GOTH Chapter 2/Part 1

hell yeah GOTH 2!! this is some greeeat stuff, abra :D

i really like how this continuation expands on everything from the first game without losing its core. even as you find other people with their own cells that work similarly to senza's, and you start knowing a bit more about what this entire world even is, the essence of the first game is walking through different worlds and figuring out what to do in them, what do they mean, or what senza is even looking for. it's a tight rope of expanding the world and retaining its essence that this game's vibe captures flawlessly. at every point i was at the edge of my seat, waiting to see what new twist or turn the plot would take, and where would senza and his friends end up. it's genuinely hard to think of other small games with a story that has captivated me THIS much! :>

once again, the creativity on display is absolutely mesmerizing. broken cities with living beings as houses and lamp posts, tiles that corrupt you if you step on them, swamps of neon colors, a tyrannical queen, guards that are people split in half, the "nowhere" world and the cafe, the differences between senza's cell and the cells of the others... it's all so original, and the artstyle once again conveys everything beautifully! both in the darker areas (srsly i can't get over the lamp posts at the city, they look SO creepy omg), and the brighter ones (a.k.a. the cafe). this game is so good at using wildly different styles and colours for each zone and making everything blend perfectly. and the characters feel very expressive, even more so than in the previous game! loved all the faces these peeps make haha. and the unique dialogue boxes come backkk hell yeah!! the GOTH series is so artistically peak man (also i didn't know where to put this but the fact that senza split in half is the title screen background, so if you die you go to the title screen and see his fate? sooo clever. and the glitched out visuals when you touch a corrupted tile? sooo cool :>). and the music!! omggg, i love how most of the music sounds "backwards", showing how everything in this world is slowly getting corrupted and warped. suchhh a good vibe. every aspect of the presentation makes the world feel dangerous, but also intriguing! you're afraid of what you'll find in the next zone, but you're also dying to find out what is it! aaaaa this game looks and sounds so cool.

the characters are awesome as well!! nira's carefree teasing attitude reminded me of haxel to a certain extent, and it's always nice to see a more cheery character in such a bleak setting. coal's badassery was really... well, badass, and his backstory was pretty compelling to read (i also liked how you made him know about senza learning about it and thanking nira for telling him, instead of making it so that he has no clue that he knows his story. it felt subversive and neat :>). flik being a disaster introvert nerd with an eternally unorganized house was amazing, and i really love their serious side coming out when they talk about why they're lying to their friends; it added a lot of depth to them, and i hope they show up again! (speaking of which, the way these characters act felt really realistic; they understand the danger of their situation, but they also bicker and poke fun at each other cuz if they didn't have some form of normalcy and relief, they probably would go insane... at least that's how i looked at it) and while senza didn't have a lot to do in this part (understandable, given the amount of characters that get introduced here so quickly), i loooved how his new friends arguing and bickering made him feel a sense of normalcy... while the world and its rules are getting crazier, senza is getting closer and closer to growing up and finding a sense of peace, and i think that's beautiful. he's easily one of my favorite protagonists from you! and last but not least, the cameo cafe was amazing :D and in part 2 there better be a sleep deprived character working on their laptop called noromyxo (jk jk... unless). the characters are not only great, but also feel a lot more grounded, which helps with the feel of "now you're meeting actual other people instead of gods or creatures" and actually feeling like you're progressing. sorry if this was really rambly haha but bottom line, the characters are great!!

the part with the guards was somewhat annoying... i don't mind at all stealth segments, and all things considered these aren't even that long or bad, but they felt kind of unfair. it was somewhat unclear when could the guards see you or not, especially on the bridge part; sometimes a guard would be looking away, but then when you walk past them you get caught because they hadn't turned around 180º, which is a bit hard to figure out since the first few times it happens it kind of seems like a glitch. in the end there was a lot of trial and error (not the worst thing ever thanks to saving being accessible), and i think maybe there could've been a bit more explaining as to how the guards work? like making it clear in the second level that they need to be turned around completely for you to sneak around them. also this might be a me thing, but in flik's room i found it kind of hard to progress, since you had to interact with all objects but the machine at the bottom right could only be interacted from a specific angle (that i didn't find so i just assumed you couldn't interact with it lol)... i ended up thinking to progress i had to help flik find the cushions lol.

ok so on my previous GOTH review i made a big ass theory section, so here's the one for this game!

so according to flik, reality itself has entered this state of "goth", between life and death... seems plausible that this theory is correct, and it checks out with with you saying that "an organism is not literally somebody's body, but more like a metaphor too". the entire universe is dying, but the question is... why? why did it start dying, and why is that making all of these weird things happen? there's a science diagram at flik's home, and i think it's either about the cause of reality's death, or the explanation of why its death is affecting the world this way. however they didn't mention either of these things to senza, so it's possible it might just be an unrelated thing, like the plans to the house's teleportation mechanism, right? well... even if that's the case... i still think there's something odd about flik specifically. they mention that in their cell, every time they left it they experience a memory from a previous life, not knowing if it was theirs or someone else's... that's pretty weird, and it's quite different from how the other cells we know about work. well, in my previous review i said that haxel and lumen jumala could be the "neurons" of this organism (if we consider "organism" to be a metaphor for reality), due to their power. it's possible flik might be one too? due to their intelligence, and the fact that in their cell, they could (seemingly) look into other people's past memories, just like a neuron can communicate with other neurons in the brain. also, isn't it weird how they are the only person who could remember things from past lives by themselves, without it needing to be triggered by sharing experiences with other people? i don't think flik is malicious or intentionally hiding stuff from senza (at least not for evil purposes), but i think there's more going on with them that we know...

but of course, that's just a theory. a GOTH theory!

wow this game is a lot shorter and i still managed to write a review this big huh? haha. there's just SO much to talk about with this universe, from its characters, to its world, to its symbolism, to its writing... ughhh it's all so PEAK. i can't wait for the next part, and thank you for giving us another glimpse into this amazing world and story! <3

Hi there, it would help to lighten up the map, otherwise it´s  a bit hard to navigate. The first guard section was a bit mean, because it wasn´t  clear were to go to. Maybe if you add a light to the building or a sound in that direction the navigation would be easier.