Okay, let's go, writing a messy review while my memory is still fresh...
I want to begin by saying I'm a [i]huge[/i] Holostars fan. (I can't vouch for what this game is like when you don't know Holostars.) You'll just have to take my word for it when I say I wouldn't blindly praise official Holostars content just because I'm a fan. By no means.
This is exactly why this caught me off guard. [b]This game is amazing.[/b] Honestly, I didn't expect it to be that intriguing and good.
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[b]First off, it is just as violent as everyone including the content warnings say.[/b] I kind of can't put this into words, but I'm speaking as someone who's really bad with gore: I genuinely appreciate the amount of gruesomeness added? There were some graphic descriptions going with the CGs and I thought "They aren't fooling around here, they're serious about this stuff". It never felt like endless senseless splatter horror. In any other context this could've bordered on such an impression, but knowing how happy and silly Holostars often are, here the violence served as proof the team really wanted to make an AU that takes itself seriously.
[b]Also related, but this game handled AUs exactly the way I like it the most.[/b] It's a world different from the canon world, but it's the real world to most people in the game. Some characters know meta stuff, but absolutely not all of them do - which to me is the most interesting way to write AUs. It didn't devolve into a pure meta-references-fest, it didn't devolve into all the characters suddenly being comedic at the end of their route and being like "omg are we in a videogame about vtubers?! oh nyooo i'm just pixels!!!" Even the meta stuff was taken seriously in the game, and because it was well-written, it felt [i]believable[/i] to me.
[b]Checking off my last subjective points: [/b]
I'm a big fan of every Holostar, but from TEMPUS I vibe with Shinri the most. And I followed multiple people's advice to play the routes in debut order (Demon King>Exiled Prince>Showman>Abandoned Automaton>Karasu Demon>Huntsman, except I accidentally mixed Hakka's and Flay's ordering up at that point because I thought the route choices in the game were presented in debut order and thus blindly followed them after the first 3). Honestly, I think you'll get a lot of bang out of your buck as long as you start with Demon King and end with Huntsman. Because both seeing Shinri received this kind of doppelgänger AND seeing what exactly played out with him simply killed me tenfold and makes seeing the true ending directly afterwards hit as hard as possible.
And wrapping up another reason I think this game is incredibly well written: I've played a handful of VNs, including murder-y ones and romance-y ones. This is the literal first VN where I consistently felt the dialogue options led exactly to the player character using them like I interpreted the choices. I've always thought I'm horrible at VNs because dialogues never went the way I expected them to after choosing my desired option, so it was hugely comforting and positively surprising that for once, a game seemed to have understood what I was going for when I went with that option.
[b]Finally, both the CG art and sprite art are amazing (the Showman's CG and the Huntsman's closed-eyes-laugh sprite are epic), and I'm glad about the sound design.[/b] They could've made a VN with crunchy af free SFX and way-too-known stock music, but I'm pleased their chosen sound design supported the game's atmosphere nicely.
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I can't write all this without voicing my mild critique. It's minor since my enjoyment of Doppelgänger wildly outweighs my complaints.
[b]The bugged achievements are an obvious one.[/b] I'm still hoping they didn't just drop this game into the abyss and will never update it, because I'm not a skilled gamer that can 100% every game I touch - if I want to have any say and choice in what game I would love to 100%, it's Doppelgänger. Supporting the boys, supporting my love for this game.
[b]Also on a non-technical end, I did think the game was kind of short.[/b] It's incredible for its length, and I got some serious value out of it. In fact, while I think all the 6 main routes could've been longer, I don't think they can be an actual complaint point. [b]However, the [i]ending[/i] was so short it shocked me.[/b] I'm a sucker for happy ends, so it's definitely not about the vibe they went with. It just... felt so abrupt? Yeah, I did just go through 6 tragedies, you're right, game!! If you're not allowing me to bask in an attempt to change something about the doppelgänger's despair or see them again outside of their routes, at least let me live in the happy end a little longer!! If you want to make it a tad more ominous by being like "wow here you're hanging out with the nice guys :) all is well...................... but in the corner of your eye you see [hint of the doppelgängers].................. is everything really going to be okay?", whatever, I'd take it! I'd take a longer description of how the real TEMPUS' reunion plays out!! Just... give me a little more time with the in-game universe after we went through all that. Everything was so well-written, even the too-short ending felt like real conversations between everyone. So I would've loved to enjoy that just a bit longer, to feel like I was seen off in a more well-rounded way.
Nonetheless, as stated repeatedly,[b] I had a ton of fun with this game.[/b] "Pleasantly surprised" is an understatement. I'm very thankful to the Holostars Managers, the Holostars boys and everyone related that we are able to play this kind of high-quality game with dialogue that never felt out of place. I always knew they know what they're doing, but this proved they're insanely cracked at this kind of thing and I direly wish for more Holostars content like this. [b]Thank you so much for making this game, it was a blast to go through!![/b] [strike]Until then I'll live vicariously through bowing to my Doppelgänger acrylic standees weekly whenever they arrive.[/strike]
