Please note: This game should be considered a Novella/Sequel to the free game "Deliver Us From Evil" and the paid DLC "Cadenza". Cadenza is £6 and this game is £4.29, so call it £10 for the full "experience", with a very long "prologue" you can try before you buy the DLC for the first game.
You CAN play this first if you wish, but I feel like the background story gained in DUFE and Cadenza is a great thing to have entering this game. Not to mention their character introductions are honestly fine, but they feel a little lacking if you've played the first game - purely because you've spent so much time with them and it's hard to really describe them properly in so few sentences, so I think you give yourself a disservice playing this first. (And if you want even MORE Keldran, he appears as a cameo in "Yonder World: Interview with the Void" as well.)
I ALSO recommend to play Ace's route first. As you're forced into his mind for a few of the acts anyway, so staying with him is just consistent, and I had a nicer time swooning over Keldran in Ace's mind.
Now, if you've played DUFE and Cadenza? This game is excellent. It's more of what we love about those games, and it's very "on-brand" with the feel of the story. There's a 'fair' bit of voice-acting, too. Mainly on the important scenes, you'll be happy to know.
There's also two CGs that I felt were very well-drawn, which is no surprise from Galen Games' work thus far.
I also really enjoyed the narrator's part in this story, which really tied it together for me with the resolution and the comparisons with "fear" for this spooky, supernatural halloween story being a real fear many of us can relate to in the end. If Galen Games decided to do more short stories like this, for Keldran or even a new group of characters, I'd very much enjoy the format. But that being said, I'm certain I'll buy the next Galen Games work anyway.
Onto my only negative: This game is very short. There is one choice in the entire thing - so you'll be happy to know you don't need a guide, and there is one "ending", so getting 100% achievements is a cake walk, and no pesky missing CGs. However, it's very short because you spend the majority of it forced into Ace's mind, even when you choose Keldran, you revert back to Ace, so you read a lot of the same text again. I finished it within an hour, but I am a very fast reader, so you could maybe get 2 or 3 hours out of this if you take your time.
Some might say that's too little for the amount you pay, but I found myself smiling and having fun with it, and it's still very cheap for the professional, excellent quality you get from this game. Especially within the LGBT+ game dev community, as most of it is either £20+ or terribly drawn. There's no bugs, glitches, or even spelling mistakes. It's been tested thoroughly, and the voice acting is high quality with a beautiful sound track. Which I am very happy to pay for £4, when creating a game like this can take a very long time and a lot of energy/effort.
It really just depends what you're happy to pay every month for BL games, and how much you enjoyed DUFE and Cadenza first. (But btw, there was a rude discussion topic from a randomer about the LGBT content, so consider even just spite buying it to support an ally dev against narrow-minded 'phobes, even if you don't have time to play it quite yet.)
