Demons' Timeline

История оказалась гораздо лучше, чем ожидаешь, особенно, если ожидаешь фансервисную головоломку с повторяющимися загадками и натянутым как сова на глобус сюжетом. Особенно рекомендую тем, кому понравились AI: Somnium files или STEINS;GATE.

While leafing through the negative reviews before playing, I saw quite a few in Japanese that were really pissed at chapter 3 for featuring a raging feminist who is constantly criticising men and demanding censorship of advertisements that she deems raunchy, along with pushing a radical political party. One even went so far as to say she wouldn't recommend the game to any women, and made it pretty clear that she had the same opinions as the fictional Twitter account. It was pretty funny to see the dev reply and very politely tell her that it was all based on what was actually found on Twitter, and that he was not necessarily criticising any opinions nor pushing his own beliefs. This was technically true, as that chapter in particular has quite a few scumbags on display, even warning you about it beforehand. I just thought it was pretty funny, and I had to check it out. Overall, it's a fun game with a cool mechanic, nice artwork, and satisfying deductions. The BGM is pretty solid, although it does seem to remain the same for most of the playthrough. There's one long mystery, and it's divided into 7 chapters, with a total of 9 "timelines" to solve. It takes around 12 hours to finish. The translation is fine besides a few typos and a handful of incorrect pronouns. The protagonist is quite an interesting one, as he's cynical, introverted, straight-laced, and investigates for personal satisfaction rather than a sense of justice. He seemed like a more autistic, shut-in version of L from Death Note, and he even happens to share the same nickname. The individual chapters were good. Even though a lot of leads are red herrings and lead to dead ends, it still feels oddly satisfying to pry around inside people's Twitter accounts and discover their hidden thoughts, and use ordinary details to connect them all together. The ending was quite unsatisfying, though. Nyasuteria's motivations don't make much sense, and it's never properly explained why she went to the enormous effort of individually targeting millions of people just to be able to play detective with L, and why she went to the trouble of fabricating the last paradox. A few of the syncs make a tiny bit of sense (like his mom wishing simply to keep an eye on him), but these actions still seem wildly disproportionate and far-fetched. The last sync with Kasane Namba makes even less sense, and it'd require a massive shift in the past timeline and would require several years of events to have been completely changed, most of which was completely glossed over. I suppose it's technically possible according to the rules of the world, and it's a clever way to avoid the rollback, but it felt like an unsatisfying conclusion. There was also what appeared to be a leap in logic, as there was a point where L randomly got overly suspicious of Kasane's brother for no apparent reason and began digging into his life, which eventually led to all the revelations leading to the conclusion. Ultimately, this goes way too far out in the supernatural department near the end, and I would've liked a more realistic world with consistent rules throughout that are established from the outset, such as the demons' abilities as the sole supernatural elements. It would've also been cool to solve multiple mysteries rather than just one, which could've been easily done had all the red herrings and false leads been removed. That said, it was still an enjoyable experience simply due to the fun gameplay and the wide variety of tweets, so I'd still recommend checking it out. If you're curious about whether the game features politics since it basically imitates Twitter, the only two instances I noticed were the aforementioned gender stuff, plus some stuff regarding immigration. Doesn't seem to be pushing any particular agenda, though. It is portrayed as both positive and negative, with a glossary note mentioning that the immigrants were assimilating in some ways and didn't commit much crime, while the protagoni…

I've you've ever enjoyed a detectivey puzzley game of any kind, this is an easy recommendation. Plenty of leaning forward in my chair and some small tears at the end