(THIS POST WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR YOUR TURN TO DIE UP TO THE END OF CHAPTER THREE PART ONE.)
Okay I finished Your Turn To Die today (August 11th at time of writing), and wanted to post my full review of the game so far!
Strap in, this is gonna be a long one. I'm going to break it down by chapter, and will mention which choices I made along the way alongside a rating (out of 10)!
I think that the game has a really strong start! I want to preface this review by saying that I was not going in blind, so I think that may have dampened any of the emotional beats/character deaths for me since I knew they were coming.
I was pretty quickly endeared to Reko and Nao especially, 'please repent' is so funny to me and idk why.
There wasn't really anyone I didn't like. This will quickly change.
The escape room gimmick of part one was really fun, though I'll admit the clock puzzle did in fact take me until Sara literally spelt it out for me to solve it ToT.
Is part one technically a sub-game? It doesn't exactly have the same win conditions as the rest of them, especially since it was aimless exploration until Miley showed up.
SPEAKING OF MILEY, I love the floor masters (and Safalin), they're genuinely one of my favourite parts of the game. Miley is probably one of the lower ranked ones out of all of them, but that doesn't mean she isn't super fun. I think it's just the fact that she's unapologetically having fun in a way that Ranger just doesn't makes her a really fun villain.
I don't really have much to say about Mishima's death, mainly bc before my full playthrough this year I had already done chapter one pt one during December last year, so it was one of the only plot beats I had already experienced in full.
Sara Chidouin you will never not be famous to me. She repeatedly had me laughing out loud at some of the dialogue choices we're given and she deserves more credit for that.
The main game reminded me that I'm really bad at social deduction games. This will come up again in the future.
I kept failing the final choice and I can't for the life of me remember why.
I guess my only real issue with this chapter is the Yabusame reveal? Like, Alice being Reko's brother kind of felt like it got moved past wayy too quickly for it to be a relevant plot twist. IDK, maybe I'm just reading too far into it, but its execution felt a bit meh for me. That being said, it doesn't ruin the rest of the Yabusames' arcs, so in the end it doesn't detract much from my enjoyment of the game outside of that part of the main game.
Speaking of executions!!! ouch!!!!
So Joe is really fucking suspicious right. Like it's obviously not just me that thinks that, there are plenty of Evil Jou Tazuna theories everywhere online, but it felt way more apparent actually playing the game. Why does he have a doll and an AI if non-candidates aren't supposed to have them? What were he and Kai talking about on the security monitors? Why did he act like he didn't recognize Sara after the First Trial??? Like, the first two could easily be explained by Joe being involved with Asunaro, but then why would Kai's discussions mention keeping an eye on Joe and Ryoko if Joe was already going to participate??
This is getting off-topic. Sort of. Anyway!!
Yikes ouch again! I only slightly tried clicking stuff during Joe's execution since ik it wouldn't have done anything.
Kind of late but contiuning with my love of the floor masters I lovee their theme. The music for the game is all really good.
Remember what I said about me not disliking characters? Sou Hiyori I am going to fistfight you and this does not change one bit. Don't get me wrong, I know why he acts the way he does but wow if it doesn't piss me off.
Kai is also such an interesting character to me. I think Chapter 2 is where I really started to like him fully but his speech at the end of Chapter 1 is definitely the start of it.
All in all I really enjoyed Chapter 1! Aside from my issue with the Yabusame reveal, I think that everything was super interesting and sets up a lot of the future twists super early on so that most of them are more satisfying.
Chapter Two is by far my favourite chapter out of the three because it iterates on what I enjoyed about Chapter One in really creative ways and keeps the game engaging throughout it.
First and foremost oh my god Rio Ranger and Tia Safalin are by far my favourite floor master(s) in the game so far. They're both so goddamn funny and I think Safalin's character is really interesting. Like, she clearly doesn't enjoy doing this, but at the same time she entirely treats the participants in such a detached way, especially with the scene where she helps out Gin.
The sub-game was also super fun! The minigames were all super engaging and provided just enough difficulty. Except for memory dance. Fuck you in particular, memory dance. Only reason I'm not getting 100% acheivements on steam is because of that fucking attraction.
And now I talk about the hallucination Joe for a bit because Oh My God!!
Like, YTTD is generally considered a horror game, but aside from the sci-fi death game aspect of it I think the only time it really gets to that point is during Chapter Two and that is exclusively because of the terror that is having to look at that sprite.
I mean like it doesn't help that I kept accidentally chosing the options that made Sara's hallucination level go up, but like. whatever
Also damn this chapter does a really good job of making you not like Q-taro! Like, he was always a bit abrasive to the rest of the group in Chapter One but wow does he kick it up a notch this time.
Sou also pisses me off more in this chapter but that's okay :DDD
I avoided the Joe in the reflection for ages bc I figured that it was going to trigger hallucination stuff and Did Not Want To Do That. Additionally, I did the Alice side-quest with the bongos and also bought two of the victim videos, specifically Anzu's and Kurumada's. On that note I do wish there was a bit more info stored in the save file selection screen, in writing this I tried and failed five times to load a save where I could watch the videos again to check who's I had.
Okay, so the Final Attraction carries on with the theme of me sucking at social deduction games.
I had gone into it with the intention of having Alice die, since I liked Reko more. Unfortunately for me, I suck. I didn't prove to Alice that the other Reko was a fake in time and the real one died as a result. So I reloaded my save! And looked up a guide! Because I couldn't figure it out!! I enjoy how the sub-games end with functionally a Main Game with a gimmick, they're always one of my favourite parts of a chapter. After getting thoroughly fucked up by Alice dying, I completed the first part of Chapter Two.
Anyway!! Moving onto the Main Game since I don't really have any comments on the beginning of pt2 that I won't address during it!
This is, again, one of the main things that I enjoyed about the chapter. The first Main Game was really to-the-point, whereas the trading system added a layer of complexity that felt like figuring out who had which card was more of a puzzle. This chapter also made me like Keiji a lot more as a character, especially in part 2 but Chapter 3-1 will continue this.
The Main Game also partially carries through with some of the problems I had with the first one, though it also alleviated some of them. I think that the reveal of the percentage sheets was really well done, and had plenty of build up. Plus, the reveal was kind of integral in deciding the votes for the end, which I really enjoyed. My only real issue with it was how we weren't really given the chance to sit with the fact that Sou-Shin had been concealing his identity the whole time. I'm assuming we go further into it during Chapter Three when we vote for Kanna, but you could probably tell by the ':DDD' from earlier that I killed Sou. I mean, I voted for Nao first so I could get her ending bc I didn't want to say goodbye just yet, but then I did :P.
I haven't talked about Kanna yet but she's also one of my favourites, I love how her character progresses, especially into Chapter 3.
And after a brief emotional scene with the Joe AI we're finally free from having to see that freaky sprite ever again!!!
In conclusion I do think that Chapter Two is my favourite so far, though I am open to having my mind changed when Chapter Three Pt. Two comes out.
okay man look I just don't like midori that much
Okay in all seriousness though Chapter Three is on a technical level leagues better than the other two and I do really love it!
I just. don't like Midori. Like he's a good villain, I think it's really interesting how he takes on a more active antagonist role in this chapter compared to the other floor masters who more facilitate the games.
Like he's a villain, he sucks, and that's the point. I don't like him.
The dummies are awesome though!! I think they were a really creative way to make the cast bigger so they could do more things, as at that point the cast had been getting pretty thinned out. My favs by far are Kurumada and Mai, which sucks for upcoming reasons.
The map mechanic is also amazing and I lowkey hope it gets in some way ported to the other chapters when the game releases in full because the navigation in ch1 and 2 get a bit rough at times, at least for me.
Anyway!! The entire chapter is a little jumbled up in my brain so apologies if the next points are a bit out of order.
Those fucking lantern segments oh my god
There would always be one last detail that was so tiny I kept fucking missing it. In order, I think it was:
Like damn was that rough, but it did provide really interesting peeks into the characters backstories! My plan is to do a run of ch2-2 onward with Alice alive and later Sou alive so I can generally get an idea of the stuff I missed, then do an extra run of ch3-1B with Alice and Kanna alive to get the Alice dialogue from the banquet.
The dummies were!! mostly alive!! During the first Obstructor fight, I lost and Anzu got killed. So I reloaded my save, and did it right. Then I further successfully beat the book one, avoiding any deaths again. That being said I absolutely failed the Maple fight but I DIDNT REALIZE THAT KURUMADA WAS LIKE DEAD DEAD UNTIL HE DIED LIKE FOURTY MINUTES LATER.
That is again something I want to fix in my next playthrough, since I didn't get any of the post-banquet scenes bc the dummies all died during it.
The banquet was also a ton of fun! I mean not really because basically everyone fucking died. But!! It was fun to figure something out again.