Back at the start of the year, someone told me Yuzusoft was putting out a new title this year. Sure enough, it dropped a while ago — except nobody saw it coming that it would be an all-ages release. Yuzusoft launched a sub-brand called Yuzusoft Sour, i.e. “Sour Yuzusoft.” Which is a bit of a redundant name, honestly — yuzu is already sour… And the important part: the game itself, Parquet. Most Yuzusoft fans instantly lost their minds when they saw the new title was “all-ages,” but I’m fine with it. Yuzusoft can tell a decent story — Senren Banka alone proves that much. If they drop the low-effort “horny” and “fanservice” angle and go story-driven, that’s not automatically a bad idea. If the writing and direction are strong, this could be a good moment to pivot… “If the writing and direction are strong,” though… So is this game actually any good?

The reason ISLAND caught my eye was that the other games releasing around the same time were just too easy to read. I was going to use the word “boring” for the others, but Wagamama doesn’t seem quite that boring — it’s just that most titles, from their introductions alone, clearly aren’t going to pull any surprises. So ISLAND came charging out with tags like “all-ages,” “story-driven,” and “highbrow foreshadowing payoff,” and announced an anime adaptation almost immediately. For someone who enjoys plot developments, this seemed like a can’t-miss. But after a long and painful playthrough, I found it wasn’t quite the kind of game I’d imagined. Not that it’s bad — in fact, its narrative rigor is pushed to an extreme. It’s just not for me. Maybe the kind of people who love EVER17 or Steins;Gate and its time-loop ilk will eat this up. In other words, there aren’t many game types I hate, but one on my hate list is exactly the kind of development ISLAND has. So there’s no helping it — this game gave me zero pleasure and nothing but pain.