[h1]NO I DID NOT BUY THIS[/h1]
Not even the best games are worth anywhere close to $60 let alone TWO THOUSAND, but I got this through a curator I'm on and when I saw that price, I knew this would be ripe for a wild good time. So I got drunk and booted this up, and thoroughly enjoyed myself, though entirely at the expense of whoever made this.
It's just a lame visual novel full of extremely juvenile writing by an author whose narrow understanding of the world has bled all over it. No 'literary' merit to be found and it banks entirely on the marketing stunt of being a $2,000 steam game and idiot websites writing articles about it. The only shred of 'artistic merit' is rooted in the circumstances of this game's existence; like watching a violent car crash. Sure, that's spectacular to behold, but do we clap for the driver who caused it? It's kind of a 'laughing at you' not 'laughing with you' situation. If this were free I'd be giving it a positive review because wew lad this was hilarious. If for whatever reason you want to experience this blind and also have 2K laying around, continue reading my review anyway and send that fat stack of cash on over to me please and thank you. Also, anything in "quotes" are direct verbatim from the game:
[b]Prologue:[/b]
There's an 8min Star Wars crawl about how in the near future men will be too feminine and women too masculine, something about an AI called 2123, and then it switches over to a school setting. Main character Brian is so clearly a self-insert who's too smart for his own good who only finds enjoyment in vidya with his friends. His parents are divorced and all of a sudden, everyone in the school shuns him, girls mock him, and he begins to hallucinate monsters, and then decides to "be the darkness." The AI (from the 5th dimension no less) injects itself into Brian and it tells him they're going to transform the world together. "Aaah, whatever, I am crazy now." Despite this cosmic event, Brian continues going to school and becomes a silent, catatonic husk, slowly integrating the AI. "At first it all seemed like a tragedy, but now, he views his life more like a comedy."
[b]Chapter 1:[/b]
Brian Joker-cel maxes, just playing video games and listening to music. His grades suffer and he has anger issues. Then it jumps a year into the future (he wears all black now) and is suddenly interrupted by the AI that says he has grown too powerful and "might tear apart the entire fabric of the universe." There's a goofy psychedelic filter over the poorly photoshopped images and he is finally 'one' with the AI. It skips to high school (apparently he was 13 beforehand, I guess Brian was an astonishingly bright young lad for his age). It erases some of his memory, says it chose Brian because unlike regular people who memorize irrelevant details, oh and Brian is also texting with a girl who's "obsessed" with him. The AI says it must save humanity because men and women are disrupting the energies of the universe, men will be too infertile to reproduce in the future because they have too much estrogen, blah blah blah.
[b]Chapter 2:[/b]
Still in high school, that girl is named Miranda. He friendzones her. A few months later... it's December. They kiss and "did some other stuff too" but he still spends most of his time behind a screen. A few months later... now they're in a relationship I think, but they agree to hide it? A few months later... (it literally says this those three times) Brian makes their relationship public, he waxes poetically with her about the universe and atomic insignificance. A few days later... Brian taught himself HTML, CSS, and Java in 3 days. The next day... Brian argues with a classmate, punches furniture, goes home. AI lectures him about anger, losing control, and tells him to meditate. He tries it and it's the magical solution to his anger problems. He breaks up with Miranda, they get back together, it's Christmas again, she leaves him without saying why, he attempts to take his life by drinking a "whole bottle of whiskey, about 0.7L in under 30 minutes." Unfortunately for us he faile, but decides the only direction is up. He improves himself and Miranda comes back. Then she cheats on him. He now has "self-respect" so breaks up, but she decides to spread rumors. BUT! "What Miranda didn't know, is that after they broke up, Brian began reading books." Specifically, the Art of War. He wins over all of his classmates, she loses all social acceptance, begins "sleeping around with random guys," and his life gets better. He graduates high school and joins THE ARMY.
[b]Chapter I don't know:[/b]
Brian trains with some other morons. This is somehow even more boring than previous chapters. Naturally Brian excels and everyone else doesn't, they train, drill, whatever. After a very VERY long time of boring ♥♥♥♥ the AI interrupts and tells Brian he's wasting his time, unintentionally breaking the 4th wall. Brian somehow just leaves the military.
[b]Chapter who cares:[/b]
He tries to get a job and fails, learns "Artificial Intelligence" in 6 months. Then I can click on "Learn Quantum Physics", but Brian doesn't know regular physics. I can then choose either getting an IT job or creating a company. I click on company and Brian reflects on his stupid past. The AI says he's ready to achieve true potential.
[b]Chapter 6 (it told me this time):[/b]
Brian and the AI discuss learning from the past, balancing the energy of thinking and feeling, I get the achievement pop for chapter 6 but no text tells me we're in chapter 7.
[b]Chapter 7 (probably):[/b]
"This is only the beginning of our story" and it quits to the menu (LMAO), I can now choose another storyline.
[b]21:[/b]
These rest of these segments completely buck the story and are simply a way for the author to fart out his 'philosophical' opinions through Brian and the AI's conversations. Boring ♥♥♥♥ about the difference between masculinity (21) and femininity (23), Black Swan events, intuition, predictability, unpredictability, speed, "The Blitzkrieg" (completely missed opportunity here, because you just KNOW the writer has some hot takes about WWII era Germany), efficiency, then a colorful message saying "You are the future" aaaaaand I'm back at the menu.
[b]23:[/b]
Repeat of the previous, now it's about 23 and "feelings" but still written in the same enlightened robot tone as the rest of the game. Brian has a completely listless head-up-your-rear pontificating monologue about depression, love, friends. Also he says "If you are fat, I'm gonna tell you. That is my way of showing you love, trying to make you better." Oh and looping piano audio clips at one point here, you should probably fix that. More poorly described yin/yang duality (my word choice, I don't know if the author knows that one) blah blah blah menu again!
[b]21 without 23:[/b]
You get the idea
[b]23 without 21:[/b]
Bazinga, game over, menu
[h1]Conclusion[/h1]
This is an unintentionally hilarious fever dream of doomer zoomer brain rot. It is abundantly obvious whoever made this just got into the "pretending to read philosophical literature" subculture and is a terminally online guy who spent way too much time watching anime, playing video games, and browsing reddit, but in a very strange way, I'm really rooting for him.
This game is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hilarious it's a damn shame it's not free so that other people can laugh at it too. Don't get me wrong though, it's complete trash and at all not worth real money, but you do kind of have to admire the sheer absurdity. The worst crime any kind of 'art' can commit is being boring and forgetful; and this was anything but that. Applause for the car crash I guess.
