Phew, burned the night up to 3AM to actually settle on 4/4/1/3 + rhetoric. I love the game so far, but I can see elements that people won't like, especially since I don't like some of them myself.
Died to hangover infused exposure to light. Died trying to stop the fan with bare hands. All within the first 5 minutes of consecutive gameplays. Good stuff.
I absolutely love the presentation. The geometric visuals remind me of early Copper Dreams concepts or isometric Another World. Music fading in and out like gusts of wind is also incredibly benefiting to the setting of washed up capital of the world.
The narrative is absolutely brilliant, with most skills(?) working as schizophrenic alter egos popping in weird thoughts in every dialog and interaction to a point where I often find myself thinking, that as a player, you don't even roleplay a person but just a single part of his psyche in constant battle against the other personalities and urges.
But most of all, I love the NPCs. I can't remember a game where I met so many memorable characters in such a short time. Damn the feels. The little matchbook girl freezing her ass off. The composure of Kitsuragi. The wholesome wheelchair lady. Klaasje's charm. Even the poor damn vandalized mail box...
I like the fact the game pulls no punches (except the f***t bullshit). Both thematically and mechanically, but as such, my reservations are weirdest ones I ever had to any game.
Mechanically the spread of starting skills being 1-7 along a 2d6 roll, effectively means 2/3 of skill checks rely on pure RNG (inb4 modifiers etc.) and I didn't like it at first (and I think many people won't). You can fight it by save scamming, but given number of rolls it only gets more and more futile, and that's when I realized, that the game actually accommodates to it, unlike any other I can think of. You are meant to fail, even better, you're meant to accept failure. It's relying the washed up character you're playing as through it's core mechanics. Incredible stuff, but requires some getting used to.
Thematically, it seems all the schizophrenic alter egos are cynical and sarcastic, thus presenting virtually every concept (noticeably socialism, fascism & free market) negatively, for player to battle against with his dialogue choices. It causes a weird dissonance, where I'm not creating my character, but running it against a preset character I've been given instead. I guess it's a narrative mechanism, but it feels weird.
I clearly don't like skill modifiers being tied to inventory elements like clothing. I always hated that in games. Juggling equipment all the time just for various interactions might seem lifelike, but it's a weird tedium when it's better to talk to someone while being shirtless, because said shirt inflicts a malus unlike your naked torso...
Haven't come across any bugs, but there are glitches. For instance the above mentioned inventory modifiers don't seem to update properly and you have to shuffle them a bit to get them right. Same goes for the thought cabinet, where some thoughts have modifiers listed in some places, but not their description.
