Never Forgotten Steam Charts & Stats

Okay so this game is certainly an experience. First off, the first hour or so of the game is dare I say quite bad. You have no idea what's going on, the puzzles make no sense and feel like they weren't playtested (even though they probably were), there was barely any music at all and if there were it was super quiet and it just felt so bland and boring, I was just trying to somehow make my way through the early parts of this game. If it was like this for the whole game this wouldn't be a positive review. However this game gets much better the longer it goes on for, the developer probably got a lot better over time since in the second half of the game it really picks up steam. Suddenly the puzzles make sense and while the story remains cryptic- which is a matter of preference- you start knowing just enough to make it make more sense. The enviroments in the second part of the game are also more varied and interesting and there is finally some music, which is actually pretty good. Sound effects remain few and far between but with the music I think it was alright. The art of the game is also neat, it encapsulates the style the developer was going for very well. Two more criticism that I do have is that some of the few sound effects and ambiences that exists are way louder than the others, the volume levels don't seem balanced correctly and that as the game goes on the characters internal monologue starts to stammer way too much and it makes it feel repetitive, it doesn't even make sense since it's just an internal monologue. In general the dialogue can feel a bit repetitive at some points and I noticed a few spelling errors, but It didn't really impact my enjoyment of the game. There's also a compat system which I feel is pretty fun, it just gets underutilized in the first half of the game and most attacks are faily similar. There's also not a lot of ways to increase your attack, which was fine but then why would the ATK statistic even be shown in the first place? Regarding the story, as I mentioned before it's faily cryptic but once you get to the end it more or less does click and it conveys a lot of emotion while saying little, so it is well executed, it just starts off rough, and since this is a short game I feel like the rough start takes up almost half of the playtime. I think the first half of the game should have been redone and brought up to par with the second half. All in all this is a fine game, it has a rough start but the second half is a great experience so I would recommend playing it if you can stomach playing until it gets good. As the developers first commercial game, I would say that this is good start.

Both harrowing and heartfelt. The 1-bit aesthetic is artful and managed to make me uniquely uncomfortable during my playthrough. I know this will stay with me for a long time.