It's easy to see why this game was so highly-rated by critics. Picturesque backgrounds, an interesting premise, and decent voice-acting work all contribute to a surface appearance of a quality game experience.

Sadly, the final product is yet another example of an interesting premise ruined by a shoddy delivery.

What could be a potentially-interesting sci-fi/paranormal mystery is hampered by uninteresting and unlikeable characters, and a slipshod plot filled with contrivances and held back from any explorations of the mystery theme to instead indulge in melodramatic teen angst. There's no plot to explore beyond "go to island, spoopy things happen", and none of the side characters are really explored in any depth. Instead everyone is shallow and one-note, a flat cutout for the player to interact with (or ignore, thankfully) that has no real bearing on the overall story beyond the now-prerequisite "Were you nice or mean?" checkboxes needed to decide which of the endings you get. That alone might be worth something if the player were given any reason to actually care about the side characters, but sadly, this just isn't the case. The player is never given a chance to really know any of the other characters in-depth, even if they choose to make the effort. Rather, they exist only in how they relate to the main character, who herself treads some pretty run-of-the-mill territory as far as protagonists go.

On that note, the player has a tiny bit of leeway to influence the main character's development, but even that is bungled since the option to choose numerous dialog options at various points means her personality can end up being completely uneven; you can be horrible jerk to everyone and still be randomly kind for no reason, or vice-versa, and the game can't really anticipate or react to that in any meanfully way beyond "well you were still a jerk 90% of the time, so I guess you get the jerk ending".

The problem, then, is player investment. If you care about teen angst and are willing to get drawn into a YA novella about unlikeable kids arguing with each other, then maybe you'll get something more out of the "plot" experience. But even if that's the case, there's still no real enjoyable game experience to be had. There are no real puzzles to solve beyond "go here, do X, go here, do Y". There are two spots in the game where you're given a "quiz", but failing them has zero effect on the plot so there's no reason to bother even trying. There are collectibles to find, but they all revolve around the player's radio item, which amounts to popping it open and scrolling until you get the right frequency—not a lot of brainpower involved there. All of this is made into even more of a chore given that the main character moves at an agonizingly-slow pace, only running seemingly at random. This is made even worse when you require a follower NPC, as they often have a tendency to lag behind or get stuck in the environment, forcing you to wait for them before you can transition to the next area or use whatever object you're looking at. This only exacerbates the game's already plodding pace into any absolute slog. I've heard tell the game can be finished in roughly 3 hours if you don't bother with collectibles, and I'd hazard a guess that at least 80% of that is just watching Alex slowly shuffle her way across the screen while one of her inane companions yammers on incessantly about nothing of relevance to the plot.

If you're willing to essentially turn off your brain and just let the game's developers pitch their ersatz-Stranger Things screenplay idea at you for a few hours, maybe you'll get something out of the hackneyed plot and shallow characters and faux-80s style. But for me personally, I've seen it all before, and there's just nothing here to grip me or invest me in the game beyond looking at the seams and realizing how easily it all comes apart,

tl;dr: The plot is a mess of annoying characters, and the game itself has no challenge or difficulty or thought to it. There's just not a lot to like here. But I mean, I guess the backgrounds are pretty? And the voice actors really did the best with the material they had? And it's got some of that faux-80s soundtrack going that's all the rage these days thanks to Stranger Things? So I guess that's an B+ right there, 8/10, 4 out of 5 stars, yadda yadda yadda.

It's not a terrible game, but I can't recommend it to anyone that enjoys a remote amount of depth. Go play Night in the Woods instead. It's more charming, the plot has better build-up and payoff, and there's some actual gameplay in there to boot.

It's easy to see why this game was so highly-rated by critics. Picturesque backgrounds, an interesting premise, and decent voice-acting work all contribute to a surface appearance of a quality game experience. Sadly, the final product is yet another example of an interesting premise ruined by a shoddy delivery. What could be a potentially-interesting sci-fi/paranormal mystery is hampered by uninteresting and unlikeable characters, and a slipshod plot filled with contrivances and held back from any explorations of the mystery theme to instead indulge in melodramatic teen angst. There's no plot to explore beyond "go to island, spoopy things happen", and none of the side characters are really explored in any depth. Instead everyone is shallow and one-note, a flat cutout for the player to interact with (or ignore, thankfully) that has no real bearing on the overall story beyond the now-prerequisite "Were you nice or mean?" checkboxes needed to decide which of the endings you get. That alone might be worth something if the player were given any reason to actually care about the side characters, but sadly, this just isn't the case. The player is never given a chance to really know any of the other characters in-depth, even if they choose to make the effort. Rather, they exist only in how they relate to the main character, who herself treads some pretty run-of-the-mill territory as far as protagonists go. On that note, the player has a tiny bit of leeway to influence the main character's development, but even that is bungled since the option to choose numerous dialog options at various points means her personality can end up being completely uneven; you can be horrible jerk to everyone and still be randomly kind for no reason, or vice-versa, and the game can't really anticipate or react to that in any meanfully way beyond "well you were still a jerk 90% of the time, so I guess you get the jerk ending". The problem, then, is player investment. If you care about teen angst and are willing to get drawn into a YA novella about unlikeable kids arguing with each other, then maybe you'll get something more out of the "plot" experience. But even if that's the case, there's still no real enjoyable game experience to be had. There are no real puzzles to solve beyond "go here, do X, go here, do Y". There are two spots in the game where you're given a "quiz", but failing them has zero effect on the plot so there's no reason to bother even trying. There are collectibles to find, but they all revolve around the player's radio item, which amounts to popping it open and scrolling until you get the right frequency—not a lot of brainpower involved there. All of this is made into even more of a chore given that the main character moves at an agonizingly-slow pace, only running seemingly at random. This is made even worse when you require a follower NPC, as they often have a tendency to lag behind or get stuck in the environment, forcing you to wait for them before you can transition to the next area or use whatever object you're looking at. This only exacerbates the game's already plodding pace into any absolute slog. I've heard tell the game can be finished in roughly 3 hours if you don't bother with collectibles, and I'd hazard a guess that at least 80% of that is just watching Alex slowly shuffle her way across the screen while one of her inane companions yammers on incessantly about nothing of relevance to the plot. If you're willing to essentially turn off your brain and just let the game's developers pitch their ersatz-Stranger Things screenplay idea at you for a few hours, maybe you'll get something out of the hackneyed plot and shallow characters and faux-80s style. But for me personally, I've seen it all before, and there's just nothing here to grip me or invest me in the game beyond looking at the seams and realizing how easily it all comes apart, tl;dr: The plot is a mess of annoying characters, and the game itself has no challenge or difficulty or thought to it. There's just not a lot to like here. But I mean, I guess the backgrounds are pretty? And the voice actors really did the best with the material they had? And it's got some of that faux-80s soundtrack going that's all the rage these days thanks to Stranger Things? So I guess that's an B+ right there, 8/10, 4 out of 5 stars, yadda yadda yadda. It's not a terrible game, but I can't recommend it to anyone that enjoys a remote amount of depth. Go play Night in the Woods instead. It's more charming, the plot has better build-up and payoff, and there's some actual gameplay in there to boot.