TL;DR Neat art direction, pretty rough everything else though
Although it took a needlessly excessive amount of effort, I got through the game. I did not have a good time due to the many technical flaws and strange design choices but I enjoyed some of it, so here's the resultant review.
I'm going to start with the cons first:
Immediately, at the title screen, hitting Escape to start the game is just confusing without any prior context. The point I'm trying to make is that it's fine to have the key to start be Escape, as with some other games, a non conventional title screen can play into, for example, the setting, characters or story. The problem is that Metonymy didn't indicate this in any way, unless I missed something on the store page. That, or I'm reading way too much into it and it was a bug or oversight of sorts.
Not a great start, but I stuck through it.
I was then thrown into a cutscene with the ugliest cel-shaded lighting(?) and facial topology possible. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be off-putting or something, but when the characters' rigging seems to very obviously distort their body model, uncanny valley style, it's hard to give the animator(s) the benefit of the doubt. Not only this, but action was hard to follow, not just in the opening, but in the later fight scene as well, with characters moving sporadically and shot durations that heavily rely on the player's reaction time and virtually non-existent kinetic vision in most cases.
Animation aside, story was not super difficult to follow, however it does expect you to suspend you disbelief at immense heights and just kinda roll with it, which is where I saw some influence from Suda Goichi. Along with this, remembering a few names to solve that first "puzzle" and hearing about events prior to the start of the game acts towards its detriment and was kind of lazy in terms of world building. I am not saying that the story itself was bad, it was just presented in the most jarring and inaccessible way possible. More on this, there are two worlds presented in the game that have essentially no relation between each other except for the main character (I'm assuming, it's the guy with the tie). The regular(?) human world inside his head being juxtaposed with the fantastical sci-fi universe around him adds to that confusing feeling, which I don't think was intentional.
On a side note, this regular dude being dumped into a sci-fi world thing reminded me of an isekai anime, which kind of made me want to kill myself.
Now, onto the characters, namely, the main character human duo. The male (Colin, I think) is most obviously a wimp who, I imagine, will undergo some character development in a probably-never-to-be-made sequel. For now, he just comes off as a deadweight, whiny and impotent (at least until he has to fight against the assumedly very powerful Third Metatron, where his strength begins to exist for some reason). The female (Trish, was it?) is alright, albeit kinda unoriginal as "spunky action girl #237". The dynamic between the two is strange as well, as I don't know whether she cares about him or not, with Trish pushing Colin to possible and probably certain death but later, sticking around to make sure he gets out of the containment facility(?) with her, even if it costs her time and in turn, life. The non-humans don't really count so I can't say much about their characters as their dialogue mostly revolves around world building and plot driving.
Nice job explaining the gameplay, my dude. I know it's a 'final battle' with the difficulty and all, but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Also those button designs lmao, I'm glad I used a playstation console for most of my life. Not only were they weirdly shaped (might wanna revise X and Triangle, along with L2 and R2), but they came at the player from many different angles that forces them to dart their eyes everywhere. I may be talking out my juicy bum bum here, but I'm pretty sure the intended audience for the game was just you guys who designed it, with the passion part of passion project taking front and center. This isn't a bad thing, but please, if you're going to release something for the general public, release something a wide variety of people can play effectively or at least have a tutorial/practice mode to go with the game. Definitely get some playtesters for next time, you could probably find some ezpz if you're still in college/university.
Low hanging fruit, the walking section was way too slow, but probably because I wasn't quite sure of where to go. Slightly higher hanging fruit, way too many camera angles being changed too quickly while walking at that slow pace, often breaking the 180 rule of composition, and not in any meaningful way, making character control extra slow and ruining immersion.
I don't know why you used the names you did, though I'm sure there's a lore explanation. It just takes me out of the story you created by making me remember biblical references instead of keeping me in your persistent universe. It's fine, just a little nitpick that really irks me when a character using a whole (I'm guessing original) language says the word Enoch in not!English.
Pros:
Okay, that art direction gives me an art erection. Those ornate head decorations were pretty awesome and a lot of effort went into making the sci-fi world really stand out by upping the surrealism and theological overtones in lieu of hard science and more grounded concepts. Gives me an EYE: Divine Cybermancy feel, but in a slightly different direction. This is what I wanna see more of, though I doubt it'll come anytime soon. On a side note, the six statues looked really nice in the low(er)-poly sense, great use of angular geometry. I would be remiss to not mention that the lighting didn't help the model and some bits were a little busy in terms of composition, but I loved them otherwise.
Also, great work on the environmental design, I can see emphasis on the almost brutalist geometry, creating a kind of alien world with a tinge of heirachy, with respect to the "throne room". I can't see much that is wrong with the environment, so I'm happy there.
Speaking of the environment, your shot composition (specifically the composition, not the duration or the changes between shots) was very pretty to look at. The camera angles may not have told important stories or created drama between characters or plot (there wasn't much to go off of, so I don't blame you), but a lot of them created and released tension to varying degrees of success, mostly well done. Notable examples being the first shot of Enoch (you know the one), and the almost top-down view of him during the walking section with the shadows of the pillars blending into his cloak, contrasted starkly with the white light shining between said pillars. Like I said, didn't say very much about his character or the plot, but gorgeous, mostly.
I'm not sure how legit that made up language you had is, but if it checks out, I'd say it's pretty damn neat, reminds me of a mix between German, Latin (or Italian, I'm not great at languages), and a little bit of Slavic. I'm actually intersted, so if you read down here past my negative stuff, I'd be wanting to get some more insight on it (if possible).
Bugs(?):
The throne room leading to Colin going outside cutscene played twice, it's probably because I'm running Windows 8 64 Bit or something, not super important but I thought you should know anyways.
All in all, I sound pretentious, so take whatever I say with a sack of salt, but I thought I'd share my own two cents on something with so much potential and passion. I would absolutely love to see more of this, but the game can definitely be benefitted from putting more emphasis on pacing, less unnatural animation in cutscenes, more time spent on establishing shots (I DO NOT mean the walking section), and an easier to digest story.
Against the glaring flaws, I can really appreciate this for what it is, a dream, realized with a drive.
