izigame.me

Solid 7.5/10.
I'd recommend this game, with a few caveats.
First, the pros. It's really, really cool to see a video game tackling an historical event like this, especially in Iran, and the attention to detail with historical accuracy, the environments, and the stories that you unlock as you progress was excellent. Voice acting was overall pretty good, with a couple of real standouts (the actor for Hossein in particular played his character so compellingly). The music is also great - really fits the atmosphere of the game and suited the emotional peaks of the game.
The plot itself is pretty good with some flaws (discussed below), and by the end I was genuinely very invested in Reza and Hossein and Babak. Some scenes are beautifully written and really made me emotional (like the scene where you find the old photographs and home movies in your dad's study) or when Babak dies and you can choose to leave that Rumi poem with him, while others...not so much.
Which brings me to some mild criticisms. The game itself plays out much more like a movie (or like a Telltale game) where you don't do much except make occasional decisions and qte's , but that's not really a con in itself. However, since it's based on a real, very tragic and interesting event, I did feel like there could've been a lot more plot than there was.
The writing overall was really good, with interesting character dialogue and events, but it wound up dragging a bit towards the end, and the ending was, well.... No spoilers but I'll just echo what other people said and say that it was a very abrupt ending, and not in a good way. It definitely feels like there should be a part 2, but considering it was released in 2016 and I'm writing this review in 2023, that doesn't look exactly promising.
There were a few other flaws too, like glitching with audio and video, and some gameplay awkwardness that definitely could've been designed better (I almost got stuck way too many times in pretty simple levels purely because the WASD felt so awkward).
Overall, though, I feel like the game really did what it set out to do. This is a part of history that's rarely discussed, and this game helped me not just to learn more about it, but to really understand the magnitude of what people went through at the time. Everyday Iranians, just like you and me, had to make these same choices that Reza has to make, and made unfathomable sacrifices in trying to fight for a more equal country. Sometimes it's easy to remain distant from the media you consume, but there were many times in this game where I would get shown a real photograph, a real home movie, and it would feel profoundly sobering to know that I was playing a game based on the real life someone once led.
Even though it does have some flaws (and an abrupt ending), the story, voice acting, and world is compelling enough for me to recommend a playthrough at least once. It's well worth the $10.