Dawntide sticks the landing on every single thing it sets out to do, with dizzying pirouettes to top it all off. 

The writing is poetic and masterful at crafting every sentence with emotion. "She yanks at the laces like she's trying to garrote her ankle" is the standard one can expect throughout the entire story - which is perfect for this introspective exploration of queerness, drifting on the waves of the past, and seeing the world change around you while you don't know how to move on with it. The game has a multi-route structure, but it feels unjustified leaving that as the description; you're bombarded with choices which always leave you anxious for how they will affect things later down the line.

And the art is entrenched with the storytelling itself. Form, shapes and colour are always used to say something words can't. A character portrait's composition can call on another, or sprites can change styles completely to reflect the main character's state of mind. There's so much attention to detail, and the skill is certainly there to bring the vision to life. This goes for the music too, and they're always bops. 

Let's hope Dawntide comes out of hiatus sooner rather than later, because the narratives set up deserve to be told!