I just finished the current version of the game and i gotta say it really shows your progress in development. The game just keeps getting better as the chapters go on.
tl:dr, wasn't really feeling the game in the beginning but became a big fan by the end.
I wasn't really enjoying the game at first. In fact i would say that before the town of the faceless god the whole experience is just kinda bad. The characters were really weak and there didn't really seem to have a cohesive plot. Things just kinda of happen without anything driving the story forward.
I would say that at the town of the faceless god, and extending to Esyl, is when things really start to get interesting. From here on out the game has an atmosphere of mystery and creepyness (which i surprisingly like even though i passionately dislike horror games). The mystery of the curse is handled really well, and the story is told in such a way that you can kind of piece together the story of the girl who was denied by the townsfolk before the characters properly figure it out. It also sets up Athena as a future villain really well. Showing that Athena is unnecessarily cruel and petty does the job of making her a hateable character really well (it also helps that she just keeps showing up as a villain in other characters backstories later on. Fucking Athena!).
Esyl is just kind of an epilogue to the town of the faceless god to me. There's still this good, creepy and mysterious atmosphere around the butcher even though i think that the whole butcher issue is kind of forced. One thing specifically that i found really dumb is how the detective says that if the butcher fails to kill a target he always comes back for them later. And right after that he says that he tells the women who survived his attacks to leave the town. If you know that the butcher always comes back for previous targets why would you tell them to leave? It's a perfect opportunity to catch him if you know exactly where he is gonna go.
Overall i think that Esyl is a tad worse than the town of the faceless god in writing but it's stiil much better than what came before (specially since it introduces my favorite character).
After Esyl is where things started really getting good. Immediately when we get to the infected village the whole presentation of the game changes drastically for the better. Not only do we now have music and sound effects (which are really well chosen and placed btw) but the visuals of the game are very improved. This can be seen in the introduction of long, cutscene like scenes and the exploration in the doctor's house.
On top of that the writing got better as well. Once again there's this creepy and mysterious atmosphere that really gets you invested. The story is really well paced and gives you time to soak in the details before moving on to the next beat of the story. I specially liked how Venus's possession was handled. In hindsight, there are loads of details showing that Venus's behavior is off, even before you know about the specter and the possession. First off is her hairstyle. At first i didn't really think anything of that but after she gets un-possessed she almost immediately goes back to her usual hairstyle, showing clearly that something was wrong. There's also the fact that suspiciously she was the only one that recovered from the disease. She also says that most of the village have recovered but she doesn't want to show anybody that has actually recovered, and later it is confirmed by Fransisca that she was actually lying. The fact that she seemed adamant about not searching the doctor's house because she "searched it already", and her generally suspicious behavior in the house itself. There were a lot of signs that could have helped the player figure out that Venus was the one who had been possessed. Overall really good writing.
In regards to the section inside Venus's head, i think that was one of my favorite sections of the story. Not only Venus's memories but Clementine's memories as well were both told in a really interesting way. It was very emotional and left an impression on me. I have some gripes with the writing in this part but it's personal disagreements rather than criticism. For example, i don't like how after seeing Clementine's memories the main character didn't even try to talk to her to understand why she was doing this, they basically just went straight into fighting after some taunting. I also didn't like how there wasn't an option to ask Venus about her memories after we exit her head. The only thing that i was thinking about after seeing her memories was to ask her "Do you remember what you were called before you were Venus?", "Did you ever find out what happened to Mercury" and "Who was that woman that you met in the river next to Mecury's village?". We get the answer to some of these questions but it's a while later and i just wish we had the option to ask her directly as soon as she wakes up from her possession.
After that there is the faceeater drill. This was definitely my favorite part of the game so far. It was a really good self contained adventure with a really interesting concept. I really enjoyed the scary exploration through the dark mansion. I really appreciated that there are multiple ways to end the simulation and i specially appreciated that you can notice that Tamara has been impersonated before the faceeaters are revealed and you can question her about it too. I noticed that on my first go and i felt really good about that. Later on you learn that when you meet Centoria in that room with the broken window she had already been killed and impersonated. I wonder why you can't question her about then like you can with Tamara. I also really appreciated the cameo of Luna and her dad from Eternum. Was a welcome surprise.
In conclusion, i started being almost disinterested in the beginning to being a really big fan in the end. The game definitely gets much better as it progress no only in the quality of the game it self but also the writing. Really excited about the future chapters.