8.4/10
It's good. Yeah, it's a really good story. I actually remember seeing a photo from one of the photo albums as one of my friend's desktop wallpapers in grade 9. She was super into the game, and since it's summer and I had a lot of free time and money from my job, I thought "why the hell not" and gave it a shot. My playthrough was 21 hours and it took me around 1 week to fully finish (playing it like 2hrs each day). With all that being said, this review is coming off playing Deltarune, a game I view as a 10/10, so I might be rather harsh. Also, I did have expectations coming into this game, that being its story being really good. That's all the talk about it I heard. I played the game spoiler-free btw.
Anyway the actual review:
The good parts were the story, the real world sections, the first half of Aubrey's arc, the showdown in the church, everything about the ending, and the reveal about Mari's death and the resolution of Sunny's arc. And the duet, in terms of visuals, writing, and song, was all perfect. The showcasing of Sunny's coping mechanisms about Mari's death in the headspace is also great.
The mediocre parts were the actual game mechanics, which felt pretty meh to me, where I got through the whole game spamming attack without having to do much else. The soundtrack didn't really stick out too much besides the previously mentioned duet piece and the song that plays in the forest area, and Sweetheart's Castle theme. Other than that, the rest of the soundtrack was mostly nothing special. The headspace itself in the first half was pretty alright and fun at times.
The bad parts were the second half of Aubrey's arc just being finished in one conversation in her room. This annoyed me to no end because it felt rushed. I was so curious about the conflict Aubrey brought to the story, her own story, and how they might slowly come back together as a group. And then the game dumps it all on you at once. I took off a whole point for this because I really, really was invested in Aubrey's character, only to get it abruptly resolved without further conflict. The other thing is, I felt the Last Resort/Deep Lake section overstayed its welcome and kinda dragged the endgame pacing down. This game didn't need 20 hrs. It could've focused on its strong point, which is its near-perfect story, and cut that runtime in half. I feel like if they wanted to make the lake section longer they could, but at least make it optional. Don't make me sit through 2+ hrs of a headspace that doesn't show me too much about the MC or affect the plot.
Characters I really liked:
Aubrey
Sunny
Mari
Kel
Characters I found okay:
Hero
Characters I was indifferent towards:
Basil (Missing most of the game and isn't in the headspace for a decent amount of time like Mari, so it's hard to care too much about him. I get that Sunny erased him from the headspace because he knows about the incident (that's what I interpreted it as, correct me if I'm wrong), and while that reasoning is good, it still doesn't make me attached to the character itself. He feels more like a Pinterest board of ideas (flowers, photos, etc.) rather than a character I can see the inner workings of during the game.)
Small note: when I say the OST is mid, I mean it's not something I'd have in my playlist. All the soundtracks work wonderfully in-game, but unlike Deltarune, I don't see myself putting any of these on a playlist. Actually, I'd throw It Means Everything onto a playlist (it scratchs a part of my brain the right way), so it gets a point there, but the rest of these songs don't really survive leaving the game.