√Letter - Root Letter -

[h2] Recommended with reservations (Thumbs up on sale) [/h2] I went into Root Letter expecting a typical visual novel, but it plays much more like a point-and-click detective game. I was honestly just trying to clear a backlog game I bought years ago, but the mystery behind the penpal hooked me fast. [list] [*]Game Mechanics: The story is influenced through letter replies which felt fresh and made sense contextually. Best of all, on repeat playthroughs, there's a skip button to skip the common chapter entirely—no endless button-mashing like in other VNs after dialogue replies. [*]Complex Characters: Everyone has a mix of good and bad traits (can't judge them too much since we have to understand that they're immature high school students) and unsaid baggage, making it believable why someone would confide in a total stranger. [*]Point-and-Click & Investigation: To be honest, the point-and-click mechanic can get annoying a lot of the times. Thankfully, the "Think" button gives helpful nudges when you're stuck, and Investigation Mode gives you plenty of room for error. [*]Great Setting & Lore: Exploring real Matsue, Shimane spots—like Kamiari-an (Kamiyo soba), Karakoro Art Studio,…

cozy game ^-^

Zero keyboard mapping can be found and controller hardly controls anything. Can only save and use phone which controls menu in extremely specific parts of the game it seems. Have to wait for a very long time to get to a spot where you can access your phone and do anything so it makes saving very difficult. With that being said, the art, animation and music are beautiful. Plot seems really good. Just sucks the controls are so bad.

not bad it's making me feels like a detective

[b] It all goes well until the ending. [/b] The story is original and really interesting, to the point where I wanted to know more and more about the truth, but the ending makes everything that came before feel so dumb. Still, the game was really enjoyable, and even the gameplay was more engaging than in most visual novels. Also, unfortunately, the true ending can't be achieved on the first playthrough.

While I did enjoy the story, it did feel very flat at times. Other than the "true" ending and the "horror" ending, the others were dumb and made no sense. The "check" system was also super annoying and I actually got the acheivement "Check 100 times" just from trying to click on the EXACT small part you're suppose to check which I laughed out loud whilst in the midst of "checking" everywhere.