Jessica Mack

The most realistic, honest, yet also somehow least cynical portrayal of romantic love ever portrayed in a video game. The sex-positive attitude is refreshing as it showing the bond between a man and woman without the expected "battle of the sexes" nonsense one must usually endure in stories like this. It's a lovely play if you're in a relationship. It covers topics I never thought I'd see in a video game. The gameplay is simple, which might be an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on what you're hoping to get from it. It can be repetitive exploring each island and basically acting like a janitor for the omnipresent "rust" material you find everywhere. Combat exists and can be tedious because it lacks a lot of the niceties that a traditional RPG would feature, so we found ourselves going back to restock our supplies a lot. You can potentially get caught unprepared for a longer battle or a series of battles. It's nothing terrible, but I feel like it smacked of padding. The UI is also a bit clunky. For instance, there's a certain kind of recipe which allows you to carry five each of four items. That means, if you want to do a full stock, you have to watch the same animation TWENTY TIMES. Co-op is overall fun, but because each player uses the same buttons for two totally different functions, the second player can end up commandeering directional control or control of the camera unintentionally. Sometimes I felt like it was easier to just be dragged along. It also has a really bad habit of crashing. It crashed more than any other game I've played that wasn't in early Alpha. But, all of that aside, it's worth it to watch the character relationship evolve and learn more about their situation and world. We need more games explicitly about couples.