ESC

Wow. That was a hell of a ride. Highly recommend.

I want to throw my review out here just because of how few this visual novella has and its quality. I like to think of it as a sort of novella with a soundtrack and a bit of visual flair, as it is hardly interactive. I found it after listening to a few interviews with Lena Raine and thought it would be interesting to see another outlet for her creativity besides music, and I was not disappointed. I am a fan of weird sci-fi and ESC definitely delivers on that, even if some of its ideas may have aged a little poorly when relating to [spoiler]ai and its effects[/spoiler]. It was enjoyable to see how ESC brought together its disparate ideas with the core one of the CereNet, and the twists and turns of the actions of a small subset of its user base. I've never participated in online roleplaying, but it was surprisingly easy and enjoyable to get into as a framing device for a majority of the game's narrative. If anything put me off from bits of this story, it was the sections written in a more traditional, first person, perspective that have the more interesting plot and concepts, but the tone of the writing is fairly insufferable and arrogant for me compared to everything else. There i…

It's neat to see a story-driven game (a VN? would I call it that? not sure) that experiments on such a fundamental level with the mode through which you interact it. The story was confusing in an interesting way, driven by nostalgia and identity in a way that felt, to an extent, intentionally unresolvable, in a manner that was thematically compelling.

the setting, the music, the writing, everything about this game is a gem. this is always the first game i recommend to ppl wanting to play a visual novel. definitely recommend skipping the review section and going in blind

incredibly captivating story. wish I could go back and experience it all again for the first time.

Fun game, it's more of a book with music and some visuals though. Quite interesting, do recommend if you feel like reading a lot. Nice soundtrack too, Lena Raine cooked with this (It's why I started playing the game in the first place.)