izigame.me

This is a good game. I'm leaving a "negative" review to cover an edge case that I experienced. It is not a general review.
(Pun intended LOL. Spoilers follow)
A few comments on DEI things I noticed before I start talking about game design:
- First of all, I didn't feel that the treatment of the game's only Black female character was fair. Olivia deserves better.
- Similarly... more natural hair styles please!
- additionally, a hijabi is just supposed to get locked out of dungeon benefits because they can't wear headphones over the scarf? Seems like an overlooked opportunity.
Next, I wanted to follow up on another negative review I saw, regarding the game's treatment of stalking elements.
Simply put, I, a trans adult in their thirties who has been stalked before, sniffed the dude out on date 1 and simply never replied to his texts. I didn't have the problem that other players talked about regarding feeling that there was nothing they could do to avoid Eric's advances: in the context of my game, he was a jerk who insulted my cousin, then occasionally showed up to my dates, was told to get wrecked, and disappeared.
The only problem with this is that I ended up in a situation where I couldn't advance the game in a natural way.
I originally wrote this review at the point of having beaten the two accessible dunj(e)s, max-ranked all my relationships and collected pretty much... everything. Because there were two dunj plushies on a shelf with spots for four plushes, it felt like I had been locked out of half of the game's content (i.e. that there should be another two big dunj(e)s to come, for which I would have leveled up way too much).
For those experiencing similar confusion, it turns out that this isn't the 50% point. Rather, there's nothing left but an easy final boss fight afterwards.
I went through the game to this point without responding to a single text from Eric, because it seemed like the natural way to progress based on decisions I would make IRL. It had done a fine job of advancing the narrative in all other contexts but I was very puzzled about what I was doing wrong. Then I finally realized that maybe what I needed to do to advance the narrative was talk to the stalker...
This, after having created a number of satisfying platonic, sexual, and romantic relationships with the rest of the cast, which means that from an in-game perspective, my behavior of talking to Eric doesn't make a whole lotta sense. Even less sense than it did on Date One.
In summary, the effects are:
- Time stopped because I was accidentally too effective at shutting out the stalker.
- I keep getting comments from my dates about a "Katana" that don't make any sense. What Katana?
-> Following up on the previous point, there is no encouragement in the game whatsoever that makes talking to Eric seem like a good idea. Talking to him doesn't align with my goals of dating swordboys and dunjing.
-> There are no other dates held at his shop or "unmissables" like outfits or gifts at his place.
-> So why would I be expected to do the counterintuitive thing of handing myself over to him?!
- There was another time-honored way to handle this, namely the tradition of the Good vs True end.
-> It seems unfair to punish the player for exerting healthy boundaries, but I would have been willing to take the options of "have a good summer but the problems aren't totally resolved because you refused to act" vs "willingly engage with the stalker if I knew that was what I needed to do in order to protect my friends."

I can appreciate the devs' desired themes of "confronting your fears" and "meeting your enemies with love." In that sense, to progress the game I was required to do the frightening act of confronting my fears of "change" and "intimacy."
Still, consider the younger player, possibly one without supportive adults to talk this over with IRL and trying to learn from the game: is a "fear of intimacy" the BEST description of being unwilling to engage with someone trying to abuse you?
As an explicit note, if anyone somehow has not gotten this point by now: young people, if you experience a situation like this IRL, you don't have to keep engaging with people who demean your friends and family and run all over your "in order to be nice" or "in order to develop yourself as a person" or "because they will be sad if you don't talk to them."
Relationships are not about control, and you do not have to allow yourself to be controlled in order to enjoy the fruits of intimacy. You might meet lots of people like Eric in real life but usually the problem will be resolved by calmly stating your needs or getting an authority figure (like a mutual acquaintance they respect) to help state your boundary as part of disengaging.
There is no need to rescue everyone who appears on your doorstep. When problems are made by many people working together, they are usually resolved by many people working together, too.

Couple more notes to close out:
- The game does not need to be perfect in order to be worthy. It makes real advances on what we had before.
(and it's fun).
- Looking forward to the DLC and continuing to support the devs. The game has flaws to be sure but in its best moments it reminded me of a cut-down Supergiant games title, like Dream Daddy avec eau de Transistor.
- ... and we get to be trans.
- WE GET TO BE TRANS!
Not all awesome queer games are going to be made by out queers. But being out 'n proud has its perils and costs. Fellow olds, if you can afford it and want to try the game, please purchase it at full price to let the devs know that the market is here and we want more.