Anxiety and depression were hitting pretty hard earlier, so I thought what could possibly be better for my mental state than a crime thriller? Yes, I decided to polish off what I had left of Root Film, and remarkably, despite a few tears during the end credits (if you know, you know) I came out of the whole thing feeling a bit better about everything.
I'm glad Root Film turned out so well. Root Letter was a vastly underappreciated visual novel/adventure hybrid modelled after late '90s Japanese PC games in structure, and while Root Film leans a bit harder on the visual novel side of things, it still has enough classic adventure DNA in it to make it feel like a distinct experience.
I'm a particular fan of the "Max Mode" confrontations that tend to form the conclusions to the main parts of the story. These are, quite simply, situations where you need to present the right pieces of evidence at the right time to get the full story out of a witness (or suspect) but the way they're presented with such flair and drama is exactly the sort of thing I live for in video games. They're very different from Root Letter's take on "Max Mode", but they work just as well as a means of bookending the major "cases" — or at least major breakthroughs in the cases.
As someone who is generally terrible at figuring out mysteries ahead of time, Root Film kept me guessing most of the way through, though I did notice a few things before the cast did. I actually got one particular core mystery "right" early on, but from the wrong angle; to say any more would be a spoiler, so I will refrain from doing so.
All in all, I really loved it. It's a shame there aren't multiple endings like there were in Root Letter, but the structure of the game didn't really lend itself to having alternative conclusions; plus there's an argument to be made for the game's following of a linear path being for legitimate artistic reasons. Again, to talk too much about exactly why would spoil things from the late game so, again, I will refrain.
Now I need to figure out what visual novel to get underway next! Piofiore arrived today (which my wife immediately dubbed "Contains Men with Hats") so I'm curious about that, but I also have a heap of other titles on my shelves… plus I never finished off all the routes in Nurse Love Syndrome either.
For now, sleep is probably the correct answer, but I'll make a decision on that front tomorrow!
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