So I’ve finally gotten around to trying this game I’d been hearing a bit about for a while now, and holy crap it’s pulled me in. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s sort of an interactive novel/choose your own adventure/investigation/dating sim mix, wherein you’re an ambassador for Earth sent through a recently discovered portal to a world populated by dragons. I won’t go into further detail to avoid spoiling it, but suffice to say, the game has really good writing and incredibly rich characters. And through multiple playthroughs you really get to know them, learn their hopes and dreams, fall in love with them if you wanna… and they’re all wonderful dragons, and have managed to do that thing that really good stories always do, where they start really feeling real to you after a while.

It’s a game with multiple endings, and on my first playthrough I got one of the ‘bad’ endings. Decisions I’d made cost the lives of some of these people, and I let their world down. And it shattered me. Because after just a single playthrough I’d become that invested, and come to care that much about these dragons and their world. So I’ve been playing it more and more, maaaaaaaybe a little obsessively, but I’ve just developed this determination now to do right by them. To fix things, to find an optimal ending where things turn out okay for everyone. It’s really sucked me in, and I’ve really come to empathise with these characters.

I don’t think a video game has ever made me sob my eyes out like this. By which I mean, and I want you to appreciate my full meaning when I say this, this game has given me deeper feels than Undertale. We’re talking Spirited Away levels of bawling my eyes out here, folks.

And I love it. >..< It’s really fun finding a story that I can lose myself in to this extent, to feel this invested in, and just let it make me feel things this deeply. Maybe there’s something cathartic about finding something that speaks so deeply to me, but since it’s fictional I’m able to let myself go and just emotionally lose my fluff for a little while. The heart needs to be able to feel things, and too often in real life I don’t feel like I really can lately. I dampen or bury the emotions because people are depending on me to be stable and solid, and I can’t give myself permission to just get swept up in the feelings like this. This allows me to. I can find myself sobbing in bed during the wee hours of the morning, and have this be a good thing.

So it’s fair to say I recommend the game. Just go into it ready for one heck of an emotional rollercoaster if you get as invested in it as I have. This game has done things to my heart - deep things, at times very painful things, but ultimately very good things.

I just finished the game’s final ending last night, and will say simply that the emotional investment I’ve put in has paid off.