The Last Winter Knight

Whatever you buy on Steam, please at some point buy this game. Countless words are not enough to describe it`s perfection. Please, just do it. Learn from it and apply it in your own life, for every person around you and for your own sake. Without a doubt one of the best games I have ever played.

No words. Just, wow... ♡ A Gothic visual novel where you wake up as a ghost inhabiting an empty suit of armour, with no memory of who you were or how you died. As you explore an abandoned castle, you interact with your surroundings through point-and-click gameplay, piecing together your lost memories and uncovering what happened. Different personality traits unlock new dialogue options and can change important parts of the story, while multiple endings give you reasons to return and discover what you might have missed. The beautiful hand-drawn art with the haunting atmosphere and character designs are such a treat, and the piano soundtrack is absolutely gorgeous. Everything feels lonely and mysterious, almost like a dark fairytale. What really stayed with me was the story. There's so much grief, longing, regret and love woven into these characters and their pasts. As you uncover their memories, you begin to understand them in ways you couldn't have imagined at first. The story can be heartbreaking, yet its quieter moments of tenderness make it all the more meaningful. ✦ Content Warning: The game contains violence, death, light horror and themes of abuse, trauma and mental health struggles that some players may find difficult to experience. It also explores the cruelty and prejudice women faced, including misogyny and sexual violence, without turning their suffering into something sensationalised. I really appreciated how these subjects are approached with seriousness and sensitivity, while still allowing you to understand the characters and the circumstances that shaped their lives. I honestly didn't expect a game about a ghost in a suit of armour to make me this emotional. There's something really beautiful about how much this game believes in kindness, even when it comes far too late. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3815717856

I made it through to the True End first try, and I'm not sure if I could bring myself to go back and look for the other endings, because it was soul-crushingly perfect. My only regret is that I might have missed some names for the candles, even though I tried almost every name in the codex - and that very important one that is NOT in there, "his best friend" - and one item for the altar at the end... so I might do it just for that alone. They deserve some peace, dammit. This was filled with SO much yearning, love, regret, pain, and something between understanding and forgiveness. The soundtrack was beautiful and made some of the sadder scenes even more heartbreaking. Some of the things listed in the Mature Content warning were indeed somewhat rough IMHO to sit though, but overall the presentation was tasteful and effective, and I'm very glad I managed to see it though the whole game as the Last Winter Knight. Though there are definitely characters I consider monstrous, even they had loved ones and things they valued... and the grayish complexity of even the characters I was rooting for most to be happy made this experience something that will sit with me for a while. Highly, highly recommend.