Well, it's no City's Light... But it's a worthy successor!
I had a blast reading this! First of all, I have 0 resistance to KnowIt designing absolutely adorable wolfies... I took crit damage from all versions of El, they're just too cute!
The intro honestly felt like an alternate universe of High Score Hyrax, with an insecure fat bitch fumbling a perfect hot baddie catastrophically, with a supernatural twist. I like the different direction this story took, I am an absolute sucker for characters suffering from supernatural whorrors with a normie being their only mundane anchor that makes them cling onto their humanity. That anchor being an adorable marriage material cutie? Chef's kiss!
I wish we had spent more time with the various versions of El and exploring the similarities and contrasts they have more. I really enjoyed seeing the slightly different dynamics they have with Kali, and the fact that Kali has the supernatural advantage of knowing some constants and using it to his advantage (the belly bribe was demonic). Some of the versions of El were also criminally underutilised. You're telling me you made a CYBER BAKER EL, and we did nothing with him? Girl give us the nanomachine yeast segment, i need to know more! It would be the only acceptable FVN tiramisu scene.
While I had a blast with the game overall, I am not sure what to think of how the story went. The premise was great, the development too, the drama was delicious, especially once we start revisiting familiar dimensions... But then, I feel like the story didn't really know what to do with that and where to go from there on. It's tricky with a story structured upon being so fragmented and with a conundrum that has no solution. With El, Kali and their relationship(s) being the only constant, the only logical conclusion is that one of those elements changing would lead to a satisfying end. We... kinda get that? I did like Kali's change of attitude when back on his initial homeworld and all he suffers there. But then he just kinda resigns himself to fate. I get what the story was going for, with him coming to terms and acceptance with everything, but it felt like the story was a bit unsure on how to conclude and just fizzled out unceremoniously.
That was a pretty minor blemish on my overall enjoyment of it. I also have a few random tidbits I wanna say I appreciate that I have no structured place to put in the review. I really liked the contrast of the two leads telling the same story, one being really engaging with lovely Utenaesque visuals, and the other being a bad retelling with childish crayons. I love all the familiar worlds from other KnowIt works we visited. A BIG NERD of a friend pointed out that Kali might be a DnD Yakman, since they have hypno powers (shoutout to the author's barely disguised kink), so if that's intentional that's also brilliant! I love that El has an outrageous bulge in every universe.