Reviews and reception
94% of 95 Steam reviews are positive, and Metacritic lists 81. Japanese outlets 4Gamer, Famitsu and Denfaminico Gamer covered it during Next Fest, focusing on how the disorders interfere with both the story and the controls.
Two days after launch, the numbers are small but consistent: 94% of 95 Steam reviews are positive, and Metacritic lists a score of 81. For an indie mystery visual novel with a niche premise, that is a strong opening — the kind that usually holds or slips a few points as the review count climbs.
The numbers
| Source | Figure | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Steam user reviews | 95 reviews, 94% positive | Player sentiment, English and other languages combined |
| Metacritic | 81 | Aggregated critic score |
| Steam global achievements | 61.7% for the most common | How many owners got past the opening |
| Japanese press | 4Gamer, Famitsu, Denfaminico Gamer | Coverage during Steam Next Fest, October 2025 |
The Steam figure is the more meaningful of the two right now. Ninety-five reviews is a small sample, and a single negative review moves the percentage by about a point; treat 94% as "clearly positive" rather than as a fixed number.
What the Japanese press wrote
The developers collect their press coverage on the Steam announcement feed, and the quotes they highlight point at the same thing: the disorders interfere with the game, not just the story.
| Outlet | Piece | The line the developers quote |
|---|---|---|
| 4Gamer | Hands-on report, 10 October 2025 | "A mystery adventure where distorted cognition creates false testimony — and even the player may begin to break" |
| 4Gamer | News, 13 October 2025 | "A detective adventure set in a distorted world" |
| Famitsu | News, 14 October 2025 | "Cognitive distortion interferes not only with your deductions, but even your controls" |
| Denfaminico Gamer | News, 15 October 2025 | "If you can commit murder without being discovered, you become a god" |
Those are the developers' own selections, so read them as the coverage the studio is proudest of rather than a survey of Japanese opinion. Still, all three outlets are mainstream, and coverage of an indie Taiwanese visual novel in Famitsu and Denfaminico during Next Fest is not nothing.
Awards and nominations
Before launch the game collected two sets of recognition:
indiePlay China Indie Game Awards 2025 — nominated for Best Narrative. The awards were announced in late November 2025.
Bahamut ACG Creative Contest 2025 — three awards: Silver Award, Market Potential Award, and an SGArts Special Award.
Neither is a Metacritic-style quality signal; both are evidence that the game stood out in a competitive field before anyone could play the finished version.
What players are saying
The patterns in the launch-week reviews and hub posts are consistent enough to summarise without quoting individuals:
Positive reviews focus on the premise and the presentation. The disorder mechanic is the thing people mention first — that the evidence is unreliable because the witness is — followed by the Live2D animation and the Japanese voice work. "I have not seen a mystery game do this" is the recurring shape of the praise.
Critical reviews focus on pacing and the debate system. Two complaints appear repeatedly: that Chapter 1 is slow to get going, and that the debate logic does not always feel fair when the timer is running. Neither is about the story, and both are things the developers have patched at before.
The middle ground is the largest group. Most reviews are positive with a caveat, which for a story game in its first week is a healthier signal than a wall of tens.
How to read a 94% at 95 reviews
Three cautions:
It is a launch-week sample. People who buy a niche visual novel on day one are predisposed to like it. The percentage usually softens over the first month as more general players arrive.
The review count is tiny relative to the genre. A well-known visual novel might have thousands. Ninety-five is enough to establish that the game is not broken or widely disliked; it is not enough to rank it against the genre's classics.
Metacritic at 81 with few critic reviews is a different measure. Critic scores for indie visual novels often come from a handful of outlets. 81 is a good number; it is not a consensus of fifty publications.
The verdict on the reception
The reception matches the game's design: people who wanted a mystery where perception is the puzzle are getting one, and people who wanted a snappier trial system are finding the pacing uneven. Nobody is describing it as broken, and nobody is describing it as revolutionary.
That is roughly what a $17.99 indie visual novel should look like in week one. If you want a stronger signal before buying, the demo is free and covers the part of the game that reviewers are most divided on — Chapter 1.
Review counts and percentages are from the Steam store page on 6 November 2026; the Metacritic score is from the game's Metacritic page; press quotes are as reproduced in the developers' own Steam announcements of October 2025; award details are from the official announcements of September and November 2025.
What would change this picture
Three things to watch over the next month: whether the review count passes a few hundred (which makes the percentage meaningful), whether the Chapter 1 softlock gets patched (which removes the main source of negative reviews), and whether the Steam Deck rating is re-reviewed after the performance pass.
None of those will change what the game is. All of them will change what the number at the top of this page says.
