GNOSIA

Ugh. I finished at around 150, last few rounds were fast. 30 hours total. My criticisms still stay the same basically. However I can not lie and say I didn't enjoy this. It feels dumb to leave a negative recommendation on Steam after spending 30 hours and walking away feeling satisfied. Just very niche. ------ So I did play longer. I wrote the review after 45 rounds, now I'm at 125 I believe. There have been bright spots in the game, and I do enjoy it. However, I still would not recommend it to the average player while still recognizing its niche. I started getting more consistent story bits after 60 rounds or so. Once you get your skills to a higher level and can control discussions more, it is much easier to complete more "objectives". When the game lets its characters actually do things outside of the card game it can be really cool. This is still few and far between overall. There also comes the problem where if you get high enough exp, now it goes from you walking on eggshells around everyone, to being a master manipulator. Honestly, that growth is fun, alongside your own experience with the other characters increasing allowing you to deal with them better. I still do not think the average player will find playing 100+ rounds of what is functionally a card game fun though. Now that I'm at round 125, I have only a few story triggers to reach before what I assume is either the end or a big climax. This has been the case for about 25 rounds. Now there are so few very specific triggers that I need to hit. I have not been able to get one to hit in a long time. I do think there is some hidden narrative railroading to some degree once you hit certain points, but right now as far as I can see I'm stuck to both RNG and praying that a round plays out for the specific event to trigger. I know which characters I need to focus on as the game tells you, yet this also creates a problem with the Mafia itself, as now you are not focusing on the core gameplay, rather you are sucking up to one person and praying for their survival in hopes something can trigger. This was not an issue when there were so many triggers left to hit before. I do like this game. Again I would not recommend it to most people but I respect it. I'm not sure if there's anything to change because the developers had a specific vision. ---- If this was a VN first and minigame second, this could have been a lot better. After 9 hours of gameplay, I am barely interested in anything further. This is a Werewolf/Mafia simulator first, VN distant 10th. I played Mafia a lot when I was younger. Gnosia is just Mafia if everyone playing only went off vibes. You CAN deduce things in Gnosia, but more often than not it comes down to time-gating due to stat allocation. If you breathe too often with low stats, you lose. I have played around 45 rounds and I actually have gotten quite a bunch of the "story scenes". Yet I am not interested in the story that is being revealed at all, because there is nothing being revealed, and the characters are giving me no reason to care about them, because this is a card game, not a VN. I am sure the rounds will get easier with more stats, but that's not fun, and only one of the random story events was genuinely intriguing. I may fall further into sunk cost by playing another 50 rounds in hopes something interesting happens only because it takes me back to being younger.