Detailed review Pre-Preword: This game directly got me into coming out to my mum as nonbinary, which means this will have always left an impression on my life, so thanks!
Detailed review Preword: With how I like to play customisable protag VNs, being always just being myself, this is in no way my usual cup of tea and I'd usually steer clear of anything with a romance focus. But as the demo is free and I found this through an even more romance focused VN (straight up ad in A Date with Death, which I also only played because I was trying something new and it was free "Friendly Neighbours in your area" indeed, I literally only found this because the advert was too darn funny), I wanted to give this a fair shot. For a bit of context about myself, I'm aroace and while I like seeing characters get all romantic style, given that I was playing myself, I really wanted nothing to do with that system. I'll probably throw in an OC at some point and explore a bit more of the crush system!
Actual detailed review:
Before making this comment, I left a 5 star review which I think is shorter than this comment is already, I'm going to try and break this review down into chunks so it makes sense and I'm not just rambling from topic to topic!
Choices
A big part of this game is the choice focused system of how you interact with the world, most choices are made up of a range of emotional responses, split into verbal and non-verbal which some texting options in the step 2 preview. Now I am someone that wants to push choice systems to the edge, I played the Stanley Parable when it was still a Half Life 2 mod and it ingrained itself on my mind, so far, the only games to really make me feel like my choices mean a darn are Slay the Princess, Scarlet Hollow, Disco Elysium, and this game. This blows almost everything out of the water!
I played as a very quiet but still active person and the game accounted for that! Past the intro, if my character auto acted, it would be non-verbal, and because of that, the times that my character did talk, it felt more impactful from my PoV. I think the only time my character actually had a full convo was in the park with Qiu in the step 2 memory.
Again, I need to play though with different choices, a different way of looking at things but I feel like based on what I've seen, I won't be disappointed!
Characters
Qiu and Tamarack are fantastic characters, they feel so... alive, and darn it I was fully invested in what was going on. I'll get into it later but these two had me breaking down into tears twice and I am usually a very tough nut to crack! I think it's because they're like the same age as me but it digs at my memories, the feeling that you're gonna take on the world together but things getting distant later on, I'll admit, the step 2 preview diner scene made me into a wreck and I don't know if I want to cheer with a 10/10 or scream.
Qiu's friends are fun and I enjoyed their antics, though looking at the other Our Life game and I'll probably end up playing that too soon! But having "the boys" all come back in the step 2 preview memory was amazing, felt great seeing the boys come back!
I liked the step 2 preview characters but didn't really have enough of them to form a real opinion yet
The mum is nice but not the most reliable, not in a bad way, she's a grounding presence in the mess of life and motherly and all that
Setting
Small rural town where everyone seems to know everyone, good setting and a great backdrop to have some but not too many reoccurring characters around. As I've said already, given that step 2 is in 2014, I'm around the age of the characters so while I'm not American, this still brought up some memories for me, really pulled me back a bit.
The Autumn focus is lovely, the oranges of the leaves really give a warm homely feeling, the previous game was Summer so I hope the set is completed at some point :P
Art
Smashed it out of the darn park, this is beautiful, the backdrops, the character sprites, the little chibi icons, the CGs, the UI. If I didn't look at the options menu, I'd be questioning what engine this was made on, it's straight up fantastic!
I don't think I have more comments than that so I'll just reiterate that this is an amazing looking game!
My Experience
I'll detail how I played to give context! I started as a boy, quiet but making a good and quick friendship with both leads, despite being very quiet, my character was very active, always participating in whatever was going on, mostly quietly being in the conversation and playing around while keeping to the rules. For the step 2 preview, they came out as agender at the start of the step to everyone but otherwise keeping a similar personality to step 1 and continuing to be good friends with both leads. I'll just go through the heavy hitting scenes for me
So as the pre-preword says, this game caused me to come out to my mum, I'm agender myself and I just wanted to see how the whole changing pronouns would work in this game, so I do the scene of coming out to my mum- tears flooded down my face before my head could even figure out why, within 2 days I used a letter to come out. So if the devs read this long, chunky review, thank you for that, I don't think that was the intended outcome of the scene but it pushed me to do something I need to get done.
The step 2 preview scene at the diner was heartbreaking, I remember my character trying to gesture for everyone to go together and I'm just like in tears because I know it wasn't going to work and it didn't of course, and I'm just like remembering distance growing between friends when I was younger
The step 2 preview memory, Qiu straight disappearing, I remember being online a ton when I was 14 and I ended up encountering a lot of people that needed help, needed a push up, and I was in no way equipped for this at that age. I don't know if it counts as breaking my own character but I believe I chose 3 vocal choices in a row in that scene, I really wanted to help them, darn it I'm crying thinking about it
And to end this segment on a high, Qiu casually going "We're on the same level of hell!" with sparkles if you come out to them as nonbinary caught me so off guard and was probably some of the hardest I've laughed at a VN
Conclusion
10/10, if the release keeps this up, it might straight up topple the duo of VNs that are my joint 3rd faves. And as this has made a sizable change in my life directly, I have to put it as my third fav game of all time, the only ones that get up that list are literally life changing