Room of a Thousand Petals

There is a lot to unpack here. This a really bold take on Gensokyo. Not just from the striking character portraits, but the willingness to really dive into characters' insecurities. Maybe folks are too chatty with the new bartender, but we get to see sides of characters that would normally be hidden. Whether they match the reader's own interpretation presents risk, but the characters here feel so real that I think it the risk was worth it.

About those characters, this might be the least likeable Marisa I have ever seen. She is the kind of person I would stab myself to escape being in the same room as. And that is not to be taken as a bad thing. A good story needs strong characters to make an impression, and this one is full of them. I was cracking up the entire time Hatate was on screen, while also being on screen. Which oddly makes this the most likeable Hatate I have seen. Both sides of the coin in the same game.

On the more gameplay side, picking drinks is a tough business for someone who doesn't drink. I was floundering when the guests were not giving specific descriptors I could match to the drink list. And I see there was apparently not quite time to integrate the drink list into the game itself.  Even so, it would have been handy to have it as a ReadMe file alongside the game.