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A comparative Review of PARANORMASIGHT within its genre

I looked up the director/writter (Takanari Ishiyama), I looked up the studio (Xeen Inc), and I'm just utterly baffled. The studio has literally 0 experience with the VN format, while the director has a very small, japan-only budget series with minimal storyboarding and dialog, that experience is now well over 15 years old. And aside form that, they worked on non-producer/director roles, or on games that have failed to impress me even despite their ambition (Revenant Wings in particular).
And yet... This game is easily one of the most competent and well thought out first entry in the Mystery/Death Game/Psychological Horror genre any studio could be expected to produce.
In fact, it might be better than most Mystery Visual Novels out there, and a labor of love.
It's not the best one, it doesn't have the best twists, and what meta stuff it does, it won't feel novel, and it won't hide it from you either. But it's a concise and competent package, it has great character design (TWEWY's guy) and dialog writing. It expands on, while doing little to nothing to betray, its own setting, the year and location are relevant to the plot. The motives for each character are all pragmatically or emotionally justified. The protagonists and the people they spend most of their time with are all entertaining in a different manner from one another, and the discoveries they make are not long held with themselves, so the plot is always moving forth. It refuses to let you stay stuck, making sure everything you need to know is at least hinted once. But its added hints are not immediate, it respects your attempts at exploring for yourself. And the UI is simply amazing - and makes one immediately correct yet rare design choice, with the text log right there, available on the right half of the menu, instead of tucked away on its own separate thing.
We're closing in on the games endings, and so far, most twists have been telegraphed a bit too well for what's standard fare with other VN's, but at the same time, they've all been grounded and sensical, by which I mean, standing here, you're as far away as you could be from getting twist-related aneurysms the likes of AI:Nirvana or Daganronpa V3 are known to give. But it knows this. It knows it's playing safe, as when it presents a much more or much less monumental plot point, it's not unexpected to have the story's narrator make a remark or... do something else unique. The game itself feels like it is as engrossed in the plot as you are, it does its best to carry out the experience where it may have otherwise lacked for a savvy audience.
Its pacing is also somewhat remarkable from a different perspective. A lot of the genre's best, such as The Great Ace Attorney, ends up running you in the 50+ hour mark to completion, and sets its plot as a series of mini-episodes, each with its own set of discovery, development and reveal arcs. This is a genre of patience and payoff, but Paranormasight isn't fully interested in that type of length. This is looking to be no more than 15 hours, and has a single progression through 4 acts for structure: A tutorial arc, an horror arc, an investigation arc, and an answers/endings arc. I could criticise the horror elements of the game being somewhat diminished as we progress through the third and fourth arcs, but it's somewhat of a minor gripe, as at that point we were already well invested, and the plot has given us some late surprises to show off there's more to offer on that front.
I've gone over with my SO over what flaws the game actually has, and we can only name a single major one, lack of voice work, which could easily be attributed to budgeting constraints, and isn't frequent to the genre anyways. But nothing else about it makes that budget largely apparent. Yes, there's a limited choice of music and a limited amount of things to interact aside the main plot, either for commentary or humor. But, much fortunate for us, the real big impact the small budget had was in the game's pricing. This game has more style, a better plot, and better usage of its format than the likes of Famicon Detective Club, while costing half as much. It could be that Square Enix didn't have full faith in the game, but the studio didn't let that detract from its quality where it mattered. You're not getting what you're paying for, you're getting more than that.

So, if you've literally never played a single one of these games, if you know a friend or some friends who don't know what a mystery game is capable of - it's perfect. This is the game. From the hands of an unproven director and studio, THE gateway game for the mystery genre. Spread the word.