This is a rant, and I want to clarify that I haven’t finished the game yet, so this doesn’t reflect the entire experience. I bought it years ago and didn’t finish, but after reading some positive reviews, and now I am trying to finish all the old games I bought, I decided to give it a go.

Unfortunately, I’ve barely made it 20 minutes further than before, and I’m already frustrated, especially with the main character (MC). I will talk about some minor plot in the beginning without even getting into the meat of the stuff, but if you want to go in this truly 100% blind, then don't read.

The two MCs are paranormal investigation YouTubers dealing with tension in their relationship, and they agree to do one final shoot. The MC promises to be nice, but from the get-go, she’s irritable. On their second day, when they try to interview the villagers, villagers all act cold and somewhat hostile towards them while denying any existence of local legends or ghost stories and ask the YouTubers not to stir up trouble, even labeling their host, Morgan, as a "troublemaker." It’s a pretty stereotypical setup for a village with some kind of secret, which feels a bit too obvious.

The MC, already irritated, uses this as evidence against Tara that they shouldn’t be there and that they’ve been duped by Morgan. Tara is more laid-back and excited about the whole thing, asking the MC to calm down and take their time, since it’s only the first day, and they keeps filming. But from there, it’s a constant cycle of MC picking fights with Tara, Tara trying to soothe her, MC apologizing, then starting another argument. At some point, I was just thinking when this could stop? And Tara must have the patience of a saint.

After a lunch hosted by Morgan, where she introduces her “talking cat”, which turns out to be a total disasters(which may or may not be real, still too early to tell). After they leave, MC lashes out at Tara and storms off to their cabin, thinking, “I don’t care, as long as she doesn’t think she’s wasting her money…”

Only then do I realize Tara is footing the bill for the trip, even paying the MC as a photographer. It’s hard to understand how the MC can complain when she’s getting paid to be there, and how anyone could treat their friend this way, especially when your friend is covering all of your expenses. This just seems ungrateful and inconsiderate. MC is practically on a paid vacation in a snow-covered village. What's there to complain about? At one point, during their conversation, MC literally feels guilty as she looks at Tara's slumped posture then next second thinking I don't care. Like, is this character literally set up to be unlikable or what?

Then, Morgan’s mother shows up when MC's alone and starts trash-talking her daughter and her CAT. My God. Then MC just goes along with it and thinks the mother’s complaints make sense. Remarkable. She seems only go off at whom she can get away with, and not at an actual villain. Interesting.

Here is the deal. Morgan’s stories might be questionable, and they are now suspecting she's troubled mentally, but we will see. The issue here is that they have a whole month in this village. Morgan is already isolated by the villagers and bullied by her own mother, and then her two guests start questioning her too. For the sake of decency, how about looking a little to the upside in a mountain village trip your friend paid?

Right now, I’m struggling to stay engaged or frustratingly engaged. When you dropped a game, there must be a reason. Maybe the game will improve, but I don’t understand why the beginning has to be so hard to get through. It feels like a slow slog before the actual story even begins, which is a pattern I’ve seen in other games too.

Finally what clicked for me was that I read somewhere that the game was actually written by cis men. The whole dynamic between the two protagonists already feels off. At multiple points early in the game I already wondered if they are actually depicting women. But now it's just settled for me. If the genders of the protagonists were reversed, then it definitely would not be so jarring. Maybe they are mimicking real-life dynamics they think they saw, like a stressed-out mother and a hyped-up daughter. But in this case, it’s two women—Tara ends up being the patient one, while the MC is just intolerant, impatient, and constantly judgmental, picking out faults at every turn.