Mesmalie

Mesmalie is possibly my favourite game of the year and there's one big reason why. MESMER CARRIES THIS GAME (Not in a bad way, she just steals the show) This point and click style visual novel solely wins me over (and many others) through its protagonist Mesmer. Seeing her character briefly in the store screenshots, trailer and one review I watched completely convinced me to purchase this game. Her appearance is unique, helped massively by the game's great hand drawn art style. Her character is incredibly likeable through her dialogue, jokes and numerous crazy sprites of her singing, dancing, pulling faces and Spinning around. Without Mesmer this game would still have charm, but it is the writing and depiction of her that will make this game stick in the minds of so many for so long. Her character arc is well written and contained within an incredible mystery. The story itself is almost perfect, although there are for sure a couple of downsides. There are multiple endings, albeit this mostly boils down to the good ending or the bad ending. You will almost certainly get the bad ending the first time, as one of my main cons with this game is how hard it can be to work out the steps needed for the better outcome. The good ending is well done but it just feels a little tedious having to do each specific step to achieve it, especially when repeating scenarios and dialogue over and over although this is accounted for with the many dialogue choices that keep repeat runs interesting for a while (unless you just search for a guide). There are a few characters but realistically the game centres around you and Mesmer for 90% of the time. I also felt there could have been more meaningful endings. Even the good ending feels more like the "ok" ending there's a slight lack of payoff the story builds to. I felt there was an obvious "best" ending that would have been nice, but it's not my game and it's their story to tell, so this is only a small issue of mine. I will say don't come in expecting Undertale or Omori levels of depth, gameplay, and replayability as admittedly the game boils down to 2-3 mini games, dialogue and a few endings. It's a short experience and I do feel like this game could have almost been a tester for a larger story. I actually really like that this game is short and sweet yet has had such a profound impact. I 100% completed the game after around 7 hours. It could have taken longer, but I used a guide to get the last achievement and I am thankful I did, as the steps to achieve every ending (There's like 30+ smaller endings) are really tedious. They mostly revolve around a gimmick where you can run away at any point for some unique situations and dialogue. I cannot count these runaway endings as real endings as whilst some are incredibly cruel, sad, heart-breaking and/or funny, the majority are throwaway lines about your character leaving and that's it. To me there is truly only 2-3 endings. The music is good for each scenario, albeit I must admit there's no one track I could see myself coming back to in my own time, at most a couple very cute piano songs I would listen to again. I'm thinking of games like Undertale or Outer Wilds here as in some ways those won me over with their music whilst Mesmalie won me with its dialogue and Mesmer herself. The music is just nice and fitting for what is happening. My best advice is to just buy it and have an amazing time. It's an unforgettable experience and Mesmer is a character unlike any other I've come across. She also drinks orange juice at one point so the game is 100% Orange Juice to me.