A definite stand out! I'm sure everyone has already mentioned the wonderful visuals, UI and music/sound design, but it bares repeating! Everything is polished up wonderfully, and the game is a treat for the eyes and ears. Special mention goes to the sound design, normally the most forgotten element, it is given a lot of love and attention in this VN! The SFXs are of high-quality, and are used to emphasise the prose and music, without distracting from it. Talking about the music, it's wonderful - as expected of Pink! My favorite track has to be the title screen song, the deep droning violin (or cello? I'm not a music scientist.) works really well for setting the tone!
The story itself is very interesting, it's obvious a lot of thought was put into the world-building and fleshing out of the characters and their personalities. Despite this, (and most likely due to my lack of media literacy lets be honest) I don't feel like I was able to connect with the story or characters as much as I would have liked. Despite being one of the main characters, Sampo didn't really feel like his own person, instead being the sacrificial lamb who's death helps the MC realise his actions have consequences. Maybe it was because of the MC's guarded and apathetic behavior, but it was hard to believe he and Sampo were childhood friends, and as such I couldn't feel as much of an emotional payoff to Sampo's death as I think was intended.
The epilogue felt a little unnecessary, it didn't feel like it said anything that can't already be assumed, the MC still cares deeply about North-of-Moon and Sampo, and seems to regret his actions. I feel like the pacing would have flowed better without it, ending with the MC leaving the world behind through the wardrobe. Maybe having it as an optional side-story from the menu, once the main game was completed? I'm probably being pedantic at this point, I just have a lot of thoughts about this story and it's a struggle to lay them all out!
Rapid fire of things that caught my eye that I loved! Very professional looking UI, gorgeous background art, evocative writing (especially the surgery scene, ouch), pretty lighting effects on the sprites, accessibility options, the VN being in Godot instead of the common Renpy, and the CATS in the credits (instant 5 stars for that alone)! I'll stop yapping now, thank you for all the hard work making this VN, it really shines! (Like a... like a light in the)