Recent reviews by d i n k y ㅇㅅㅇ

Not sure how to rate this one. I played with patch, since last time I played a game of theirs with the patch it offered nothing worthwhile so this time I wanted to purely play the story.

It's a vn so it's hard to rate it since it doesn't have game mechanics etc so I'll rate it entirely by the audio, visuals and story.

Story wise I have to admit it's not good. It took a gruelling long time before it even got into anything horror ish, as it was mostly just very loaded with slice of life filler content that I guess you could argue is character development but the thing is, it all didn't matter in the end. They were all useless characters that didn't progress the story or offer anything meaningful to the narrative. And the narrative is... Nothing much. Just a weird guy that supposedly does bad things in a mansion. What happened there thought, you'll never know, what was the well? Too bad you'll never find out. Nothing was fleshed out, like literally nothing. Just ended the same way you'd end your bad stories in high-school like, "and they all died" or "and then the house burnt down" you know? And the character design of gore is hilarious. And will not be elaborated on, ever. I don't know, it was just... Boring.

Visuals are OK, it's nostalgic and old school. Completely fine.

Music was OK as well. Sound effects too.

Unfortunately the whole experience was just ok, thus I only recommend it at a big discount.

In my mind this game is about depression, or anxiety or anything else that keep you rooted in whatever you find comforting but strips you of all joy. It's about that monster, that nobody can see, how it doesn't matter how much you try to do the right thing, your achievements, your success on a surface level, it's deep rooted and it kills many lives. That's my take on it, as always it was a good short game from this dev.

--100% recommend the STEAM VERSION only
+ Great story, was really interesting
+ Great horror, but it's a VS so the horror is very much in imagining the way it all must feel for the characters
+ A bit over the top gory(flesh walls and stuff kinda make me laugh), and a bit bizarre at first
+ This version has no child rape or pedophilia, unlike the patched/original version, which is why it was changed for Steam probably.
+ Loved the music and ambiance of the game, huge plus for sound effects too
- The pictures/frames I wish were polished more as on the characters, while the characters are great I personally would prefer images with a lot less sketching left in the end result, this was better and worse in didferent images so I think they prob decided to put more effort into certain sprites.

Please do not read more from here on out as this is gross.¨
- Patch includes: Rape of a minor(graphically explicit), rape of a lobotomised woman, with minor engaging in the rape with the MC. MC on minor graphically explicit sex scenes)
- As I said the patched is rancid, like I installed it as I figured I should have a good comparison since some people whined so much about it being separated, but I'm gonna be completely honest, the game is narrative wise 150% better without the scenes because it's honestly the story that matters, you already understand that he has abandoned all his morals and he is clearly OK with that despite that it worries him that Saya is clearly a minor. Now this is the part in most Japanese loli where it gets a bit creative right, so technically she is not HUMAN so there will be some arguments that she is not a minor or an adult, but I think we should not pretend or downright ignore the constant reinforcing the narrative drives of Saya, regardless of her other form, is presented as a pre-pubescent girl, and just fyi the MC is in his 20s which makes it even more cringe pedophilia fanservice. You also get to spare yourself of this completely useless rape scene of his previous friend where his loli gf lobotomises the woman to make her into the MCs sex slave. There was no narrative or character development here, except for making you hate the MC and Saya more. The game confirms her physical age in graphic sexual narrative where other characters comments on her body and her look.

Very interesting short little game! A cool little ARG VHS footage game that spooked me several times. Defo worth it :)

Minimal settings, if you struggle with motionsickness, you can skip this one, its not getting any better, even with motionblur off(which the game doesn't even allow you to turn off) the dev seem to have added a hoard of additional settings, your head is CONSTANTLY moving, there is NO FOV choices and the game is largely AI. AI sucks in creative spaces period.

While I managed to remove some settings, the game seems to have motionblur + extreme headbobbing + headbobbing while idle + mouse smoothing + mouse delay on input + various addional vision obscuring shaders. Like bro, it's not even aestethic at this point it's just BAD. I therefore really cannot recommend this game, maybe if it was 1 dollar or something but even then, you have the FIGHT THE GAME JUST TO BE ABLE TO PLAY IT WITHOUT GETTING SICK. I play a handful of obscure and oftentimes just bad indie games, horror or not, and this is one of the biggest issue I see with these "developers", they have an idea but don't really know how to code or even do any art so they buy premade stuff or ask ChatGPT for something, I think at this point we need steam to add a "AI Generated game" tag.

+++This is NOT A GAME IT'S MORE LIKE AN EXPERIMENTAL TAKE OF URBAN LEGEND/OLDSCHOOL TECHNOLOGY HORROR CLASSIC DELIVERED INTO A MODERN MEDIA++++

This game is like a loveletter to early 2000s, late 90s chainmail type horror legends that were very popular/widespread in Japan and other Asian countries. Think how slenderman once was, urban legend stuff. It leans HEAVILY into classic urband legends and the best one to describe it as is RINGU(The Ring, but the japanese original movie) and uses the very common theme of "spreading" the curse. The game is not supposed to be a game, which it seems a lot of people leaving bad reviews don't get - this is obviously supposed to be an experimental take of a traditional media(tales, spoken) into modern media, you are supposed to play it once, and once only, which is why the whining about the text being slow and ♥♥♥♥ is just so out of touch and irrelevant.

TL:DR:
+this is an experimental "game", if you expect game mechanics you are stupid and you should be looking for common horror games and not experimental japanese ones.
+ delivers exactly what it intends
+ More akin to an ARG
+ Classic Japanese horror themes from 90s-2000s - technology + spirits
+ It is short, just like the curse video for The Ring.
+ It's supposed to be obtuse, it's not action gaming
+ you should have some basic understanding of the theme before going in, even better if you already love RINGU, PULSE, etc.

A short horror story, minor jumpscares, but deals with child abuse, assault, alcoholism and homicide. 100% worth it.

Artistic simulation of the existential dread of millenial and Gen Z life, the continuous cycle of living just to not die, birthed into the cycle to work in a machine as but a tiny cog, life is meaningless, there is no real happiness. Life is fleeting, it has no purpose but to eventually end, like a fever dream that you can never escape but you can but close your eyes to do it all again, and again, and again. The point of life is to suffer, or to not, all life is meaningless, your only real choice is wether or not you continue on.

I feel like Mouthwashing is a game about so many things but not about what you see on the surface.

You could easily say this is just a body horror, or some horror about a dude who is mental. In a sense that's all true in some way or another. But it's also not.

Mouthwashing is about a man who, through his inability to lead and set ground rules for his small set of responsibilities he ends up creating a massive ripple effect. But it's also about responsibility. The game tells you that, right? Well yeah, but I think it's a lot more nuanced than that. Mouthwashing tells a story of what can happen when people don't take responsibility. How one person's actions can enable another to harm themselves or others.

It's a really deep game, and it's easy to put your idea on what it's about. But I urge you to really think about the ripple effect, and the reality of inaction. How inaction can cause detriment.

This game got me ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up like the atmosphere is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ scary. Like I played the original several times over but this game ♥♥♥♥♥ with you on another level. 💀