[h1] An... Interesting Experience [/h1]
[i]A kinetic VN with some trappings of the point-and-click adventure genre, Until Then, as stated in the title, was an interesting or, to be more fair, a mixed experience, to say the least.[/i]
A bittersweet story of grief, loss, and acceptance, the game has an incredible first act with a gut-wrenching finale to it, followed by decent second and third acts that unveils the mystery teased throughout while giving it a more or less satisfying conclusion, aside from a couple of personal pet peeves.
If it was just that, however, the game would still be a 9/10, since that's how strong the first act is to me. Unfortunately, the game does NOT seem to be satisfied with [i]simply[/i] being a fantastic VN. In its efforts to be, I don't know, unique (or perhaps memorable?), it inserts huge swaths of interactive gameplay that absolutely grind the game's pace to a halt while accomplishing little beyond being there for the sake of it. As I said before, it borrows the trappings of the point-and-click genre, without seemingly understanding the point of it.
It's as if the developers played Steins;Gate and came away thinking, "You know what this game needs? ♥♥♥♥♥♥. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Minigames. And hours of pointless walking and manual interactions." Or perhaps they took the wrong inspiration from the gameplay sections of [i]Danganronpa[/i] and [i]Ace Attorney[/i], without understanding why those segments actually work in those games. Whatever it was, the end result is that you're left with large stretches of pointless gameplay that could have been excised entirely without any negative repercussions to the player experience. In fact, it's something that should have been.
Honestly, the gameplay portions grew to be incredibly frustrating by the time I was halfway through the game, when I just wanted to see the story progress instead of wasting another minute walking from one side of the room to the other while interacting with every item in between. It got bad enough to make me seriously consider leaving this as a negative review instead. Not because I thought the game deserved it, but because its overwhelmingly positive ratings does not properly communicate to the steam customers what exactly lies beneath all the glowing, and admittedly well-deserved, praise.
In the end, I still went with a positive review because, at its core, the narrative it weaves is a beautiful one. I just wish it wasn't buried beneath so much... bloated gameplay.
[b]7/10[/b]
