No matter which way you try to look at it, every facet of this game gently murmurs "craftsmanship," and guides you away from analyzing, and back to just plain enjoying. No element here feels either unnecessary, nor like a cut corner. The art style might seem simple, but each background communicates setting with panache, and combined with the atmospheric soundtrack and excellent sfx, lays the groundwork for a chilling setting.

Hugo and Noah are a good hot-and-cold pair of crime-solving partners, and the hints of warmth in Hugo's expressions (especially when interacting with his real partner, Colby) quickly clue you into someone less crusty and cutting than Hugo would like you to expect of him. The character sprites are really quite excellent; the expressions and the designs give you a strong initial impression of exactly what you need to know in order to proceed.

The UI and transitions have a deceptive simplicity to them. A VN has a film language all its own, one that is much too easy for those unfamiliar the genre to ignore, but that Stillwater absolutely has not. A blur between scenes here, a change in character sprite style here, the use of either full-screen text or NVL mode to read letters, camera movement along a background in order to imply the movement of a character. The devs understand that a visual novel is not just words and images, but how they are presented, and they speak the language of VN like poetry.