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Review of Psycholonials

SubjectPsycholonials
Psycholonials
ByHelpfulness: 3
Vote: 10
historyeraser on 2021-07-13 last updated on 2021-10-02
ReviewI've wanted to get into Andrew Hussie's works for a long time but I also found his stories to be too convoluted although I always had an admiration for his dialogue and prose. Thankfully this game gives me chance to experience those aspects of his writing without having to deal with all of that weird plot shit. This game also has nothing to do with Homestuck story wise despite having the same art style. Just thought I'd get that out of the way first.

Anyways, this story is about these 2 hot chip girls in the year 2020 who live on some random island in the middle of nowhere and they are both aspiring e-celebs on social media. One of these girls is the protagonist, Zhen. She's this depressed, manipulative NEET who has dropped out of college and has an empty life. After spending the day accomplishing nothing, she decides to head over to her friend and fellow social media influencer Abby. But while driving her over to her place she gets into a huge incident. And then the story keeps escalating from there as she goes down this massive downwards spiral so entertaining that going directly into even the slightest detail would spoil the magic.

The story is amazing because of how Hussie's amazing prose sets the scene and packs a punch. His dialogue is really funny, and is the bread and butter of this game. A lot of the scenes are Zhen and Abby having various conversations and they have really good chemistry. There's also this standout scene in the beginning where Zhen is talking to her simp Percy on Instagram and she roasts him for trying too hard to sound "mature" in order to get into her pants. That scene was fucking funny. If you don't find the first impression of Zhen the game gives you to be entertaining, then you will not like this game.

It's also worth knowing that the game Gets Politicalâ„¢ although I for the life of me can't discern what the agenda of this story is. The only stances the game unambiguously makes (being against social media and being anti-thot) arguably have nothing to do with politics at all. Zhen is portrayed as an America-hating socialist and is implied to not be a fan of democracy. However despite her socialist views she still uses the word cuck as an insult and hates Joe Biden so her own beliefs are little confusing. I also cannot tell if the story wants you to agree with her ideals since there's lots of moments where I can't tell if the story is making fun of her or being sincere when she talks about her beliefs. Like, there's a scene where she tries to make a spectrum of gender that encompases some non-binary identities that also involves clowns and I have no idea if this is meant to be seen as something to appreciate or root for or if it's just a convoluted attack helicopter joke. My only "clue" (we stretch the definition of that word to near-uselessness) is that Hussie has a huge left wing following.

The story does not have any padding but is also not too short as to not make an impression. Definitely warrants the price it has on Steam. VNDB labels it as 'short' but unlike most OELVNs it's actually on the longer side of 'short'. Like, about 7-9 hours long. So yeah, go buy it or whatever.
3 points