which is worth!

What takes time to show but shines brilliantly when it does is how much love and passion has been poured into this. How deep the choice structure goes. How wildly different the story will be depending on your choices because they really do actually matter, far more than any other game of it's kind that I've played. How human, flawed and complicated every single character is; at first they all appear tropey and shallow but never before have I now felt empathy this deep for a set of fictional characters. I have publicly shed tears over everyone, multiple times.

I want to dive deeply into all of the things I discovered as I played that opened up new layers to the writing and experience, but I'm very glad I knew none of them going in so I'll refrain.

It's a Visual Novel so prepare for reading, but it is fully voiced and has some very charming animations to aid the experience.

The writing is playful and silly half of the time, deep and emotive when it wants to be, combined with the non-linear structure it takes a lot of skill and planning to be this coherent and powerful, although the text is littered with minor grammar errors

Characters are complex and deeply flawed, even a hateful, spoiled, highly bigoted scumbag you've written off as irredeemable can be someone you feel for later. Even if they're still a scumbag.

Ash however, can get in the sea.

Going down different paths will almost always reveal something new about someone, an extra side to them, or an admission that an opinion they shared elsewhere may have not been entirely true..

The art at first will seem wildly inconsistent, it uses very different styles in every corner of the game, but after a while you embrace it, it's wonderful seeing these characters reflected in so many styles, getting a new CG or journal entry feel like real goals I want to reach, and are very satisfying. Achievements and their names popping up are almost always bring a grin for happy moments or feel like a kick while we're down for the bad times.

The horror while infrequent does not mess around. At it's core it's creepy imagery not quite outright jumpscarey but you may definitely jump in fright anyway, with unsettling animations and disturbing content at times.

The music is phenomenal, atmospheric, unintrusive, mood-setting and heart-swellingly powerful when it needs to be

The voice acting talent is incredible, voices are clean, rich, warm, full of emotion, subtle inflections, heart-wrenching cries. I rarely have this much praise for English language VA work but I cannot stress enough how much I enjoyed these.

Long story short. Loved every minute, would highly recommend, would take a bullet for most characters, may have splashed a stupid amount of money to buy the collector's edition. If had time machine would go back and join the kickstarter.