Isekai

NOTE: this review will briefly talk about some sexual stuff (nothing explicit) and is probably not minor- or work-friendly. Also, I talk a bit about identity horror. Also, untagged spoilers I guess?

I generally have very little interest in the isekai genre. I played a couple of games where the protagonist is whisked away from their world and then placed in another, and they all kind of blended together. Many times the world was the same generic fantasy, or a protagonist was the blandest character possible and yet still was the object of everyone's oddly quickly found affections, or they were Gods' Speciallest Boy instantly upon arrival, and I guess none of that is for me.

But I still played Isekai by dott. Piergiorgio when it was first released I believe, back in 2025. Why? I can't remember. What I do remember is that it intrigued me for reasons I can't entirely articulate (I'll try to articulate them in this review; no promises though). Back then, my save file corrupted and I left the game without winning it, only having scratched the surface of available playable content. I just finished my second playthrough, which I won, so while some of my thoughts from the first playthrough had some time to mature, others are still kinda fresh. Unfortunately, for some reason I wasn't allowed to make a save or even start a transcript, as I was getting persistent errors, which I assume could be my fault somehow. I also accidentally closed the interpreter so I unfortunately won't provide you with any quotes. Please just trust me. Thank you.

So, what is Isekai all about? You play as an unnamed human man who awakens to a strange world in the body of an elf woman. Your task? Figure out who that elf is and what is this place. As time passes and your exploration progresses, you learn more about the world and the elf whose body you inhabit. Standard stuff in the "I woke up as someone else in a different world???" genre of isekai.

Some technical things before I get into other stuff. This is a "preview" version of the game and I don't know if it means it's a demo or a beta version of some kind or whatever. Either way, some parts of the game seem to be a little out of order sometimes — for example, text sometimes referred to a bodice which I already took off, or mused about whether or not the elf main character is married to the angel and demon characters long after I discovered that this is the case. I will take the most charitable route and will assume this is something which is meant to be polished in later iterations. I will also not comment on the quality of the prose because I'm sure most of this is a result of English not being the author's first language, and I don't want to pick on that, especially since the author himself requested to not do this in the past. I have to say that some descriptions are hard to follow and my eyes were glazing over them, but this could also be due to the fact that they were long and I had to play the whole game in one sitting due to saves not working. Oh well. Additionally, the narration switches often between "I" and "you", though I'm not entirely sure if it's a bug or a feature, as I'll explain later. I will also refrain from musing about whether or not this work exists to satisfy any particular fetish because if it doesn't, then I'm putting someone in a very weird position, and if it does, then it's literally not my business, good for the author.

(You CAN touch yourself in-game, literally and figuratively, which in addition to some other clearly sexually charged scenes leads me to believe that I might be doing something wrong by excluding the sexual angle, but I really don't want to dissect someone else's sexuality like this. I think it's kinda gross. The author doesn't tag it as "pornography" or anything either, which is yet another reason why I'm not touching on that angle.)

So, we wake up in the body of Etuye Alasne, an elf woman blessed with a pair of large breasts (the game doesn't let you forget about it, and it's even partially relevant at one point when we have to retrieve an amulet from between them) and two wives — an angel named Miyai and a demon called Azuj. (Their real names are much longer but let's keep it like this for the sake of clarity. I don't even mention them again anyway). The wives are out of the house for some reason, but that's fine since it gives us time to explore and find out more about our isekai'd self and the world around us.

I have to say, the world is... interesting, in several ways. This is a world of elves, angels, demons, and dragons. There are mages and warriors, and most stuff you'd expect from a fantasy world. Magic is an art similar to science, measurable and provable, which I usually like. There are some worldbuilding choices which were very fun for me, like elves having six fingers on each hand (the sixth finger being another thumb) and or being able to see temperature, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out how they came back in smaller details later (thermal paint announcing whose house we're in being warm to the sight since we're at a married throuple's house, a base-12 counting system being used instead of a base-10).

Another intriguing part is the strange dissonance happening around things which our world would consider, to one degree or another, taboo, or at least unsavory or unsightly in some way. Urination and defecation, for example, aren't something that is confined to an enclosed bathroom stall, but rather, is something done in an open room where others can watch. Adults can breastfeed each other, which is entirely non-sexual in nature (the text makes sure you know that. It's actually kind of heavy-handed about it). Nakedness is not a cause for embarrassment, just another part of life, and sexual acts are freely represented in the literature. I don't think I'd really think "Wow, they piss in front of each other? How weird and shameless!" because one: urinals exist, two: humanity's been publicly relieving itself even back in Ancient Rome in public latrines which provided no privacy whatsoever. I would also believe that nakedness isn't anything taboo, considering many indigenous cultures around the world have no problem with it. Breastfeeding, perhaps that'd raise my brow, but I could imagine a world where it's nothing but a bonding activity, an entirely asexual show of one's care for the other. But the text is adamant on reminding us at every step about how completely normal and non-sexual all of this is, in turn drawing attention to how not normal and sexual it would be in our world, creating a bit of an uncomfortable space. It's the "don't think about an elephant" phenomenon — of course you're going to think about an elephant now! If we're constantly reminded about how strange and unusual a thing is, it doesn't matter how often we reiterate it's actually fine and normal.

It made me think that this game exists in several liminal spaces. There's a space between the unnamed male protagonist and Etuye Alasne. There's a space between "our world" and the world of Railei. There's a space between shameless nakedness and a reminder that we should be ashamed of it. This is what makes Isekai so intriguing to me, and this is why I wanted to write about it for a long time. This is, also, what makes writing about Isekai hard for me. Because the problem is: how much of it is the dissonance of the author and how much of it is the dissonance of the main character?

The Nameless Man (who we'll call Sailor from now on, since that's his profession) and Etuye are, as the game reveals, the same person, separated by thousands of years. Reincarnation is real in the Materia of Railei-verse, and the Sailor is simply a far younger version of Etuye from the distant past. Over the course of the game, Sailor slowly grows into Etuye's body and mindset, so to speak, but he still starts from the perspective of someone from Earth. Of course, I could read it from the "author just writes what he thinks is hot but is afraid to commit so he says it's not sexual" angle, but I think there's another angle which makes it more interesting for me, which is identity horror, which I love. Do I think it was intended? No, but this is my review, go write your own if you don't like it.

Because think about it for a moment: you wake up in a body that isn't yours, in a world that's not yours, filled with customs which are entirely foreign to you. You are a man trapped in a woman's body, literally, and by gods, there are now two blobs of flesh and fat that jiggle on your chest as you walk, do you even know how massive breasts can seem when you're not supposed to have them, how weirdly conscious you can be of their every move? And the time passes, and you remain nameless as memories of someone else enter your head as if they were your own (because they ARE your own!), and things which you'd never think about become intuitive. Someone else looks at you from the mirror and it's their name you think about as you think about your own name. You read about yourself in a diary written in someone else's hand, with your name rendered in unsure shaky strokes, and you two are one and the same, and you two are separate, and both are true at the same time. All that is natural to Raileian Etuye is strange to Earthen Sailor, and the dissonance comes from their two mindsets melting together as Sailor slowly fades away into his older form. Is Etuye somewhere on Earth with her hand sliding across her uncomfortably flat chest? Is she plagued with a vague feeling that public defecation, which is a completely normal thing, is actually strange and gross?

It's... challenging to try and practice the "death of the author" mentality in a space where the author is very much alive and will tell you where your interpretation sucks, but that doesn't stop me from trying. Isekai is a strange experience, one which I enjoyed in some perverse (Meaning: obstinate in opposing what is right, reasonable, or accepted, not inputting commands with one hand) manner and even found somewhat inspiring due to its strangeness. Recommending it to someone would probably be going a little too far, especially in its current state, but I am waiting to see where a more full version goes, once it releases. I don't know. This is definitely a game which exists, and I'm glad it does, actually.

This review is for the preview version submitted to the 2026 Review-a-thon. I’m going to assume people reading this won’t mind spoilers.

As a player, I don’t usually have a lot of patience for long descriptions and am not especially drawn to world building, and Isekai is packed with both of those things—yet in the end I largely enjoyed it. For 2+ hours I got sucked into the world and the story, despite some uneven elements and rough edges. With some careful editing, I think this could be a really compelling, dare I say wholesome game.

I haven’t played the previous games in this series, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I spent a long time in the first room, looking at everything. And there is a lot to look at in this game (“Which do you mean, (1) the aqua girl’s eyes, (2) the aqua girl’s face, (3) the aqua dress, (4) the aqua girl’s ears, (5) the girl in aqua, or (6) the aqua girl’s hair?”). I almost got overwhelmed. Then I realized looking at things is the main mechanic of this game, even more than in the average parser game, which actually makes a lot of sense in a story about waking up in someone else’s body in a strange world. Ludonarrative consonance! Anyway, whenever I got tired of reading descriptions (again, this is a me thing), I could skim them and get the idea. The important things were clear enough. The italic suggestions that sometimes showed up at the bottom of a description helped move things along.

The thing I thought was particularly strong was the pacing. There was a whole series of revelations along the way, doled out at regular intervals, which kept me interested in exploring to learn more. Up front you realize you’re in a woman’s body, of course. Then you realize you’re an elf, a specific elf, a specific elf with two wives, and you all have magical abilities. The dominos are set up for the explosive final realization (which I’ll get back to later). And I thought the finale really delivered, with revelations every step of the way as I left the library and walked to the landing pad to meet up with my spouses.

Sci-fi/fantasy is not usually my favorite (it’s probably the world-building thing), but when it's truly transportive it can feel therapeutic, and there’s something comforting about spending time in a world that doesn’t have all the obstacles and injustices that we have. This game’s many world-building details made me think about our own society, and how a different life is possible. What if different species lived together in harmony? Wouldn’t it be nice to not worry overmuch about a wardrobe malfunction? How would life be different if people weren’t concerned with using the toilet in front of each other? I’m not sure I’d ever given that last one much thought in the past, but now I have.

I also enjoyed the gameplay elements that weren’t just about looking at things. The puzzly moments where you have to read documents in order of complexity in order to get better at reading the language—the diplomas in particular—were a good example of melding gameplay with storytelling to make the experience more immersive.

The main thing that made the game less cohesive for me, I think, was the portrayal of the player character. Throughout most of the game, I couldn’t tell if the PC, aka the person who got isekai’d in the intro, was supposed to be a specific character with his own personality or a generic PC who anyone could project themselves onto. His characterization seemed founded on being 1) curious about this strange world, 2) fascinated by women’s bodies, and 3) unusually knowledgeable about math and astronomy. But since we didn’t get any concrete background details about him (e.g. name, occupation, what year he’s from, where he was before this happened), it felt less like he was a specific character, and more like an everyman speaking with the author’s voice.

Either way, the PC’s point of view became jarring to me because of the stereotypes and objectification peppered throughout the narration. Nothing I saw was overtly negative (the game is open about being accepting of differences), but there were multiple mentions of the “feminine knack” for improving one’s appearance, for example, and I can confidently say we don’t all have that knack. The mystery and beauty of the PC’s body is emphasized (“You feel more connected to this charming, gorgeous and exotic elfin body”), with far more attention paid to her large bosom than her six-fingered hands, for example. It feels like being a woman and being an elf are treated as equally shocking, which won’t be the case for all readers. Moments like that broke the immersion for me. I can picture a version of this game where we get clearer personality details about the PC that explain why he would be especially concerned with her ample bosom. I also can picture a more adult version of this game where the anatomical differences are an even bigger part of the allure. I found it perplexing how this game walked a line in between those two possibilities.

So that was my thinking for most of the game, and then came the late revelation that the main character has been Etuye all along, and her soulmancy was so effective that she got stuck believing she was someone else. This was an extremely cool moment! (It also helps explain why this guy can calculate astronomical positions and convert decimal to duodecimal in his head.) This realization made me wish even more that the game had teased more of the past-life PC’s background, so that the reveal would be even more of an aha moment. The intro could be a good place for this, since it was uncharacteristically brief.

Speaking of which, my other main wish would be to make everything shorter. I enjoyed “looking at things” as a mechanic, but it got tiring, and most of the descriptions could convey the same thing in half as many words. Just as an example, here’s a snippet from the game:

“You’re surprised at the ease of actually donning for the first time a tight, form-fitting culotte around your legs and hips, pulling them up to fit it around your waist with elegant, gracious and agile hip and finger movement, leavingneither wrinkles nor creases, like you have always elegantly and graciously donned female form-fitting garments, with that feminine knack for excellent appareance.”

Compare that with something like this:

“You don the form-fitting culottes, pulling them over your legs and hips to fit smoothly around your waist with surprising agility, as if you’ve always worn garments like this.”

Word count is an artistic choice, of course, and many people like lengthy descriptions. However, for a general audience, I do think cutting back on words would make the game more approachable. A diligent copyedit would also make the game read more smoothly—there weren’t too many confusing parts, but the volume of typos did slow me down a bit.

So, overall, this game is promising and I would totally read more of this story (though I think this segment could totally stand alone as its own installment). I enjoyed the journey of discovery the game took me on, and the story is threaded through with heart and optimism, as well as world-building that even I could appreciate. In an ideal world, I would like to be able to identify with the protagonist more—or else see more clearly why they are the way they are, without giving away the central conceit—though perhaps I’ll have to wait until the next chapter.