There are spoilers here - I'm going to speak about how I felt playing this game and how each part affected me.
Well... What can I say about this game - It kinda messed me up after the first part, The playthrough was standard enough, lots of clicking as there is no real speech, it's all text based, and lots of tactical "poetry" - I was not prepared for what happened to Sayori. I spent the first "Act" trying to get all chummy with Natsuki, the cute little pink haired anime freak, totally ignoring Yuri, the purple haired boob monster, and realised that Sayori needed me the most. That is what you are supposed to feel. Guilt for abandoning Sayori even though that is how the game is orchestrated. When she didn't arrive on the morning of the Festival I was kinda on edge, the music stopped and I noticed that Monika - the bitch - said "It looks like you left Sayori hanging this morning" WTF! What the actual F@@K! On retrospectively looking back that was just one big spoiler, but at the time it's just an innocent comment. Just casually drop that line in there so when I got to her house and find her strung up in her bedroom, I should not have been too surprised, but OH MY GOD I was destroyed.
OK, Next part, new day, new game, GLITCH F@@@ING CITY! Weird s@@t happening left and right, Someone runs up to me - should have been Sayori, but she is apparently deleted from existence and the game freaks the hell out then the game restarts again leaving me to walk to school by myself. I'm really on edge now as I've seen some glitchy s@@t going on and HOLY CRAP Monika phases into reality before me and takes me to literature club. More weird s@@t with Natsuki in the closet where HER EYES GO ALL BLACK AND CRAZY! and she starts talking to me through the game. I take a break here because I'm actually emotionally done. The game has involved me and dashed me on the floor. This is a F@@@NG great game BTW - It is DEEP!
OK I'm back in and put the closet trauma behind me and move on. Lets talk and write poems for Yuri. That's safe right?
WRONG! SO F@@@ING WRONG! MISTAKE HAS BEEN MADE! Natsuki gets all rejected and starts spilling about how Literature club is the only place she feels welcome and I'm ruining it for her and how her dad is going to beat the s@@t out of her.
Oh on a side note, just after Sayuri dies I get a secret bonus poem - covered in blood. shudders
Back to Natsuki and Yuri. Natsuki get's all freaky, her head snaps over to one side and she rushes at the screen, JUMPSCARE! Oh, all the time too the music goes from nice, ordinary, happy music to uncanny, creepy carnival, out of tune, scary, horror, nightmare music. The screen fades to black with a backwards END in the middle. Then it's back to literature club as if nothing has happened. I'm all pally, pally with Yuri and she goes to get some water and never returns. I go looking for her and find her slashing her arms in the corridor. S@@T this is getting really f@@@ed up. The gameplay rewinds - actually full VHS screeching rewind, until we're back in the class and she is fine and apparently nothing has happened. BUT I F@@@ING SAW IT! Long and short Yuri gives me a weird choice where the outcome is SHE F@@@ING STABS HERSELF TO DEATH and weird text comes up that you can't exit from. The light changes eventually and you essentially spend 2 whole days clicking through random text until Natsuki and Monika come into the room and the game ends in a weird meta world. Turns out Monika is some sentient AI and has been deleting and corrupting the other characters so you fall in love with her.
She is crazy, and takes you into some weird space room where you sit and she explains her plan of deleting and messing everyone up, making them kill themselves so you would be left with her. I am literally shocked speechless at this point and am just clicking to make it all stop. She explains how she deleted everyone and makes it very clear THAT YOU CAN DELETE HER! I F@@@ING delete her from the file index, and she glitches the hell out. The game breaks, in her last ounce of processing power she re-instates the other girls and vanishes.
The game restarts. I am so on edge. So very on edge...
OK, this is normal, nice, fun - although very similar to before just without evil overlord Monika. We get a bit into gameplay and SAYORI SPEAKS TO THE PLAYER - not the on screen avatar, but actually me. Directly to me. She is all meta now and glitching the hell out like Monika. then a text box appears at the bottom with a voice saying "I thought I could let this happen but I can't" and MONIKA IS BACK! She deletes the game, sings a F@@@NG scary as hell song with an actual human voice, and the credits roll.
This game was trauma. Literally left me traumatised, but I loved it. I'm glad it's over as I was psychologically too invested in it and the ending was so messed up it was AMAZING.
If you have read this and not played it do. Please do.
Thanks guys!
=)