My heart has been blown to bits. Ripped to pieces on the barbed wire. Bled out in no-man's land. I can't remember the last piece of media that left me so shattered.
Despite knowing from the start (for years, now, since the early demos) that the trenches are a terrible place to find love, the power of the characters and the relationships forged between them drew me in anyway. Perhaps it’s alright to just like one or two, I rationalized things. Surely their odds are decent in such a large cast. But I didn’t learn my lesson from Act I, and Act II proved me wrong in all the worst ways.
BWH’s greatest strength, after the charisma of its characters, is the impact made by its twists and turns. This is a story that leaves you breathless, destroyed, emotionally gutted. That’s not to say that the narrative loses its value once the initial shock wears off - there’s still more, going back to discover other routes and see the details overlooked on the first reading. On a meta level, the structure of the game also adds to the experience. The “Battle of Wits” system never distracts from the plot - rather, they are implemented organically and enhance the reader’s emotional investment with their flexible uses, from straightforward confrontations to Elfriede’s struggles against her own fears and insecurities to, worst of all, some battles that she just can’t talk her way out of, no matter how much you wish she could.
It’s not for the faint of heart. More than anything else, BWH strives to illustrate the horrors of WWI, and I can only imagine how much worse things will get in the last two acts. The content is shocking, the art is bloody (though not gory, despite the implications of some passages), and death is ever-present and indiscriminate. But for lovers of tragedies, or those who just can’t help but hold out hope for their favorites (like myself), BWH is a game that simply must not be overlooked.
(Review cross-posted from Steam.)