Wish the old star rating system was still around. I give this a 3/5.

I enjoyed the Mermaid's Curse, but probably not quite as much as The Seven Mysteries of Honjou. The branching narrative stuff is neat and the game has a really immaculate vibe. I liked the overall story and mystery quite a bit and there are some clever (and light) puzzles at the end.

I'd recommend it to VN fans, but I found myself frustrated by qualities that most VN-lovers probably won't care about. Mainly the writing. It's just very grade-school level stuff (which isn't inherently bad) and falls down in the ways that a lot of typical anime writing falls down:

- Characters constantly swearing oaths or declaring their intentions aloud dramatically in a way no real-life person ever has or ever will
- Nobody bats an eye or is even slightly skeptical when introduced to supernatural elements (barring a handful of plot events). If something is true, all the heroic characters believe it without question and are pretty blase about it
- The good characters are all noble-but-good, mostly interchangeable, nice guys/gals who "just want the best for everybody!"
- The idea that there must be a "Golden" ending where everybody gets a happily ever after.

The game also is extremely liberal with throwing its in-game encyclopedia entries at you. Sometimes scouring these for clues is fun but it's mostly dry and boring. There are more than a few moments where it undercuts the mystique pretty heavily, explicitly stating what would have been better left implied. One particular story branch/character pairing is much heavier on throwing these entries at you than the others it was far and away the least enjoyable story perspective because of it.

One of the elements I really missed from Seven Mysteries was trying to work out the various curses and how they were triggered, which served as just enough of a puzzle to paper over some weaknesses in the writing.

All that said, I still liked it - I finished the game and was mostly pleased with how the mystery unraveled... but I don't know if I'd come back for a third one of these.

Game was great but Capcom changed out the DRM and the game runs worse now. Way to make paying customers have the worst possible experience, guys.

In the vein of Hypnospace Outlaw, Return of the Obra Dinn, and the Golden Idol games - The Roottrees are dead puts a clever genealogical spin on the investigate-em-up. If you like crawling a fake internet and doing detective work, you'll like this game. It's very well done and has a wonderfully responsive hint system.

I do think the overall plot is kind of flat - I didn't really feel any particular way about the story, but the internet sleuthing was so compelling I didn't mind.

My one other complaint is that I believe that the post-game mode "Roottreemania" uses undisclosed AI art. I think it's only for one of the many character portraits though.

A good, solid point and click mystery that doesn't try to be clever. Similar to it's predecessor, Kathy Rain 2 is a strong if uninventive adventure game, where the puzzles are never too tough, keeping the plot advancing at a consistent pace. It wears its influences on its sleeve which is fine but don't expect anything too original (especially if you've seen Twin Peaks). All of this was true of the first game - which you should also absolutely play before this one as the mystery will absolutely not land without the backstory it provides. The two games are of a remarkably consistent quality so if you liked number one, you'll like this one just as much.

A decent 4/5 title whose only sin is being a bit rote in the storytelling.

The difficulty is just too much. You die in 3 hits in most encounters and have to do massive run backs regularly, the game is incredibly stingy with currency which is easy to lose, and some enemy encounters are just wildly punishing. It's a shame, am the visuals, music, and world are so well done and intriguing but I don't think I'm ever going to get to see much of it because my hands just aren't fast enough and I don't have the time to grind to 'git gud'. Bummer as I really enjoyed Hollow Knight.

Edit: Changed my review after finally making some progress. I still think parts of the game, especially early on, are too hard and the pacing is uneven, but everything else really is masterful.

Honestly my favorite of the contemporary wave of 4 player indie physics-driven co-op games. The climbing is just very inherently fun to do, it's always neat to figure out how to use your tools to navigate a situation, and the aesthetic is very charming. Would love to see some more environments and tools get added but it's well worth the price of admission.