Ochitsubaki Reviews

the lyricism! the soundtrack!! the art!!! <3

I am absolutely confused but also irreversibly changed in some kind of way. 10/10 game, probably even less comprehensible if you're cis/het and not mentally ill in some way, but strongly recommend if you're into flowery language and doomed main characters. Also the music goes insanely hard.

(Notes: Spoilers are avoided. When I refer to the Japanese script, I mean that one, not its English translation.) tl;dr lacks cohesion and will break your expectations - which aren't inherently bad things, so try the demo if you're curious Ochitsubaki is a very experimental story. For a reader, it is unrelentingly honest, perhaps brutal: other than an English translation being provided for non-Japanese readers, it feels like the author gives no quarter to reader convenience, telling the story exactly how they want to with little guidance. Poetry is mixed with modern slang is mixed with untranslated Japanese, with no explanation - indeed, who said there had to be? It's a refreshing way of telling a story, to trust your readers to do due diligence. By the end though, I felt that Ochitsubaki suffered an awful lot from its incoherent presentation, and only skipped through on my second read. It's also a bit steep for such a short story (and worse, it might be a target for Steam refunds). I don't recommend the game for those reasons and because it didn't fit my expectations. But this is a weak recommendation. If you enjoyed the demo AND like indulgent (?) romance, you might give it a go. --- (Bit more expanding on my experience with the game, potentially including light spoilers.) I feel Ochitsubaki plays a lot with cohesion and expectations/norms. The early presentation feels mostly cohesive: ancient Japanese-sounding music, a lush purple-gold interface and starting with a poem gives a sense of the themes you can expect. But juxtaposed with Sailor Moon-esque pixel art and its refusal to hold the reader's hand, it becomes unusual and fresh. Pretty unique style. In any case, the demo (first English chapter) engaged me and I purchased to because I'm a sucker for flowery Japanese stuff and the description shouting "bilingual" had me wondering how exactly the dual script was handled. I read the Japanese script first and felt let down by the storytelling. It omits much of the poetic flair the English has, and is a fair amount shorter. Then upon reading the English script, the difference in tone caught me off guard. The poetry gives way to explicit scenes that I found hit-and-miss. The style choice was apparent to me - English written one way, Japanese another - but by then I had already lost interest. I wonder if I would've had a different experience if I had read the English first. The demo is so cool and engaging, it ended up setting expectations for me that the rest of the game didn't manage to meet. I'm disappointed in the game but also in myself for not pushing to see it through... buuut that's not how enjoying a book works. So here I am, clicking "don't recommend", while urging anyone interested to play through the demo first!

I haven't finished this game, but I absolutely want to. I've never seen something like it, it's absolutely dripping with style, the art, music, and writing style give it such a haunting quality. At the same time, it can be a little goofy, but in a really good way. I would highly recommend this to anyone who's even slightly interested, it's so unique and you absolutely won't get this experience anywhere else

Beautiful, brief, and poignant, in a sort of prose you've got to roll around on your tongue until it finally dissolves. It might take a few rereads before I could say I fully understand everything happening here, and that's exactly the sensation I love about experimental works. Anyone saying this is 'incoherent' as an insult is wrong. This is 'incoherent' as a compliment. Also the fox and the cat have a lot of aggressive gay sex and I think that's neat