This story makes interesting use of the VN medium and has a distinct style that pulls its atmosphere together.
The visuals are quite impressive - the colours and design is almost a little too much, but the illustration and craftwork make it pleasing. Love the colouring style used on the characters during still frames. The only thing is that the menu bar may have been better placed above or below screen, rather than switching left and right.
The themes that immediately became clear was the loss of physical and psychological space for one another, both due to external and interpersonal factors. Alba is primarily self absorbed, and it shows in her words and actions. It's her most defined flaw throughout the story.
- Spoilers and Critique -
The characters' ages not being obvious at first glance. I wasn't sure if this is on purpose, but having Erica drop that both her and Alba are in their thirties felt extremely jarring. Neither act like they are in their thirties, which made it all the more shocking. I think the story suffers from a lack of clear ages and time setting, and making that clearer would not detract from it at all.
The prose has its strong moments, but often becomes difficult to read. The dialogue flows much easier than the narrative, which makes too-liberal use of semicolons and gets verbose at times. The most glaring example would be Erica's dialogue post-Nicolening, which ends up making cloudy her immediate thoughts and emotions.
Alba's character is consistent, although difficult to sympathize with. There's a lot of unclear elements to her past and present - What's the background of her teacher-student relationship? What does she actually think about the implications of inheriting her father's business? What does she really want from Erica?
Alba doesn't take active control of her story, instead passively living it. She doesn't have the hard conversations. She doesn't try to grapple with the political contexts her hereditary privilege operates in. She asks if the curtains are just blue after her trip to an art exhibition. I think she functions quite well as a character you simply cannot root for. Her passivity is what shreds her relationship with Erica in the end.
I think my main issue was the lack of emotional buildup and catharsis. The closest thing to it is the burning of the post office, but the regular scene cuts and jumps make the sudden climb clunky rather than seamless. Nicole and Alba's confrontation gets close to it, but ultimately pulls away before the tide can fully rise. The ending unfortunately did not deliver what was packaged into the prior story.
Unfortunately, the intertextuality did not add to the story in a way that added extra layer and meaning. The passages and ideas inserted into the story felt broken off from the narrative rather than integrated into it. I could tell that Buddhism influenced certain writing choices (Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu!), but it popped up in such a way that felt jarring rather than an element that made sense for Alba.
Excellent visuals and atmosphere, writing didn't quite live up to it.