izigame.me

This review is being written on the official release day of the game, Wednesday, August 16th, 2023.
BUGS
My first experience playing this game was in its pre-release demo, during which I experienced zero bugs or other immersion-breaking technical problems. After purchasing and playing through the full game from start to finish, which took me about ten hours, I encountered two game-breaking bugs—one that required the creation of an altogether new save file, and another that simply required a restart. From what I've read on the dedicated bug reporting discussion board ( https://steamcommunity.com/app/1340480/discussions/1/ ) these and other game-breaking issues (most of which I haven't personally experienced) have been acknowledged and are being addressed by the developers in coming patches.
SETTING
Overall, I find Sisterhood's setting to be enjoyable in its ambiguities, forcing me to fill in the gaps created by my own curiosity. I was told just enough to retain my interest throughout the game. I was pleased to see that certain bits of lore established early on were referenced, if only briefly, much later on. It contributed to the idea that, beyond Fortuna's exile, there's a universe full of intrigue and mystery. Arcane concepts like magic are written in such a way that, while intrinsically unknowable, are nonetheless organic and digestible to the reader.
As for complaints, Sisterhood's setting leaves me craving more. Due to the scope of the game - the limited view of an exiled witch confined to a tiny asteroid floating through space - only so much of the setting is ever revealed to us, and even then, only through conversations with our small pool of visitors. This could be taken as praise, of course; it's never a bad thing for your players to want to know more about the world you've written. It does, however, leave me disappointed to learn that DLC or additional content releases aren't planned.
STORY
Sisterhood's story is told to us through the eyes of Fortuna, a witch exiled from her coven, punished to meditate on her the reason why for an entire millennium. As you progress though her story, you're presented with an assortment of enjoyable (and not-so-enjoyable) characters and weighty decisions. The game, to its credit, warns you almost immediately (before you even buy it, in fact) that the consequences of your choices echo throughout the entire experience, and in my own playthrough, I found that to be true—sometimes depressingly so.
Overall, I find Sisterhood's story and its many branching paths leave me wanting to explore it more—and therein lies the problem. You discover very quickly that the range of outcomes you can draw from your divining deck is seemingly determined by fate, or in other words, RNG. If your chosen card - of which you can have almost as many as you please - leans too heavily to one particular element (I presume; the game never explicitly explains how this critical system works from a mechanical standpoint), some dialogue options won't appear. The same is (presumably) true in reverse if you draw and play a balanced card. It's natural to embrace this idea on an initial playthrough, given the eminent themes of fate, predestiny, and difficult choices. The game itself embraces this by autosaving frequently to prevent the player from going back on their decisions, i.e. altering fate (savescumming). This idea becomes needlessly frustrating, however, when seen from the perspective of a player who's completed the story and merely wants to explore all possible directions events can unfold in.
CHARACTERS
Sisterhood features an enjoyable assortment of characters for Fortuna, the main character, to be visited by. Some even have small comics written featuring them as preludes to the actual game. Your precise relationship with most of them will vary wildly depending on how you, the player, express yourself through Fortuna, your pact you form with her inscrutable familiar, and the readings you provide them. I consider them all to be likable in their own ways, but some are so eerily alien or removed from their own humanity (as one would expect from immortal, powerful beings) that I can't help but be delightfully creeped out by them.
I personally find conversation with the characters feels natural for the most part, and allowed me to immerse myself in their and Fortuna's relationships. The variety of response points gave me a feeling of agency, and generally aligned with whatever I felt that I, the player, would've said. I have, however, seen complaints ruefully describing certain talking topics as discomfort points—particularly those related to sex, sexual identity, drugs, self-harm, and suicide. For its part, the game is upfront with the fact it delves into these topics, going so far as to have a dedicated Content Warning button on its title screen that alerts players to the fact. I personally believe the game handles these sensitive issues with respect and and incorporates them well into its characters.
MUSIC AND SOUND
Sisterhood features a very subdued, melancholic soundscape that I find fits the overall tone of the game. Tracks aren't grating or offensive, and this works to its credit, because you spend quite a lot of time listening to the same several songs as you bounce between your bed, window, and card creation station. I was surprised to see that there are almost forty unique, full-length pieces of music in the game; it certainly didn't feel like that much. I feel that, of all the game's aspects, its music might go the most unappreciated by its players due to how understated it is. It doesn't so much create moods as it does reinforce them, accentuating the feelings of sadness and isolation felt by the protagonist. Despite this, I think it could've been given room to shine more, somehow.
Sisterhood's sound design is simple, but effective. The audio feedback feel responsive and informative, and I never found myself being annoyed by it. I'd say more, but there's simply not much to say. It gets the job done.
GRAPHICS AND ARTSTYLE
Sisterhood touts stylish, 2D sprites and orthographic scenery that I personally found aesthetically pleasing. I wouldn't call it eye candy, but I definitely got the idea that there was some genuine love (and maybe a little bit of lust) put into each character. Fortuna's home, in particular, is well-detailed, as it should be, considering you spend the overwhelming majority of the game stuck inside it. That said, I feel Fortuna's floating prison is, in itself, a missed opportunity for environmental storytelling. At the game's beginning, we join Fortuna in the 200th year of her exile, and yet her abode looks almost suspiciously sterile and organized. You'd think it'd look a bit more lived in, especially after learning about the difficulties she encountered over those two grueling centuries.
Considering their importance to the game, I'd be remiss not to discuss the cards. As Fortuna realizes more of her power, the player is given the opportunity to create their own divining deck with an array of pregenerated assets and simple image manipulation tools. These assets are visually distinct and pleasing to look at, and the provided tools are functional enough to give you good agency over how good your compositions look. Sometimes, certain combinations of assets thematically and tonally blend together in a way that almost implies they were meant to be combined. Other times, such as when I was aiming for a specific combination of elements and thus disregarded a consistent aesthetic, these themes and tones clashed so much that I personally found it very difficult to create a card that I felt really meant anything.
I'd write more, but I've more-or-less hit the character limit.
tl;dr 7.5/10.
P.S. the person who's playing the broadcasted loop of the demo has a cute voice. 8/10.