Perfect Tides: Station to Station

一段真实而残酷的成长故事 Mara 18岁的大学生活，与前作相比起来更能令我共情，完完全全沉浸进去了16h（主要没中文读得也慢），尽管整体基调有点压抑，但也不乏难能可贵的轻松愉快时光，总的来说是一段值得回味的故事。

作为这部作品发布以来的首篇简中评测，恐怕我对本作的感受会和这作的诸多英语评测相去甚远。 主角Mara她18岁那年从小镇来到纽约大都会，而我18岁那年则从大都会来到欧亚大陆另一端的小镇。而对于我本人而言，Mara Whitefish这个角色几乎在尝试挑战我共情能力的极限（这并不说明我没法和她共情... ）。相比于评测区里面很爱她的一些人，我倒是觉得Mara是我非常难喜欢起来的一个角色。她非常没有自尊，也经常太想表现、太在意别人对她的看法，导致她很难向内搞明白、也很容易忽视自己的欲望。 我的生活、时代、出身背景、学术背景乃至对性的态度跟她相比，实在是太不一样了：她缺失父爱、一度痴迷于城市的灯红酒绿、（若要用《极乐迪斯科》那套来说）非常肉体派。她似乎跌落了、也似乎昂首挺胸站起来了，觉得家庭不过是缝缝补补凑活着过，也觉得爱情最不可或缺的核心不过是与男人上床媾和。我冥冥中有感觉，这些话题和观念距离我自己，恐怕有一整个大西洋那么宽——我尝试去重构这些想法的过程，只有是逻辑、理解、感性和共情，却没有肉体与感受。我觉得玩下来这么累，许是因为我的智力和精神在这10个小时内，一直在为我的身体代偿。 这部作品写得很自然，对情绪和情欲很有洞察力。我会觉得这作最明显的主题应该是 [strike] 爱情 [/strike] ，或者说像《Sex and City》那样，主题更多是性。我的感情和履历跟Mara差别实在是太大，而当我目睹——Mara最终发觉，她自己眼中的真爱不过是“他提供了她想要的（当然有陪伴方面的，但尤其是性方面的），她很满足”——的时候，一阵很强的割裂与疏离之感，伴着一种难以形容的平静，在撕扯我的泪腺。 我没有过和她相同的领悟；毕竟，我磕磕绊绊了挺长时间，才零零碎碎想明白，自己对爱情的期待和欲求中，其实并无对方咸湿的唾液和温热的肉体。不过Mara的这种感觉我却很熟悉：一种清醒的冷静，与一种看穿自己胸中疑云的解脱。也许这是我唯一（不借助共情对方和理性思考）和主角建立情感共鸣的时分。 我跟Mara，这个与我相去甚远的主角，冥冥中又有点相似性。弱冠之年已过、而立之年未至的年轻人，何不曾精力旺盛，又何不曾迷惘彷徨过。好在经历过这么多事情、反刍过这么多思绪之后，她想明白了，我也想明白了；那就在个阴天的午后，淡看潮起潮落、淡看云卷云舒吧。

Oh, this is a special one. I liked the first Perfect Tides a lot, though it did take me a while to get into it; but Station to Station fell into place almost immediately. It feels like a genuine development of its predecessor, in terms of the character, the writing and the game as a game, and it does a wonderful job of painting a clear picture of who Mara is and what she thinks and feels while succeeding at using player choice not to make her more fuzzy and vague but instead making it an essential part of the story and its themes. Station to Station is sweet and poignant, witty, at times abrasive; it made me care for Mara even when, and perhaps especially when, I wanted to throw things at the screen because of her obliviousness and self-centredness. I also can't remember a single game sequel I've played that does such a sublime job at actually developing the characters it portrays, rather than just giving us More Adventures With That Guy/Gal You Liked In The First Game. And, obviously, no game has ever used, nor will ever use, Bohemian Rhapsody as perfectly as Station to Station. I'd say the game was worth playing already for that scene - and everything else just made it better.

Disclaimer- I am not done with this game. I am recommending the game having played 9 hours, but I've seen enough to say that here is a game that can live comfortably in my personal and sacred narrative game pantheon alongside such games as Disco Elysium and Pentiment.  Like these two masterpieces, Perfect Tides: Station to Station starts with the concept of a literary choice-based narrative game, and stretches it delicately so you can see the glittering life blood flowing through the veins of the genre. In that magic illuminated liquid, we see our own lives reflected back at us- after all, what are our lives but a choice-based narrative game of sorts? Sheesh!! The game: You are Mara Whitefish, an 18 year old college student at a fictionalized NYU-ish school in a fictionalized NYC, in the non-fictional year 2003. You make choices and live your life, doing your best and learning along the way.  The colorful and juvenile style of the game is giving Humongous Entertainment vibes. At surface level, the game also made me think of the original Life is Strange. We've got a mousy haired student of the humanities making choices that matter as she grows up in an academia based setting. Despite being a much "smaller" production, I found Station to Station to be a way more authentic and impactful representation of youthful imperfection- Mara's interiority feels intensely vulnerable, specific and eloquent.  Instead of Life is Strange's semi-photo realism, Station to Station achieves greater realism while looking like it was drawn with a (skillfully used) digital crayon. The messiness of the visuals plus the sharp writing are competing flavors that elevate each other brilliantly. (Also, I've always been drawn more to written word than spoken word, so maybe I just appreciate that this game is full of written words which lets my imagination take more ownership of those words. If you aren't a fan of reading you probably won't rock with PT:S2S all that much. And that's okay too. I still love you!) The central gameplay mechanic in PT:S2S is cultivating ideas by reading and having conversations, and then using those ideas to write. This concept really gets my juices flowing! Papers you "write" are shaped by your choices- did you read Bell Hooks' All About Love? Or did you prioritize making time to attend that Marxist dorm room meeting? Being able to write papers with concepts that I nurture with my choices is a delicious compounding of player agency that is greater than the sum of its parts. As mentioned, I haven't finished the game but I am hopeful that it will honor my choices down the road in ways that I haven't imagined. The early returns are promising! (Side note, have you guys ever played Times and Galaxy? It's the only other "writing simulator" that I've played, and it's also a delight. I had to stop playing it a long time ago because there was a bug that kept me from progressing the story but I think that's fixed now. You are a robot journalist who can choose how you'd like to report on galactic issues. It's pretty quirky and fun and you should play it too :) ) As you try to steer Mara through her academic journey, you will also make choices for her about the relationships that she finds herself in. While telling my friends about this game excitedly, I would jokingly refer to PT: S2S as "Hard Conversation Simulator." The game's hard convos would raise my heart rate as I was forced to see myself in Mara, and think on the hard convos I have struggled through in my own life as I attempted to make the best of messy situations, while struggling with the unique sickness of being me. Like Disco Elysium and Pentiment, you struggle to do the best you can with the choices you are given, and you fail in interesting, funny, heartbreaking and beautiful ways. Rather than creating power fantasies to revise the outcomes of my past IRL messy choices, I find this experience encourages a safe space for contemplation, new perspectives, healing and forgiveness. Your Mara won't be perfect. But to borrow a line from Disco Elysium, something beautiful is going to happen! I hope you give it a shot!

Normally, I would cringe at reminders of what it was like being in your 20s. But this game makes you want to be gentle to the writing (or other artistic pursuits) that your younger self constantly struggled with. The Bohemian Rhapsody scene skyrocketed this to the top of my 2026 GOTY list. Perfect showcase of how stellar the animation is. Amazing game, can’t wait to replay it.

Every now and then a creative work comes along that halts me in my tracks and demands my full attention without distraction. For the last day I was barely able to peel myself away until seeing it through to the end. Station to Station feels like a welcome addition to the adventure game genre, one that has been sadly neglected with few new ideas in the decades since Lucas Arts and Sierra were at their peak. While the original Perfect Tides tapped into those nostalgic games of that era, Station to Station feels like it has more to offer than any adventure game since Grim Fandango. Replacing the standard inventory of items with ideas and experiences instead is fantastic. Already after my first play I'm considering what could be different on the next attempt. The closest comparison game that comes to mind is "Night in the Woods" where some decisions greatly change the outcome. Like that game, I see myself picking this up again many times to explore the possibilities. I love Mara; she is incredibly relatable. Insecure because of childhood bullying, frustrated with not being able to read or comprehend the way other people behave, and saddened by circumstances put upon her entirely outside of her control. Her inner tapestry often conflicts with those around her because it remains internal, only becoming external when she is well past her ability to contain it any longer. To her the blowups are well overdue, but come as a complete surprise to people around her. Is she bad at communication, or are others bad at interpreting her? It is impossible to know for sure because so much of what happens remains unseen and unsaid, and that is beautiful. The 2003 setting is so specifically nostalgic for me, a point where I had set into motion the effort to become a professional artist. Watching Mara attend school and follow the leads and creative strands to become a professional writer while living in the big city felt like someone had reached through the internet and stung me on my most sensitive nerve ending. While my own pursuit didn't fully take me into that world, a part of me still yearns for it on a deep, deep level. Mara's dreams and frustrations feel so real and realized that it feels very personal, and probably autobiographical from the context of Meredith Gran's previous works. As I said in my review or the original Perfect Tides, I hope this becomes a trilogy and we see Mara again at least one more time. I crave to know if she makes it, and how. I'm rooting for you, girl!

Easily one of the best written games I have ever played

Perfect Tides : Station to Station has some of the best writing ive seen in a game since Pentiment. There's a wonderful bit of emotional sincerity we get by being privy to the innermost thoughts of one of the most paranoid and self conscious characters in fiction, the kind we've all embodied at some point (or well, I have at any rate) when we interpreted someone else's words or lack of words or any number of potentially innocuous things as clear signs that you've upset them forever and all is lost and you should just move to a different country to avoid the inevitable embarassment of being confronted by it. Its as compelling as it is maddening. At times riding shotgun inside the protagonist's head feels like attempting to guide a nervous gazelle through a china shop. Her neurotic paranoia and overthinking are entirely intentional, but sometimes it gets a little, tiny bit too much for me, maybe precisely because I really DID use to think that way much more as a teenager and being confronted with what feels like a version of myself I overcame is uncomfortable. "Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable" you say? Well, fair enough I suppose. Like Pentiment and Disco Elysium, the writing excels in part because it paints with a wide spectrum of human emotion. The ups and downs of protagonist Mara's life make for a good canvas because its as varied in experiences and emotions as the City it takes place in and which, cliched as it sounds to say, is almost its own character in the game. The game is deeply funny in ways that we really ought to see more of in games outside of your Discos and Pentiments, its self effacing, its witty but not up its ass, its absurd and wonderfully human. There's a memorable bit where Mara goes to a bar and her boyfriend asks for Bohemian Rhapsody to be played for Karaoke. My first thought was of course "There is no way this game has the money to license a Queen song" and sure enough it didnt, but instead the DJ broke the fourth wall and asked me, the player to provide the song myself and use the timing of the text box to sync it up to the game. A bit corny in concept but it feels earned and sincere enough I was totally swept away by the moment. The point and click puzzles are admittedly not the most involved, despite being made in adventure game studio there's rarely any super complex inventory puzzles, but honestly Im fine with that. The ones that ARE there are usually employed well to move a scene forward and or advance some bit of characterisation. The real strength of the interactivity comes in the sort of Disco-esque mind palace writing system, wherein your understanding of certain topics you can bring up in conversation and in your writing for school or outside of it can evolve based on the books you read or real life experiences you have. Its solid writing advice, that whilst writing consistently is important, LIVING is just as if not more so. Its also cool in the way in which the narrator is both you and not you, there's some meta elements it lightly toys with when interacting with Mara's own views on topics or people you can directly interrogate and which nicely update based on the game's events, so its worth it to go back to them to see how they've changed; especially during the last act of the game following the lowest point in Mara's journey you can get a sense of both her initial hopelessness and eventual growth towards her own thoughts in an organic and player driven way, which is one of the ways in which despite excelling most at writing and literary style, it very much is a GAME and takes advantage of it. I could probably write 5k more words on the subject but honestly I think its a game best experienced relatively blind and the game's own excellent writing is making me feel self conscious about my own, in a meta sort of way. So in case its not been obvious, I think you should hop on Perfect Tides : Station to Station...NOW!

this game is like a power fantasy because mara can actually write papers without immense executive dysfunction anyway its fantastic in all aspects or whatever ,...,.

When you get older you realize that people you spent time with throughout your life changed you in ways you didn’t notice at the time. That goes for good people, bad people, good relationships, bad relationships. Embracing this fact and looking back at it honestly is cathartic and meaningful for personal growth and self-reflection. Anyway… pretty good game!