ooohh this was a great addition to EMFH's story! :D
(SPOILERS)
i thought william was a bit underused in the first game so seeing him get the spotlight (theater pun intended) is so cool! i love how his demeanor isn't villanous 100% of the time; before the play he acts ambitious and strict for sure, but you could totally buy that he's a normal dude, especially with how he talks to the other teachers and his friends. it also ties into one of the best parts of this universe: the combination of realistic character interactions and aspirations with the macabre concept of a school that teaches how to torture. and i think this game uses this contrast in a really clever way; the point where this "realism" starts breaking (that is, when william starts acting extremely deranged and self-aggrandizing) is when it's revealed that everything was just a fantasy. the vibe of this universe is super unique and it's used really effectively!
the art and music are top notch once again. the character busts and the CG look slick as hell, and it was cool how it paralleled the first game by having the main character be the only one with their own busts (aside from david, marcus and ms. elizabeth). it also played really well into the narrative, as the whole game is a fantasy where william is the main character instead of harry, and once again, the moment where this breaks is at the part where the fantasy stops. and the sprites are great too, super detailed and full of color, and seeing the puppeteer contraption (which was one of my favs from the last game) used on many people in a theater setting was delightfully dark. and the music was once again great and super moody! i did notice that at the very beginning the track felt way too somber for being at the first few minutes, but it wasn't too big of an issue.
for a short spinoff, the plot was really interesting and well written! love how i started by thinking "wait, he's alive? maybe i missed something...", then "wait, he has a position of power at the school? i thought he didn't do that well with his final project?" and when he starts going insane i truly realized that something's very wrong, which lead perfectly into the twist. love how much more depth the plot gives to william; displaying both his ambition and cruelty, and his humanity at the end with his final monologue. maybe this sounds weird but it kind of felt like... the game itself was halfway starting to realize how screwed up everything about itself was? like i said earlier, this world does a great job of balancing the morbid nature of the school with realism and normality, but in the first game there's a moment where that balance starts to break; right at the end, when all the students who didn't make the winning project get tortured and killed. at that point, it felt like the depravity of the school's concept appeared in full force, before going back to balance in the epilogue (i'm not saying this was a flaw, just how i saw it). and in this game, we see it again when william's fantasy breaks. at that same moment in time, when the students are getting killed, the horrible effects of the school show up without any realism to balance it. and that's not only shown by the killings, but by william as well: it feels somewhat implied that his ambition and fantasies of being viewed as a master of his craft come from the competitive nature of the school (after all, any who don't get the best score at the project get a horrible punishment, so it makes some sense that students would get competitive), and then... we see it again with the ending monologue (which is excellently written and super depressing), which not only shows william's human side but also the effects that this failure has on him. the concept of "everyone who comes lower than the best project gets killed" makes him think that he failed his parents and his brother; for not being the best like he thought he'd be, and because he'll literally never see them again. the final scene is probably the biggest standout moment in this series, and it overall feels like a perfect ending for this story. god the writing is so good!
i think i said it in my EMFH review but sometimes the dialogue scenes felt a bit too long and redundant; the king lear sequence was really cool conceptually but it also felt somewhat stretched out. and this is pretty much a nitpick but the design of the halls at the start where you're looking for different rooms is quite samey and i got kind of lost sometimes haha. also, past the start... i kinda wished there was more exploration? i know these games are very much focused on dialogue, but going through more parts of the school like that, even if it's just walking to the next plot scene, would've been pretty cool and immersive.
overall this was a solid and interesting as hell spinoff of this universe!! no pressure to make more content out of it of course, but if you guys do i'll be seated to watch more students using horrifying torture methods :D
(p.s. the vitruvian got perfect scores but the kill switch is slow enough for william to do an entire monologue? smh harry was a nepo baby in this essay i will)
