Jake Anagnost

This is the most disappointing game I have ever played. It's marketed as a relationship building game, which are some of my favorites. But this was so far from that. The story sounds great, 9-5er finding themself and figuring out what matters. But it's far from it. The whole concept is based on your time working and building relationships, but the relationships are surface level at best. The interactions with the folks that live there are short, awkward, lame. There is so much meat that could have been added through the interactions, since most of the game is spent working, but even most of the interactions are had during your shift. Nothing about the interactions feels genuine, they feel strained and "develop" in really unnatural and forced ways. You are given so little time to actually interact with people that when it's time to make your decision at the end of the game, it was almost too easy to pick going back to the cushy city job since nothing, learned or unlearned, about the other characters was enough to make me want to stay. Especially the interactions with the two love interests at the end, they were so painful. You didn't get to know them at all, yet both put a weird amount of pressure on you to stay. Most of the other characters were downright mean, again, leaving no reason to want to stay. And there were side stories mentioned and then just left to die. There's no chance for us, the player, to get to know the characters, as most of the interactions happen off screen. The structure of the game is both loose and too rigid. The mail route itself was fine, but it was incredibly boring. It seems like it's supposed to be easy and calm, but it's just boring. The route isn't interesting enough for there to be a complete lack of challenge. The flow of the game was also terrible. Glitches galore, characters just appearing and disappearing, dialog mismatching and cutting itself off. The further along I got in the game, the worse it got. The one redeeming thing about this game is that the graphics are really nice. The scenery is beautiful and the town is set up in a very nice way that feels comfortable. So while it wasn't all bad, and I do see such a great amount of potential in this game, it truly was the most disappointing game I have ever played.