Yo! So, I finally managed to finish this kinetic visual novel after some breaks in-between and two hours of gameplay in total. I will admit, the reviews on various technologies, animes, and visual novels felt like filler and unnecessary information to me that only padded the runtime of the story, not enhance it in any meaningful way. The only exception is the last review where it connected back to the main character and his struggles. The ending was well-done. Although, it did anger me, considering he was right there in figuring out the meaning and importance of continuing to live on in a physical state, even with the recesses of his mind prodding him away from the idea of giving up his fleshly confines. Ironically enough, by giving into his fleshly and human temptations, he gave up his freedom and life in doing so. It's a bittersweet tale at that. Otherwise, there were two glaring typos in the VN.
It states towards the end, "Shooting our like a violent fountain..." I think it was meant to be "out" and not "our".
Another one was in this sentence, I believe, "Looking down at her face with a combination or rage, contempt, and behind it all, hope." I think you meant, "with a combination of rage, contempt, and hope" not "or."
Otherwise, I didn't enjoy the way in which the sentences were broken up. I had to press the spacebar a few times to see the sentences in full, where it would cause me to reread the sentences sometimes once I finally reached the ending punctuation marks. Other times, I found sentences being dependent clauses and not independent clauses, which annoyed me at times and caused a bit of initial confusion here and there. Although, I understand its the style you were going for, and I could generally read through this visual novel with ease.
I also think there should have been some words connected with a hyphen to make certain adjectives grammatically correct, but I paid no mind to them. Surprisingly, despite the protagonist being pretentious himself, I didn't find the writing pretentious this time around, unlike in your other work, Limerence. Although, I liked how in Limerence how you moved the backgrounds around in steady movement to denote change and break up otherwise monotonous scenes. Albeit, I didn't mind the still images on the screen in this case. Yet, when there wasn't a character sprite depicted when he had the vermilion-colored dream, that was a missed opportunity there to showcase more art.
Furthermore, I liked how the protagonist's room changed in hue depending on the time of day. When his room was neat and tidy, without crumbs, ashtrays, or food in the setting yellow of the sun, I thought that showed character growth on his end. Yet, when the day darkened, you went back with his original setup with his dirty room instead of making the scene consistent with a dark but orderly room. So, there was a visual discrepancy there.
Otherwise, I not only liked the art and its visuals, but I also appreciated the music and the short audio segments of voice clips as well. However, when the main female character showed up to the protagonist, it caught me off guard when she wasn't assigned a voice. However, I quickly became accustomed to the lack of a voice behind the character.
I even thought both characters were well-written and fleshed-out and felt for them at times. However, I felt as though the incessant commentary broke away from the story and the plot, and the real-world American references and Japanese ones that I was aware of on some level also broke a certain level of immersion for me.
Is this supposed to be fiction or nonfiction? Furthermore, the use of using and mentioning various IP from many real-world sources could spell legal problems if not careful, as fan games have been taken down before for infringing on a corporation's copyright. So, something to keep in mind there.
I understand that this is a love letter to visual novels, but that also doesn't make for the most compelling or gripping narrative. The dream sequences were by far the best and the most original parts of this whole experience. I wish the story would have been more like that where we, the readers, follow the main character and his life. Instead, we got a bunch of unnecessary commentary on unrelated subject matters to the overall story, or we were spoonfed information on backstory.
Although, I understand that we were following his day-to-day life and thought processes with his blogs, but they could have been cut short as small tidbits of information so that the reader could go back to the main story, which could have delved deeper into the main character's external struggles with living in a house, which we got glimpses of, or his internal struggle with loneliness or emptiness. Heck, we could have gotten a flashback of his time at school from his perspective when it actually happened, where that could have been a whole arc of him feeling empty and then crying at school. Instead, we were simply told the information, which made the emotional weight of the scene have less impact, although impact, nonetheless.
Similar to how you gave the readers questions about who the mysterious woman was in this visual novel through the use of dreams and interesting banter between the two characters, I think that method of mystery and immersion could have also been employed regarding the protagonist's past through the use of random flashbacks that would give the reader one piece of the puzzle, and the more they read it, they got other pieces to the puzzle. Likewise, you could have posed questions there for the reader, like how the protagonist's parents died or what happened to his circle of friends.
Furthermore, flashbacks like that could even juxtapose how he felt then to now, giving more emotional weight and depth to the story. So, all of this isn't to say to change the story but how to tell the story in a more meaningful and compelling manner.
Regardless, this was a very well-written piece of work that delved into philosophical subject matter and what it means to be human and alive.
All in all, I rate this visual novel a 6.5/10. Good job!