A path which often-times appears to take Atcchan, who’s been busy desperately piecing back the imaginary utopia he expected on arrival, by surprise. In fact most appear harmless or even silly, however, the truth of the matter is that every decision effectively pushes the player down a slippery and irreversible slope. The Way We All Go appears linear, but is delightfully different and does offer several endings. However, despite the numerous endings, the decisions left with the player are not exactly overwhelming nor overly exciting. The vast majority of visual novels are either strictly kinetic, or relatively linear. A natural question thus becomes whether the story works, or not? The short and cryptic answer to that is yes, mostly.
This means that I’m forced to judge almost exclusively on the story and the interaction with the player. The game allows the reader to dictate the story through a few, but very significant and at times tough, choices for which the consequences often appear impossible to comprehend for Atcchan.Ī reaction I never quite expected to get prior to playing. I should stress that my experience with anime games, and thus visual novels, is extremely (almost embarrassingly) limited to just a handful of titles. The lengthy ramblings does however make it easier for the reader to decide for Atcchan – partly because virtually every perspective of a situation has been analysed thoroughly, and partly because you genuinely want the story to progress.
The reader is in other words forced to share Atcchan’s seemingly endless stream of consciousness – for better and worse. The insecure and somewhat incompetent protagonist is however an interesting character which, perhaps better than most other characters, genuinely manages to portrait the world through the eyes of a teenager suffering from social anxiety. The latter to a degree which risks causing the reader to grow frustrated (and even permanently annoyed) with Atcchan due to his constant whining and severe worrying. That is despite claiming to have had two best friends Amu and Noelle, of whom only Amu got a goodbye. Atcchan thus becomes determined to reach out to both girls – despite being almost obsessively overwhelmed by anxiety and worries. He reluctantly explains and excuses himself as it turns out that he only managed the courage to say goodbye to one friend before moving. It quickly becomes evident that whilst Atcchan appreciates being back, although temporarily, he did leave the sleepy Japanese town with significant unfinished business. It works decently for the vast majority of images, but does appear somewhat unprofessional or even amateurish in others – though ultimately accomplishes to add a unique touch to the game. The Way We All Go is an interesting mixture of actual drawings and edited, real-life images like the one above.
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