I want to start by saying that I actually think WANT2TALK is a very well-made game. The art is beautiful, the interfaces are incredibly polished, the atmosphere is strong, and you can tell that a LOT of care went into creating the setting. There is genuinely a lot of substance here. The characters seem to have lives outside of the protagonist, the town feels like it exists independently from the player, and there are a lot of small details that make the world feel lived in.
THE issue is that I think the game sometimes struggles to decide which of those details actually need to be shown to the player, and more importantly, when they need to be shown.
While playing WANT2TALK, I kept asking myself two questions: "Does the player need to know this right now?" and "Is this slowing down the script or making it more engaging?" I think those are especially important questions for this game because there is SO much dialogue and environmental detail.
A conversation can develop a character and still be unnecessary at that particular moment. A joke can establish the dynamic of a friend group and still go on for too long. An environmental description can be well written and still interrupt the momentum of a scene. Individually, most of these moments are fine and also pretty interesting. But they accumulate and that's really the core problem, more than any single scene.
The opening has a long stretch of internal narration, then the flyer, the website, HauntNet, introductions, rules, conversations, inside jokes, paranormal stories, etc. By the time I actually met someone in person, I had already been playing for around half an hour. (It might be my skill issue tho.)
HauntNet is a good example of this in practice. It establishes the paranormal group, introduces relationships between characters, and gives us information about the mystery, but a significant amount of it could be condensed without losing anything important. There's a difference between characterization and attachment. Knowing ten things about someone doesn't automatically make me emotionally invested in them.
The 2009 atmosphere is visually great, but the dialogue sometimes feels much more modern. Visually, I LOVE the late-2000s aesthetic, the interfaces, usernames, old internet design, emoticons, websites and technology generally sell the setting really well. The dialogues, though: obviously things like "XD," ":3," leetspeak, xX_username_Xx, "lol," etc. existed at the time, and my issue isn't really whether individual expressions technically existed in 2009. But some of the humor, sentence structures and group dynamics feel much closer to a 2020s Discord friend group. HauntNet almost reminded me of the 2023 Y2K revival, when people became really interested in recreating 2000s internet aesthetics. It sometimes feels less like people naturally using the internet in 2009 and more like teenagers consciously performing a 2000s internet aesthetic. That's completely subjective, but because the visual atmosphere is otherwise so convincing, the contrast stood out to me.
I'm also conflicted about the game's message about routine (if there is one?). I actually really like the idea behind the theme that living the same day repeatedly without experiencing anything new can make life feel like a loop. There's something interesting there about curiosity, routine and choosing to engage with the world around you. I'm less convinced by how that idea is implemented, though. The flyer is the clearest example for me: if refusing to look around it leads toward a bad ending, then the game isn't really exploring the player's relationship with routine as much as it is establishing that engaging with this specific unusual thing is the correct choice. Those aren't quite the same idea. Someone can choose not to take a mysterious flyer from a bus stop and still be curious, adventurous and open to new experiences.
Likewise, doing something unusual doesn't automatically mean someone is meaningfully escaping a repetitive life. Overall, eventually I found myself thinking less about what was happening and more about when something was going to happen, which is a shame, because the mystery itself seems interesting and the presentation is genuinely impressive.
The script could benefit a lot from occasionally asking: Does the player need to know this? Do they need to know it right now? Does this develop something that couldn't be developed more naturally later? Is this slowing down the script or making it more engaging? If I removed this conversation entirely, what would actually be lost? I think trimming or relocating some of the dialogue would let the game's strongest qualities breathe much more.
The atmosphere, visuals, mystery and worldbuilding are already there. It's an amazing and very impressive project, and even the things I didn't personally enjoy came from my subjective perspective.