The Weight of a Soul

This game is set in a world where souls are tangible and alchemy is the prevailing science. That alone creates fascinating moral dilemmas, such as the storage and use of souls of the deceased for electrical power. That, plus the protagonist's unique position as a medical professional during a plague set the stage for a what should have been a compelling mystery.

The game is engaging enough when the setting and the technology is in the spotlight. There is a memorable autopsy sequence in the first act that delivers visceral descriptions of corpses ravaged by disease and the disease's effect on a soul. I was hooked— I assumed the game would lean into this grim, medically driven storytelling, especially given that the protagonist is a physician.

Unfortunately, all these intriguing ideas are sidelined in favor of her romantic tension with one of the male characters. Outside of the opening sequence and the autopsies, her skills as both an alchemist and a doctor barely come into play. Instead, she is reduced to a lovestruck teenage girl who flits between agonizing over her crush and agonizing over the futility of her profession. The constant switching between childish infatuation and more serious themes can be jarring at times, and it was most noticeable when the one moment that could have understandably been treated with excessive sentimentality—(Spoiler - click to show)turning her father’s soul/animus into a battery to escape—is rushed through mechanically and matter-of-factly after several paragraphs of overly emotional brooding about her crush's actions.

As another reviewer put it, it relies too heavily on melodrama, not just in high-stakes moments but in nearly every conversation. Everyone is always trembling, hesitating, sighing, stuttering, or on the verge of tears. At times, it felt like reading self-indulgent AO3 fanfiction under the tags *Angst* and *Emotional Suffering* (and given the author's blurb, they probably are on AO3). A fun side quest: count how many times a character says, "I..." or "I–I..."—turn it into a drinking game if you feel like getting alcohol poisoning.

This game was entered into a comp, and according to comp guidelines, you must rate a game after two hours of playing. Had I played this in comp season I would have given this five stars. The first half is quite solid. Few interactive fiction games capture the feeling of navigating a busy city as well as this one does. The city is detailed and inhabited with background characters that feel alive. I actually preferred the initial exploration here over Anchorhead, one of the game's inspirations. But the second half falters, and the ending is outright disappointing. The intriguing world is forgotten as we spend more and more time inside the protagonist's head, and unfortunately her thoughts aren't nearly as interesting as the world she inhabits. The game ends without letting you piece together the mystery yourself; instead it relies on an exposition dump (Spoiler - click to show)(after the villain captures the player) of everything I had hoped to uncover organically while exploring the city. Both the protagonist and antagonist deliver overwrought monologues that read like bad anime dialogue. No matter which ending you choose, the final confrontation is essentially resolved with dialogue along the lines of: "Look at me… this isn’t you 🥺."

TLDR:

👍
- Atmospheric, well-written environments
- Fascinating worldbuilding and moral dilemmas
- Hauntingly vivid descriptions of disease and decay

👎
- Melodramatic, cliché-ridden character interactions especially with the love interests
- Painfully mid romance takes precedence over more interesting narrative elements
- The final act is underwhelming, relying on info-dumping and cringy dialogue

Here's a nicely written, spoiler-free passage that showcases what I like best about this game:

Between towering foundations, the rain lashes rusting hulks and flapping canvas shelters; it eats away at corpses piled in ankle-deep water. Where once there were buildings, posters, lamplights, the Bilious Canal has burst through the polder and swept them all away, carrying off the detritus of innumerable unknown lives.

That's some arresting imagery. Moments like these remind me why I was so drawn in at the start. Most of the environmental descriptions are so good that they highlight how cringy and uninspired the emotional prose is in comparison.

This is a game with brilliant ideas but without focus. I know this review makes me sound like I hate romance or emotional stories, but I actually love dating sims and otome games—it's just that this author is not as skilled at writing emotion as they are at describing the world. Compare this to games from someone like Amanda Walker, who often writes pensive and emotional IF, and this just feels amateur in comparison. This was an instance of something rare in IF (vivid environmental prose in a setting that feels busy and alive) getting set aside for something quite common—badly written romance. I've read better yearning fics on AO3. This was honestly my most disappointing IF experience so far, because the first half was so good it had me thinking it was going to be my new favorite game. It's worth playing, but you might struggle to finish if you can't stand the constant anime style mental monologuing in the later part of the game.