Probably the best VN I've stumbled across so far on Steam. I didn't think I'd like a story that took place after the main characters had faced down a terrifying parallel universe, but this was so well done. You play as a young man getting ready to leave the small town of Siren's Call for college, but saying goodbye is never easy, and perhaps there was never any option to leave in the first place...

So far these are my favorite aspects of the game, though I haven't completely finished it yet:

• Coming-of-age story - friendships, love, loss, and confronting your own flaws
  
• Meditation on morality (and the problems that arise from playing God)
  
• Hidden dark secrets - not even the people closest to you are as they seem
  
• Recovering hidden memories in the form of a journal
  
• Strange supernatural sequences haunting some of your waking moments
  
• (Possibly) Breaking the 4th wall

Will post a more complete review when I finish playing, but so far I'm addicted! A deceptively simple, but utterly amazing game.

Side Note: Having heard some comparisons to DDLC, which I've also played before, I think the resemblance is more structural/superficial than anything. They're both interactive with different outcomes/endings, both have a yandere-ish character who reveals herself partway into the story, and there's a bit of 4th-wall breaking in each, but I prefer Siren's Call a little more for the plot. I wasn't a huge fan of the dorky/cringy interactions between the MC and his girl squad in DDLC, though the ending was its redeeming quality. Siren's Call, however, is largely more platonic, which I don't see as much of in these types of games, and therefore found refreshing.

---

50% progress note:

I simply have no words for how deeply this game has pulled at my heartstrings, and how it's broken my heart a few times. This is what I think I've been looking for all along when it comes to a visual novel - it doesn't have to be beautiful backstory, action-packed sequences or any of that. Just give me a time and place, and people dealing with real problems who put in real effort and say real things to each other. Friendship is such an underrated topic, I think, in many VNs, and it needs to be done more, because it's one of the main cornerstones of our lives. Over the years, I've started to lose my faith in humanity as a whole, but this story reminds me that life is hard for everyone; that everyone's going through some manner of sh*t; and that if we honestly reached out to each other every once in a while, we could get through it together. This is an absolute treasure for reminding me of that.

---

100% progress note:

(spoilers below)

Wow, just wow. All I can say is, this ending, and the various artistic touches leading up to it, feels so much like "A Dream Within a Dream" by Edgar Allan Poe. It broke my heart to learn what actually happened to Violet, and that many of the dark things Oliver encountered in his dream were a reflection of his everyday battles. It now makes sense why no one could remember what a Siren actually looked like, why there was an Underworld in the first place, and why each of his friends left one by one, except for Judith. Unfortunately, Judith was the one character I couldn't warm up to by the end of the story - though I'm guessing she wasn't a creepy psychopath in real life, she was overwhelmingly so for so much of the dream-story that I wasn't ready to support her and Oliver being together. That, and learning abruptly that Violet had died, though retrospectively there were a lot of hints leading up to that point.

And I can't end without making further comments on the art and writing. Everything was so beautifully rendered, and hindsight being 20/20, the symbolism was top-notch.

(Major spoilers below)

• The watercolor paintings make up the majority of the dream world, vs the more photorealistic scenery of the waking world. I also felt like the watercolor aspect was a nod to Violet, and all the places she wanted to live in normally but never got the chance to.
  
  
• The journal and the little truths you uncover from the entries. The 2 different fonts attributed to Oliver's POV I felt were a reference to the two main sides of his personality - the "need" and the "want," constantly fighting. The journal also serves as Oliver's attempt to make sense of his pain, which I can truly relate to.
  
  
• Rockets and escape velocity - it was always heartrending hearing Oliver's take on how he's meant to help people take off and escape their fetters, while he's destined to be stuck on the ground. This was made worse by Violet's death during the rocket-viewing (the opening scene now carries so much more weight than it did before, in this respect).
  
  
• Hurricane symbolism - each chapter was named Category 1-5, which I thought might do with the danger that each friend posed to Oliver in the dream-world; as well as how turbulent things could get as he drew closer to the truth. And then, of course, there's the hurricane icon rotating at the end of each line, like an omen of its own.
  
  
• The Underworld as a metaphor for the collective unconscious, and the Sirens representing the various (mostly destructive) impulses governing this unconscious. The Siren battles, then, seemed to reflect Oliver working through his negativity - perhaps he initially believed he'd be happy again if he pushed everything negative out of his life. But in his dream Violet clearly warns him of the results of such actions, mentioning how everyone acted "lobotomized" after the Sirens were killed. And she'd be right: what's the good in being completely one-dimensional, with no darkness to help us appreciate the light by contrast? We lose our originality, our power, and our capacity for reflection, when every day is exactly the same and all our thoughts funnel in a single direction.
  
  
• Little questionnaires from Judith punctuating the dream-story. Never realized until the end that these were snippets from the waking world, and later learning the significance of the final question broke my heart. I love that the game bent our perceptions of dream and reality by keeping us in Oliver's mind for the duration of this journey.

---

Will definitely replay this again just to catch all the little details I missed. I can't say I was 100% a fan of the ending, but I loved everything else the story had to offer too much for that to be a deal-breaker. This game pushes the boundaries of what I thought a VN could accomplish, and sheds some real light on the challenges that young people face, approaching each struggle with delicacy and grace. Utterly well done.

Probably the best VN I've stumbled across so far on Steam. I didn't think I'd like a story that took place [i]after[/i] the main characters had faced down a terrifying parallel universe, but this was so well done. You play as a young man getting ready to leave the small town of Siren's Call for college, but saying goodbye is never easy, and perhaps there was never any option to leave in the first place... So far these are my favorite aspects of the game, though I haven't completely finished it yet: [list] [*] Coming-of-age story - friendships, love, loss, and confronting your own flaws [*] Meditation on morality (and the problems that arise from playing God) [*] Hidden dark secrets - not even the people closest to you are as they seem [*] Recovering hidden memories in the form of a journal [*] Strange supernatural sequences haunting some of your waking moments [*] (Possibly) Breaking the 4th wall [/list] Will post a more complete review when I finish playing, but so far I'm addicted! A deceptively simple, but utterly amazing game. [u]Side Note:[/u] Having heard some comparisons to DDLC, which I've also played before, I think the resemblance is more structural/superficial than anything. They're both interactive with different outcomes/endings, both have a yandere-ish character who reveals herself partway into the story, and there's a bit of 4th-wall breaking in each, but I prefer Siren's Call a little more for the plot. I wasn't a huge fan of the dorky/cringy interactions between the MC and his girl squad in DDLC, though the ending was its redeeming quality. Siren's Call, however, is largely more platonic, which I don't see as much of in these types of games, and therefore found refreshing. [hr][/hr] [b]50% progress note:[/b] I simply have no words for how deeply this game has pulled at my heartstrings, and how it's broken my heart a few times. [i]This[/i] is what I think I've been looking for all along when it comes to a visual novel - it doesn't have to be beautiful backstory, action-packed sequences or any of that. Just give me a time and place, and people dealing with real problems who put in real effort and say real things to each other. Friendship is such an underrated topic, I think, in many VNs, and it [i]needs[/i] to be done more, because it's one of the main cornerstones of our lives. Over the years, I've started to lose my faith in humanity as a whole, but this story reminds me that life is hard for everyone; that everyone's going through some manner of sh*t; and that if we honestly reached out to each other every once in a while, we could get through it together. This is an absolute treasure for reminding me of that. [hr][/hr] [b]100% progress note:[/b] (spoilers below) Wow, just wow. All I can say is, this ending, and the various artistic touches leading up to it, feels so much like "A Dream Within a Dream" by Edgar Allan Poe. [spoiler]It broke my heart to learn what actually happened to Violet, and that many of the dark things Oliver encountered in his dream were a reflection of his everyday battles. It now makes sense why no one could remember what a Siren actually looked like, why there was an Underworld in the first place, and why each of his friends left one by one, except for Judith. Unfortunately, Judith was the one character I couldn't warm up to by the end of the story - though I'm guessing she wasn't a creepy psychopath in real life, she was overwhelmingly so for so much of the dream-story that I wasn't ready to support her and Oliver being together. That, and learning abruptly that Violet had died, though retrospectively there were a lot of hints leading up to that point.[/spoiler] And I can't end without making further comments on the art and writing. Everything was so beautifully rendered, and hindsight being 20/20, the symbolism was top-notch. (Major spoilers below) [spoiler] [list] [*] [b]The watercolor paintings make up the majority of the dream world, vs the more photorealistic scenery of the waking world.[/b] I also felt like the watercolor aspect was a nod to Violet, and all the places she wanted to live in normally but never got the chance to. [*] [b]The journal and the little truths you uncover from the entries.[/b] The 2 different fonts attributed to Oliver's POV I felt were a reference to the two main sides of his personality - the "need" and the "want," constantly fighting. The journal also serves as Oliver's attempt to make sense of his pain, which I can truly relate to. [*] [b]Rockets and escape velocity[/b] - it was always heartrending hearing Oliver's take on how he's meant to help people take off and escape their fetters, while he's destined to be stuck on the ground. This was made worse by Violet's death during the rocket-viewing (the opening scene now carries so much more weight than it did before, in this respect). [*] [b]Hurricane symbolism[/b] - each chapter was named Category 1-5, which I thought might do with the danger that each friend posed to Oliver in the dream-world; as well as how turbulent things could get as he drew closer to the truth. And then, of course, there's the hurricane icon rotating at the end of each line, like an omen of its own. [*] [b]The Underworld as a metaphor for the collective unconscious, and the Sirens representing the various (mostly destructive) impulses governing this unconscious.[/b] The Siren battles, then, seemed to reflect Oliver working through his negativity - perhaps he initially believed he'd be happy again if he pushed everything negative out of his life. But in his dream Violet clearly warns him of the results of such actions, mentioning how everyone acted "lobotomized" after the Sirens were killed. And she'd be right: what's the good in being completely one-dimensional, with no darkness to help us appreciate the light by contrast? We lose our originality, our power, and our capacity for reflection, when every day is exactly the same and all our thoughts funnel in a single direction. [*] [b]Little questionnaires from Judith punctuating the dream-story.[/b] Never realized until the end that these were snippets from the waking world, and later learning the significance of the final question broke my heart. I love that the game bent our perceptions of dream and reality by keeping us in Oliver's mind for the duration of this journey.[/list][/spoiler] [hr][/hr] [h1]VERDICT: 15/10[/h1] Will definitely replay this again just to catch all the little details I missed. I can't say I was 100% a fan of the ending, but I loved everything else the story had to offer too much for that to be a deal-breaker. This game pushes the boundaries of what I thought a VN could accomplish, and sheds some real light on the challenges that young people face, approaching each struggle with delicacy and grace. Utterly well done.