TL;DR 3.5 out of 5, great writing, very weird decisions.
To the reader that is trying to decide whether they should play this mod - if you like Snoot Game and want more of it - I don't see a reason why not. It'll scratch all the dino-related itches you might have, and it definitely has its very good moments. But it also has some things that are more questionable.
To the rest of the people,
Spoilers Ahead
I know some of the things I say in the review were addressed in the final bonus chapter. While it does clear things on some decisions, it still doesn't make these decisions any less weird in my opinion.
I also didn't read any other reviews or replies, I wanted to share my own opinion.
The Good
I love the writing. It may have some grammatical errors here and there, but apart from that, scene-to-scene, it's all very well written, feels genuine and all the characters feel like themselves, sometimes even better. There's definitely some character depth introduced to some of them (sometimes using clues from GVH, which I'm fine with) and it really adds to the experience. The story bits of seeing E1 unfold from different perspective are AWESOME to read through, I absolutely loved it, especially the harrowing realization that Spears covering for Anon inadvertently led to E1. It really adds the detail that E1 desperately needed.
Trish's arc is actually pretty satisfying - having a character break up because Fang/Anon messed up is a great way to show consequences of E1's events. At first I somewhat hated the decision because it really felt like "hurr durr everything's great now, except we booted the liberal, which makes it even better", but Bonus Chapters clearly shined a very different light on it and made it feel more genuine. I'd even say the most genuine out of all the character break ups shown in the mod. Also, mirroring Fang's relationship with Trish using Wren felt weird at first, but I was pleasantly surprised to see it actually expand on her troubles in a very meaningful way.
I actually loved the hand-drawn CGs. I know it's a weird quality contrast, but it really brings a certain vibe to this mod that I adore. It's just TBOI-like drawings of Anon imagining if events had gone differently while going insane from the events of E1 also he's in a coma and none of it is real!!!
I loved how Anon's disability was treated - no one was weirded out no one looked at him like he's an alien, and no one was dismissive either, it was written in a very respectful manner. I'm so glad the character with such severe mental disabilities was taken seriously. Oh, and the hand thing was cool too.
Overall the mod just has a lot of cool beats - Reed quitting drugs to inspire Fang, multiple Ripley and Samantha scenes showing that they do truly care, just in their own way, the backstage breakout written in a way where you can't really blame one party or another, how Naomi stopped Naser from running off after Fang and him being pissed about it, Naser becoming the better person to help and fix everything, none of the characters are antagonized - it's all written so well and it really feels like every character is given time to breathe and have their story and point of view explored.
The Bad
While there's gonna be a lot of things, some of them are less important than others, but I felt like pointing them out anyway.
First of all, I get that Naser's cool. I like him too, he's a great character, and I really love this mod's interpretation of him. But why is every character conflict resolved with Naser having a broken wing?
Fang upset at Naser? It's because Naser had a broken wing.
Ripley and Samantha don't get their kids? It's FWR and his stupid wing.
Naomi doesn't understand Naser? Hey Naomi, have you asked about his wing??? Have you tried asking him??????
And once the character finds out about the wing, they suddenly change their mind and it's like a revelation and it all gets better!!!
I get it. Naser's wing being messed is a pretty big plot point and expanding upon it is cool. But it was treated like it was the SINGLE reason everything got messed up. Once everyone learns that baby brother badly broke his big back body bling - everyone's super cool now and the weight of the years of arguments, crashouts, passive aggressiveness and bad weathers are now suddenly gone. It's a good starting point to resolve those conflicts, but it is handled in a way that just makes those issues feel so inconsequential. The only time it's somehwat addressed is when Naser hesitates to forgive Ripley in the hospital.
The mod feels like a series of suddenly good events. If the post-army epilogue didn't exist you wouldn't be at fault for believing that this is a mod that just takes E1 and tries its best to twist its' spine to what is essentially E4 (but without Trish). The characters just suddenly realize their mistakes and become better people. Cool I, guess.
The post-army epilogue feels like it was written because the author SUDDENLY remembered that it was supposed to be a sad story. Fang chainsmoking and ruining her voice? Yeah, sure, I can get behind that. Anon trying to do like the black scottish and blowing himself up? Feels like a complete ass-pull. It isn't a consequence of E1, it's just stuff that happens because the story needs to be sad. Don't get me wrong, it's well written, but why in this story? One could say that it's reflecting the fact that Anon still didn't learn anything and is still an irresponsible dumbass, but it doesn't really align with what came before it - Anon consistently suddenly being better and realizing all his mistakes. This would work way better as an alternative E3 story. In fact, the entire epilogue feels like an alternative E3, not an alternative E1, whatever happened before has almost no bearing on it.
Spears giving up on Fang's friendship with Trish was weird. It's kind of out of character and feels like author speaking through Spears just to reassure that's how it should be, as Spears is seen as an authoritative figure in Snoot.
Naomi's face. I know there's been a lot of complaints that snoot/gvh characters don't look like IRL dinosaurs and this mod showed me the reason why they don't. The car CG jumpscared me. Please don't do that.
The Ugly
I know it's a given with every snoot-related thing, but it's a shame that in the ending where Fang doesn't question being NB at all that aspect isn't explored at all - it's just dismissed somewhere along the way. Whatever. Who cares.
The topic that has been brought up dozens of times, addressed in the bonus chapter and probably beaten to death and I'LL BRING IT UP ANYWAY because BOY it needs to be brought up.
Ripley going ultra-instinct, doing a full perfect combo, getting a Brutality and absolutely going ham on Samantha, just DESTROYING her and splattering her insides across the room
Look. I can see how Ripley would actually do it. I agree, in fact, that it could reasonably happen. He has shown that he's short-tempered and is kept in check by Samantha. The entire family is short-tempered. Sure. I can go with that.
But why is it COMPLETELY unaddressed in the rest of the game? What's the message here? It's okay to beat your wife, but just once, as long as you get into a car crash right after and are also veewwy veewwy sowwy about it? Domestic abuse isn't a joke, and seeing it never get brought up after and not really impacting the rest of the plot just feels... ingenuine. I get that you needed some sort of a way to show Ripley lash out and for Samantha to let him go, but if you use something as serious as beating someone you love - you really gotta drive in what you meant by that. Something so serious is treated as a footnote that must happen so another "actually important" thing happens.
The mod just stops feeling like an E1 expansion right at the point where Fang says she's Lucy now to her dad. Like, that's it, from that point the mod has pretty much nothing to do with E1, we're just playing a weird inbetween of E3 and E4 where Fang is more of a person than Fang is in E3 but with some little imperfections that make them worse than E4 Fang in terms of character growth.
The mod doesn't feel like a last second save. Like yes, it's a save that happened at a second that happened to be the last one, sure. But there are so many mistakes, so many things that were wrong in E1, so many flaws and imperfections in characters leading to the worst possible scenario - leaving fixing this mess to the last second shouldn't have little to no consequences. I mentioned that Trish's arc being satisfying before, because that's the ONLY thing in the mod that actually feels like a consequence of things that happened in E1 - a major friendship ruined forever, something that can't be repaired.
The rest of the mod doesn't do that at all. It tells the story of "no, everything can be repaired and brought to the best ending". Again, Fang chainsmoking is cool, but it could've been an issue in literally every other ending, it's not really something specific to E1.
My main issue with the mod is, for the most of it, it doesn't actually use the foundation that E1 built. It just reverses it and makes everything fine (except Anon blows up his hand because, well, it needs to be a sad story actually!)
I know it's just wishful thinking, but wouldn't it better if it was a story about E1 that takes it for what it is - a messed up situation like a broken vase with pieces shattered and lost - something that you meticulously glue together to form something beautiful in its own right? Friendships lost, trust irrepairably broken, people upset at you and not willing to forgive or forget. And yet you persist, through all of that, to build a better future for yourself. To live with the consequences of your actions.
That's what I was hoping for when I was launching this mod. Instead I got something that'd work better as an E3 alternative.
It's good. It has its high points, and I enjoyed my time with it. But it leaves soooo much to be desired.
