cute, short (~3-4hr) yuri-centric retro platformer with an oddball story told via VN-style cut-scenes, marred only by pretentious dialogue. the nostalgic game play, pixel art, and chill music are all very well-executed. certainly worth the asking price -- even more so if it's on sale or you're a fan of the genre, or yuri.
along the way, you fight various youkai, zombies, swordsmen, etc. as well as automated security turrets both stationary and mobile. the character movement isn't as perfectly dialed-in as other modern 2D platformers (Super Meat Boy, Celeste, et. al), but definitely feels true to the 8 and 16-bit era it draws from, before the days of easily-implemented physics engines. the difficulty curve is pretty well-done too, with new climbing elements, hazards (mostly floor spikes and aforementioned turrets), and enemies presented each chapter, building on those previously introduced. it never struck me as either unfairly punishing or easy, although a higher difficulty mode (or extra DLC levels) might be welcome additions if anything further is planned for it.
the story-with-a-story B-plot is almost entirely forgettable, and feels largely inserted as a means for the characters to go from point A to point B, i.e. "to get in the building of Evil Corporation, you'll need a keycard. that's located in the building next door on the 17th floor restroom. to get onto the 17th floor (the elevator is broken, you see), you'll need another keycard. that's located on the 11th floor office. to get into the office, you'll need another key (...)" ad nauseum.
on the other hand, the A-plot involving the player character, Fumika, and her love interest, Ayumi, had me rooting for their happy ending, despite the latter essentially being sudden girlfriend appearance, and having severe aloof manic pixie syndrome on top of being overly-verbose and quasi-philosophical in every other line -- although to be fair, a lot of this is at least partially explained later. the romance feels like it develops a mite too quickly given Fumika is supposed to be fairly reserved, and has never met Ayumi before (iirc). but within what I can only gather is a couple hours in-game, [spoiler]she's ready to confess[/spoiler]. despite this, the story does have some interesting twists and turns, as well as some interesting meta-referential concepts brought up.
which leads to the largest issue: the writing. the word used most often here seems to be 'pretentious,' and I'm inclined to agree. most major characters feel like they're written with the same voice, using overly-long, flowery and often stilted sentences with plenty of alliteration, puns, and wordplay. all of which served to make the dialogue nigh-impenetrable less than halfway through, at which point I often found my eyes glazing over and skimming large chunks to get the gist which would have been better served by much fewer words. I can't tell if the developer has chuunibyou (it certainly comes through in Ayumi's dialogue), logorrhea, or both. much of the back-and-forth is between the aforementioned two characters, and after a while feels like a single person having an internal dialogue.
over the course of the romance, there are also a decent handful (no pun intended) of mildly enjoyable softcore ero scenes, albeit nothing shown is more racy than nipples and non-explicit digital-genital contact with the uncensor patch. in the default version, the images are further covered and thereby the actions more implied, although everything is described in excruciating detail. the narration in these scenes is possibly the most eye-rolling of all.
the graphics and artwork are relatively simple, but everything is clean, uncluttered, and easy to identify at a glance, which within the limited resolution and color palette is an absolute must. it's just too bad the same less-is-more approach wasn't taken with the writing. at least given the overall length, it doesn't overstay its welcome.
