When The Night Comes

I LOVE GAY PEOPLE

This is one of those games that I would rate "Meh, It depends" because there's so many things wrong with it, but there's just enough good about it to where I still enjoyed the game to spend 24 hours playing it (and this is just one playthrough too, which i did improperly & plan on trying to go back and redo some choices to hopefully get a more pleasant ending. So at the very least, you get plenty of things to read for your buck!) First of all, the biggest issue I had that kept bringing me out of the experience was just how often something would be hinted at in the story, in a way that implied it would be relevant later on, or come back as a "point of interest" somehow for the investigation*, and then Never get brought up again. There's multiple instances I had where the MC would think something or point a detail out as I guess a mental note to come back and look more into it in the future? But then these would straight up just never get mentioned again. Ever. Not even by NPCs. Even when you return to these locations, it's as though the idea never even happened. The most notable moments I can remember of this happening off the top of my head are (Spoilers, kinda) [spoiler] First, Aurora's brother. The MC points out how it might be a good idea to talk to her brother when she isn't there, but this is never possible, as far as I could find out. The game teases the idea like it would help further the investigation along, like he has some details you can question him on later, but then never allows you to do anything about it. The game just drops this immediately after. It's so bad I can't even remember what the guy's name is. The second instance I can remember is the carved/markings of eyes on the trees in the woods. The MC points them out and even says they'll come back later to investigate further, but again, this is completely forgotten. [/spoiler] These were the only two times i can remember atm, but still. Unless these do get brought up and i just somehow managed to completely miss figuring them out, I have no idea. (*Which, by the way, you hardly even do. You arrive in Lunaris to investigate a series of murders, but the narrative seems entirely hellbent on making sure you can't do any of what your job wants you to do. This is Not a "murder mystery" or "detective" type game (and while I didn't come into this thinking or hoping it would be, i was still disappointed and more than a little confused as to why it would try and pretend to be this way and then completely avoid any sort of investigative gameplay.)) Ok side tangent over. On top of lead amnesia; there's so many points where the story will just. suddenly introduce a plot point as though you already understood what was going on. I think this is because the game either doesn't take into consideration that you might not have seen certain scenes/encountered people/asked questions that would clue you in on specific information, so it makes it Very confusing when the MC suddenly knows about things you never learned, or is aware of people's existences as though you'd met them or heard about them previously. Again, spoilers for moments of this happening on my playthrough; [spoiler] The MC somehow knowing who Omen's sister is, or that he even Had a sister before meeting her in Ezra's shop. This was a complete surprise to me, as I'd never even spoken to Omen more than one time prior to this scene, so I had no idea what was going on, and felt completely alienated to the MC's worries because most of them were still strangers to me! Another time this happened was with Omen's apparent allergy to sweets(?) <- i'm still not entirely sure what that was about, but the MC brought it up twice (maybe more) in Alkar+Omen's romance route, even though I never learned about this. [/spoiler] Again, there's definitely more but that's all i have rn Something less significant (and definitely more of just a personal nitpick than anything) but I found it a bit immersion-breaking when the "Codex Update" notification popped up every time new information was added to it. It's small, but always grabbed my attention when it showed up. I wish there was a way to perhaps change the notification somehow, maybe make it smaller or not show up at all? I'm not sure, but there must be a way to make it less intrusive! Another thing with the UI (-ish) is text size. Unless there's a setting i'm missing of course. But an accessibility option to enlarge the text in the Codex would be such a relief. I shouldn't have to screenshot and then zoom in just to read the words. As far as what i enjoyed about it; I think I found more enjoyment out of the concept of the game than the actual execution. I think the writing itself (specifically as far as character writing & character's interactions go) is the best selling point. It got quite a few laughs out of me from some of the jokes (even if a lot of the things the MC said weren't anything I would ever say, some of it was still pretty funny). I particularly thought Ezra was the most funny and got the most smiles out of me. Each of the character's personalities are all fairly unique to each other and I didn't find myself getting any of them mixed up (unfortunately happens more times than you might think in visual novels...) Their tropes are pretty clearcut and personalities are easy to read.... Which could be seen as a bad thing, as they are also very predictable and never once surprised me or made me think "wow what an interesting thing to say". I rolled my eyes the most at Finn and Alkar, and skipped Omen's dialogue the most. Which might sound strange considering the only romance route i did WAS Alkar+Omen, but it's hard to explain. They, in a weird way, were only truly interesting to me when they were Together. In the same room. Both Alkar and Omen are extremely boring outside of this, but when together they bounce off of the other more organically. I didn't come into the game knowing who I would romance, but I absolutely kept going "Not you" over and over again every time I met someone. (Especially with Finn.... I can respect people who are into it, but I did not like him at aaaall.... The only good thing about him is his voice actor. and his prosthetic is cool too actually.) So eventually when I met Alkar, rather than going "OH this is the one!" I instead sighed and felt a distinct "Well. I have to choose /someone/...", and our dear lycan boy was the only one that stood out to me the most as far as personality/tropes go (What can I say, I like a good edgy outcast who's secretly soft.) so I chose him. Omen is so forgettable on his own, I'm not even going to touch on him. (P.S. I did get the Bad End ([spoiler] I took Harry's potion because it was the only option that actually seemed interesting [/spoiler] so it could just be that I haven't spent enough time with Alkar & Omen enough to get more attached to them, but... Oh well. I'll update later when I finish their normal route.) Basically, the story is okay, the characters are also meh (the most compelling characters to me were Piper and August, and i didn't even romance either of them!) so, for its price, i think it's fine. There's plenty of reading to do, but at that point I would honestly just recommend you watch a playthrough of whoever's route you prefer, or get the game on sale. It feels wrong to give this a negative review, but I genuinely believe the game is so unpolished and rushed and lackluster that I don't think it's worth it, even with the word-count and amount of characters & story endings.... I will likely only play it one more time to get a better ending, as I don't personally feel interested or curious enough to try and see the other character routes. Get it on sale if it still sounds fun for you, and I really hope you find more enjoyment out of it than I did!!