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I sadly had to remove it due to some bug but I’ll repost it again later 

It was so gooood, the game is interactive + it has good art.

but

It highkey reminded me alot of want2talk (idk who came first) 

I’ve already done a Tt video about tfc with all the details + more arguments if you really wanna know my thoughts.

 I also agree with you, my first comment was kinda vague and I was lowkey just hating.

 I’ve recently tried Want2Talk and it’s a really good vn if you want something in the same style as w2t D3V0UR is also good but tbh if you want really good vns you should try the Japanese ones. Hope this helped you 

Just because someone knows how to write doesn’t mean they used ai lmao 😭 we’re literally in literature crisis. And it was also to create a contrast between Neko’s bland writing and an actual structured paragraph. I’ve also seen your argument about the “Ai detector” (ai scanner btw) try to run any books written in the past century through it and you’ll see the results 😹. But again think whatever you want. 

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.

Girl, who told you that you had to read everything? 😭 It’s a public comment section, I’ll write whatever I want 🥰 If criticism bothers you that much, you can literally just stop reading (criticism is literally how you improve things). And calling me a bully while telling me to “stfu” and calling me a dumbass is weirdly ironic 😹 

I genuinely struggle to understand the popularity of ts. After playing it, I was left with the impression of a game that relies almost entirely on familiar aesthetics, familiar character archetypes, and the immediate appeal of obsessive love interests, without developing enough substance underneath them.

My main problem is not that the game uses tropes. Almost every story does. My problem is thatit rarely seems to do anything particularly interesting with them.

Even the atmosphere and premise, which are arguably the game’s biggest selling points, feel extremely familiar. The circus (boring n unoriginal), mysterious monsters performers, obsessive attractive men, dark romance and ordinary protagonist (who has no brain) suddenly becoming the center of their attention all feel like concepts I have encountered countless times before.

It reminds me of the kind of supernatural self-insert fiction that was everywhere on Wattpad and Tumblr in the 2010s. And unfortunately, I don’t think the writing gives these tropes enough depth to make them feel fresh.

The protagonist feels empty rather than immersive

The protagonist is probably my biggest issue with the game.

They appear to be deliberately written as a blank slate so that the player can project themselves onto them. I have absolutely nothing against self-insert protagonists when the game actually gives me the freedom to make that character interesting.

Here, however, it’s just bad.

The protagonist has very little characterization, but the player also has relatively little control over who they become. There is barely any customization, and while the game regularly presents dialogue choices, many of them ultimately feel like variations within the same predetermined story rather than meaningful opportunities to shape the protagonist or substantially alter the narrative.

So what exactly is the advantage of making the protagonist this empty?

If I am supposed to see them as their own character, they are nowhere near developed enough for me to find them interesting. If I am supposed to see myself in them, I frequently cannot, because the game still forces them to behave in ways I find ridiculous.

A flawed protagonist can be fascinating. A protagonist who repeatedly loses common sense whenever the plot needs them to enter another dangerous situation is simply frustrating.

Why is everyone obsessed with this person?

Pierrot illustrates another major problem.

I understand that obsession is the point. I am not criticizing an obsessive character for being obsessive in a game built around obsessive characters.

I am asking something much more basic:

Why the protagonist?

(Don’t pmo with the columbina shit)

Pierrot has barely met this person before developing an extreme fixation on them. Within an absurdly short amount of time, his interest escalates to following and stalking the protagonist.

But why?

Oh yes for the “Yandere” n that’s it only the cute naive yandere bait matters. 

The protagonist is intentionally written with very few distinctive characteristics, which makes the problem even worse. The story wants me to believe that these bizarre and dangerous characters find the MC uniquely fascinating while simultaneously refusing to give the MC enough individuality for me to understand what they are fascinated by.

It creates the classic self-insert fantasy where extraordinary characters become obsessed with an extremely ordinary protagonist simply because that protagonist happens to be controlled by the player.

Again, this feels straight out of 2010s Wattpad fiction.

The world often feels built around creating romantic encounters

I had similar problems with the circus itself.

Some events feel less like things these characters would naturally be doing and more like convenient mechanisms for putting the love interests in front of the protagonist.

For example, the performers themselves being out distributing promotional material initially seems relatively harmless. But as the game establishes the circus as a much larger operation, the setup starts feeling increasingly artificial. 

Basically bad world building 

Why are these specific performers personally doing this?

The answer may technically exist, but while playing, the answer I kept feeling was:

Because the protagonist needs to meet them.

And once I start noticing the writer arranging characters rather than believing in the internal logic of the world, the atmosphere stops working.

This contributes to my larger problem with the setting. A creepy circus could be interesting, but simply putting mysterious characters inside a circus does not automatically create interesting worldbuilding.

The game contains plenty of choices, and some absolutely do produce different scenes or outcomes. I am not claiming that literally every button leads to identical content.

But the overall experience still felt surprisingly linear to me.

Some of my favorite stories could be completely linear. (+ my games are also linear I was just hoping more for the most popular vn on itch)

The writing makes everything feel even flatter

This is obviously one of the more subjective parts of my criticism, but I also found the writing itself weak.

The prose and dialogue often feel simplistic, and characters can come across more like collections of recognizable archetypes than fully realized people. Combined with the extremely familiar premise, this makes the entire experience feel strangely dated.

Here is the mysterious one.

Here is the dangerous one.

Here is the obsessive one.

Here is the protagonist.

Now everyone wants the protagonist.

That might be enough for someone who simply wants to enjoy the fantasy of attractive, dangerous characters obsessing over them.

“Dark circus” is already an established aesthetic. So are creepy clowns, theatrical horror, obsessive performers and carnival imagery.

Again, using familiar imagery is perfectly fine. Originality does not require inventing something nobody has ever imagined before. But if your individual ingredients are familiar, I expect the way you combine or develop them to give the work its own identity.

its shallow. That is probably the simplest summary of my problem with The Freak Circus. It’s bland, surface level writing, ugly art, unoriginal and highkey predatory 

Thank you! The final version is already out 💕

Hi the final version is out 💕 and thanks for the support 

MERCIIII