Z.A.T.O. // I Love the World and Everything In It

a game actually made me think a lot about my personal insight about the world i'm living and made me hyper aware of it. Something i already thought about a lot for a long time that it became a source of my personal distress but this game made me face that directly and it is, comforting and profound. Another game that will make a mark on my mind and my design philosophy for long period of time. i am aware at how the game pacing could be better as i think the final episode feels too rushed and it loredump a bit at the end and after the second chapter and the jump between that and the start of third chapter, it kinda made me question about what happened to marina and garin and possibly, ira [spoiler]after she collapsed[/spoiler] and i want to know more and i think this game would benefit more to the tension and exploration to the concept of the "higher power" and [spoiler] reality distortion and anomaly stuff[/spoiler] if there is another chapter between marina and asya's chapter and if asya's chapter was longer than marina's. but either way, for it's current state, i don't mind it, the final scenes with [spoiler] tosya and asya going up at the tower [/spoiler] was one of the greatest scene in indie game. i wish it was executed better cause it can be much better and more impactful than how it is impactful to the core theme of the game again. Again, i like it but it can be better to make the story much better! but aside to that, for a free game, it offers something really good and profound (i said it again) for someone who loves discussing philosophical output and our purpose in our life and our fate. while the music is royalty free, it really paints the atmosphere of an isolated russia city really good and i think if a royalty soundtrack can do it, i think an original soundtrack can deliver it well better. i have nothign against royalty but i love how it helps to paint the environment well despite it wasnt really made for this game in actuality. I love the art direction and style where it choose to use real and post processed images for the background, partnered up with an artstyle that looks pixelated (but not an actual pixel art btw), i think those are match made in heaven and it adds up to the mood the game conveys. i hope we see more from the devs of this game, wether they decided to expand this game, or the core theme of this game or this game's world or make something entirely different. i think they have potential to deliver much beautiful than this already great beautiful game.