Final comment explaining my opinion on this game. (More spoilers probably)
Starting with what psychological horror is. From Wikipedia "Psychological horror is a subgenre of horror and psychological fiction with a particular focus on mental, emotional, and psychological states to frighten, disturb, or unsettle its audience." Do you want to know what this game would need to do to disturb me with mental or emotional states? Make me care about, sympathize with, or relate to its characters or world. This game does very little to do this, and as mentioned before; the characters are boring and grating, so I'm not going to care about them.
As for your point on whether I'd want these characters to suffer, I don't have to want, I'm forced to! That's most of the game!! And by making your characters have the depth of a cardboard cutout, it doesn't make me feel anything to see them hurt.
And arguably the worst part. "The mystery isn't everything." I've explained how other parts of this game have failed to resonate with me, so after everything else what's left is the mystery. So in my case, the mystery is everything, and it was dissatisfying and bland, two words that I think can sum up my whole experience with this game.
I think most of my problems with this game come down to, it's really not my thing, I don't understand, or I don't like the way it's presented. I'll let y'all continue to enjoy it, I'm probably annoying people anyway. Off to the next thing I'm going to obsess over, positive or negative!
Warning: spoilers. Lots of spoilers. You have been warned.
This is one of the most disappointing pieces of media I have ever seen. I don't think words alone can describe my utter hatred towards this game and its characters. I finished four out of five routes last week, and I won't be completing route five. This game has disappointed me too much already.
The first problem is that the plot is never concluded. You have a mystery and you don't solve it, I don't care if "That's the point!" It's really unsatisfying and leaves me feeling like I've wasted my time. Even playing two routes back to back should answer the questions the first one left it doesn't. Flynn's route and TJ's routes should answer the questions the other leaves, and it doesn't. It doesn't answer the question of who murdered Sydney, it just leaves it and chooses to only use it to attempt to make you feel something, and it doesn't work.
The town history plot was boring from the beginning, as well as the entirety of Carl's route. It was so slow and felt like it was 75% filler, and the interesting part, being the part where Carl, Jenna, Raven, and Chase are in the weird places, is basically summed up to be a dream. A very frustrating ending that is always unsatisfying!
The final plot point is the town histaria plot, which is just stupid. It's impossible to take seriously and gets boring in 15 minutes. Leo's whole route is basically about this and it doesn't work considering half the people in Echo are already insane, so you just make it absurd by making them more insane.
The second big problem is with the characters, I hate every character in this game. They are all the most bland, unlikeable, annoying characters I've ever had the displeasure of going through a story with. Carl is a stereotypical stoner but with mental issues, Leo is an obsessive ex, TJ is Religious and way too sensitive, Flynn is an asshole, and Chase has no personality. This is the main cast and there isn't a single interesting one. There all dicks to each other and it makes the whole game grating to go through.
Finally, the complete lack of horror, comedy, or anything interesting in the writing. This is the most suggestive part given everyone's humor and what makes people scared is different. What's here for horror is the equivalent to a creepypasta, the dream sequences, the gore depictions, and the torture scenes aren't even disturbing. Any attempt at humor falls flat on its face, there are maybe three instances where I laughed, one of those being a scene that's supposed to be scary. (See my previous comment for the image)
Overall this games complete lack of anything interesting or enjoyable is disappointing. 0/10
This is a masterpiece. I played through Sissel's route and that is the first time a video game ending has made me cry. This game was a rollercoaster of emotions from start to finish and I really enjoyed it.
I have no clue how those routes happen provided that it's not a time loop. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure it out but have come back without an answer. Also, I assume that each path is a different timeline, as that makes the most sense and I haven't seen anything that shows otherwise.
I have a theory about the time loops! Knowing that some thoughts can persist for a short time through a time loop, if you can focus on your dying shortly before the time loop, you could remember that you had died before. Doing this would give you the ability to start finding out who killed you and how to avoid it. Doing this enough times while burning in previous memories from past loops into your mind could eventually give you enough information to either completely dodge the death or kill your killer.
Most of this is probably inaccurate, but this is more of a far-out theory than anything serious.
