Reviews - Angel9RakouCobra

I'll be frank: When I first started playing, I thought it was just a soulless 2D game, quickly slapped together, throwing text in where it pleased and passing itself off as art. Shallow. Boring. Pretentious. But I wasn't very far in. I knew it wasn't fair to judge a game without giving it a proper chance.

So I kept playing, in the beginning forcing myself, assuming it was just another overrated artsy game with no real meat to it. Well I was wrong; without noticing, I began to feel myself compelled to keep going, the feeling growing stronger the longer I played. Soon enough, I almost literally had to see the next part. I played it in one sitting, unable to pull myself away despite it having kept me up past 5 AM at that point.

It drove me on relentlessly, leaving me constantly wanting to know what was next, and why such-and-such a thing happened... why characters were who they were. I kept thinking I came to a conclusion, when once again it would twist my thoughts.

I came to the brink of tears repeatedly towards the latter part of the game. I winced when I saw something bad happen. I smiled for the characters when they were happy. It ripped my heart out to see them suffer. And then I realized – I’m feeling so strongly for a bunch of pixelated sprites, not even realistic looking things… this game is THAT powerful.

I told myself again and again, “Don’t cry. Don’t cry. It’s just a game.” But when the ending came, there was nothing I could do. The waterworks were coming whether I liked it or not.

That’s not to say the game is depressing. Far from it: It’s sad, it’s happy, it sprinkles in humor when it knows it needs to… and it ends in such a way that your tears most certainly won’t be of sadness. It pulls at your heart and mind simultaneously; it makes your emotions come out full force and provokes your thoughts with the many questions, both story and real life related, it poses to the player.

Quite simply, it was the most moving, beautiful game I've ever played.

I picked this up with the IndieRoyale St. Patrick's day bundle. I decided to play it first, despite having never heard of it. Absolutely glad I did. Short, but oh so hilarious. It sums up perfectly how I feel about DLC and the direction the gaming industry is taking, and the dev delivered all the jokes very well. It's one of the funniest things I've seen in a while, and I'll definitely recommend it.