10/10 did have a short sheep that went on an adventure

(at the time of writing, 12/11/2025, two days after official release) I feel I need to address the elephant in the room. This game has bugs. Some are small, dialogue being cut off and not playing a character's voice or even characters interrupting each other (aside from when it is supposed to in certain points), as well as a few soft locks that I myself ran into during my playthrough. This was not an issue for me as I was able to make a light joke about it, sometimes followers would get stuck and run in place (npcs will follow you at points in the story, but you NEVER have to keep them near you like most escort missions). While at worst forced to restart and play from a previous recent autosave (the game does a good job of this), most of the time these issues make dialogue feel clunky but very much still understandable.
There are points (pointing fingers at the prison section) where the story may reach a slower, even slog pace, but I understand what the writers were trying to accomplish and can look past this as well. I believe this game shines regardless of this, and with a little more time to patch and polish these bugs the game is stellar.

This is very much a coming-of-age story, following both a young music-playing-and-loving adult who, by the story's description, exists as literally nothing, and a music-fascinated child without a proper adult figure in her life to guide her. Supporting characters include a violent, loud-mouthed drummer with her soft-spoken-and-motherly twin brother, a fellow mysterious music loving woman with "connections", and Arcane season 2's fascist arc Caitlyn. ACAB.
A game has not touched the very essence of my being the way UNBEATABLE has in almost as many years as I have fingers. If you ever feel like you're lost or aimless in life, not sure where you place in the world, living for someone who isn't able to, heck even if you're just curious about the game itself from its presentation, I plead with you to give this game a chance and really, really let yourself immerse into every drop of love that has pooled into this game.
Music, while banned in this game's universe, is the beating heart of this game and as someone who is not educated in the nuances but deeply, deeply enjoys it regardless, this game is also fantastic in this regard.

UNBEATABLE is most definitely a game that takes time to start, but once it finds its pace there was little that made me want to put the game down until I saw it to its finish. Its story is loud, in your face, and wears its inspirations on its sleeve. Unlike other games that I so loudly and deeply love and adore, I have little words for the experience this game is. Is it for everyone? No. It's most definitely for a specific group of people, and that shouldn't give it any negative marks. I am the target audience, and it did such a fantastic job of resonating with me in every fathomable way that the conclusion of the game left me wordless and in tears.

I can feel that hybrid rainbow.

this is your worst part
in that deep part behind your pituitary gland
that part that you try to hide
hat part that crushes your chest in and seizes your lungs
we have commodified and gallerized it for special viewing of the general public
welcome to hell.

MY BOY JUST WANTS TO LIVE

too bad he's a voracious serial killing cannibal

(obligatory: this game is actually really fun when do you don't have mfs yelling in your ear that it sucks, when it decides to run properly)

The original release of this game was for a 2016 GameJam, which was when I originally played it scrolling on the internet as a wee lass. A random sleepless night had me thinking about this visual novel, and I went on its itch.io to discover it had made it onto Steam! To my memory, not much has changed from the original GameJam version to this, but do not let that fool you. Mileage may vary, but to get both "neutral" or even "bad" endings as well as the "true" ending took around half an hour (yes I wrote it down). It is truly recommended you sit down if you have the 3 dollars to fork and 30 minutes to sit down and read; due to the comfortably short read of this visual novel, unlike most of my other serious reviews I will not go into full depth of soft-summary and analysis.

This VN personifies the concepts of Space, Time, and emptiness (known as Nil, in the game). They are lesbians. Yes there is a polyamory ending. If any of that interests you, I plead you give this a read.

lamedeveloper? I hardly knew 'er!

everyone, everyone has secrets
did you know that everyone has special powers and they've kept it a secret from me my whole life
but i won't stand for that
that's why I made a helmet
i call it "machine that lets me read people's minds when i want to"
or Psychopomp for short
but something happened when I put it on
it didn't let me read peoples minds, but it did let me see something else
a world that was hidden from me, that everyone knew about
a world hidden in plain sight, wit hall sorts of animals and creatures and dead bodies
there are catacombs hidden under every public government building
I will not allow any more secrets to be kept from me.

tldr one of the few 10/10 visual novels and genuine pieces of art in the modern age. I played this back when it first was released over a decade ago, and it remains one of the most sincerely beautiful formative experiences in my life.
Scroll to the last paragraph to skip my yapping about the game and my opinion on why you should read it.

Let's set the stage. 2013, I'm a child on the internet with unfiltered, unsupervised access. I'm a regular on the forum site "4chan" (explains how I turned out today), and there are discussions on a board of a game recently released by a group of people on this very site I'm browsing. A visual novel. Something I've never heard of, but as a shy shut-in who loves to read, an interesting concept for a video game. So it begins.

Katawa Shoujo is genuinely one of the most beautiful pieces of media I've ever had the honour of experiencing. You follow the protagonist, Hisao Nakai, as he learns in his adolescent years that he has both severe cardiac arrhythmia and congenital heart muscle deficiencies, after a heart attack brought on by a classmate's confession towards him. After his diagnosis, he is enrolled in a specialist school, Yamaku Academy, for children with debilitating or severe disorders and disabilities. Along his journey you will meet Shizune Hakamichi (a fully deaf girl), Rin Tezuka (a girl with no arms), Lilly Staou (a fully blind girl), Hanako Ikezawa (a girl with crippling social anxiety, just like me fr), and Emi Ibarazaki (a girl with no legs), your choices in romantic interests.

The game handles disabilities and the process of learning them in an extremely mature matter, especially considering the origins of their dev group. The writing as well, is phenomenal along with both the developments of each love interest, feeling like genuine scans of actual people. There is never a moment in my reads and subsequent rereads that I ever felt like my immersion was broken, that I was truly just watching real people with real trauma but also real emotions (ouu buzzwords) live their lives. Meet likeminded people who have similar differences. Learn about each other's traumas, have their moments of fear because of their walls break down, their hearts bared. Besides this, the art is beautifully done (ignore that it was done by a doujin artist, this is an erotica after all), and the music is a symphony of angels that keep you warm and cozy for moments, as well as leaning forward in your seat and clutching your mouse for others (BUZZWORDS OUUU).

I can easily pinpoint this moment in my life of first reading this game to its entirety, every route and every ending, as a reason why I am so passionate and even needy for games with gripping, emotionally heart wrenching stories. I revisit this game every few years, when I feel like my mind has lost the memories of this story's nuance, and I get to relive the game all over again. The music, the atmosphere, even just the silent words on screen, is like lying on a field of flowers on a cloudy day, and seeing said clouds part and feeling the warmth of the sun shine on you, embrace you.

Katawa Shoujo is a must read for anyone who has the time, having around 8 hours of playthrough per romantic interest route for around 40 hours of playtime. There is never a moment where I feel like I have mentally gone "what the hell is this", everything is so painstakingly grounded in reality, and the entire game is put with so much love and passion that truly shows. Even for a moment, while they unfortunately are not, these people live real lives within this game and in each their own way, it is beautiful.

(also Hanako best girl, but you're allowed to have your own opinions)

Roxie is a woman's woman

met Damien Leone's The Terrifier, he murdered my mechanic wife and journalist wife and botanist wife, then kidnapped me and put me into a basement, gave me a "massive orgasm", disappeared, and refused to elaborate.

10/10 he goes heehee