Until Then: Afterimages

incredible dlc for an already incredible game.

A well done DLC that builds upon the rock solid foundation of the original game. While I don't think anything will ever come close to the original, if you aren't done just yet with these characters, let this serve as a "last dance" so-to-speak. :)

Homecoming felt a bit aimless to me - which maybe is the point. It has a couple new mechanics but I feel they are a bit clunky. With sparks on the other hand, they knocked it out of the park! Really great story, maybe a bit dark - but so is the base game so... Both have great music! Anyways, it's definitely worth the 5-odd-ish bucks I paid for it

Good

Until Then is one of the best games I have ever played in my life. Until Then: Afterimages is one of the worst games/dlc I have ever played in my life. The one thing I don't understand is why the writers didn't figure out why the first game was so successful: it was the sharp character writing, the glue that held everything together. You can have all the elements of a good game, but in a visual novel, if the writing doesn't hold, everything will fall apart. For the first act, I don't get why everyone suddenly turned into lesbians in the homecoming chapters. I got nothing against LGBTQ+, but seriously they literally retconned everything and now suddenly everyone is a lesbian? I don't get it, were they trying to appeal to a different crowd? Spoiler alert: the reason we liked the characters of the original until then was not because of their sexuality, it was because the relationships were built up over time slowly and felt earned. This whole lesbian shenanigans felt tacked-on, political, and surface-level rather than genuine relationships. The new romantic development felt abrupt, underwritten, and insufficiently grounded in character history. The problem is not that the relationship is queer; the problem is that the writing asks the player to accept emotional intimacy before it has built a credible connection. The thing that sucked is that there was zero context given apart from one or two poorly done flashback scenes, which seemed as if they was supposed to explain everything (it didn't, it just left me more confused). Why not just build up the relationship from the ground up like they did in the original Until Then instead of forcing us to be emotionally invested in characters that we just met? This chapter made no sense, there were just random scenes. For instance, there were a few scenes about her missing her grandma who died but we never actually go to know her? At least in the original Until Then, we had flashbacks with Mark's Mom's and looking through some boxes where the history was slowly pieced together over the course of the game, whereas here it's like grandma died you have to care even though we don't even know what she looks like. Another one: the tarot card reading, which seemed like it was there to foreshadow future events. But actually, It didn't really foreshadow anything, so it was just a useless scene. That's what this chapter is: useless scene after useless scene. Chekov's gun people, Chekov's gun. One other side comment about homecoming is the baking minigame - what's worse than a bad minigame that takes a long time to complete? Forcing you to play it again after you just completed it. Did no one playtest this game? Why are we even baking in the first place? The original Until Then had bad minigames too, but the cake-baking minigame is probably the worst minigame I have ever played in my life. It's everything wrong with game design packed into one package. Unclear instructions, unclear icons, unclear UI, everything. I'd rather play Mario Party using a N64 controller, playing those minigames where you rotate the control sticks so hard that you end up in the emergency room, than have to experience this horror show ever again. Sparks, the second act literally felt like it copied and pasted the moments from the first game, in order to attempt to recreate tension. Although better than Homecoming, the tension falls flat because we only really cared about characters like Cathy because we spent time getting to know her. The moments in homecoming didn't work because all we did was sell cookies and setup this rock concert - like what was the actual goal of this? There was literally zero motivation for the characters to do anything - was the goal college life simulation? I don't get it, at least in the first game Mark had the goal to reconnect with his mother [spoiler]who disappeared after a plane flight by learning a piano song.[/spoiler] Mark's motivation here is unclear. He doesn't even seem to understand himself. The only noteworthy moment was the [spoiler] edgy kiss between Mark and Nicole and it only works because fans wanted it ever since they appeared to move on with their lives in the Tadhana (Destiny/Luck) cafe, but the issue is that this kiss should have been the original ending after that encounter the cafe, not this tacked-on fanservice. [/spoiler] You can't just add emo alt-rock music with moody lighting and animated pixel art kisses and expect an emotional payoff. That only worked in the first until then because we spent hours getting to know the characters and what makes them tick, and slowly uncovered a deep mystery over the course of the game. This game had zero mystery. Like wouldn't it have been cool to find out more about the crowd crush incident that happened for the concert a few years ago, and explore the trauma about that (they did this masterfully in the original Until Then with the Hospital Scenes), maybe in a different timeline, or flashbacks/time travel? And build narrative tension based on that? What was the point of the rock concert other than it looking cool? That's the problem with this game, there was zero buildup (thus no emotional connection to the characters) and zero tension (setting up a rock concert isn't tension). The stakes were too low for characters we had zero investment in in the first place. In Until Then: The goal was [spoiler] surviving timeline fracturing and uncovering missing loved ones. The stakes were total erasure, suicide, grief, and war. If Mark failed or turned a blind eye, people vanished from existence and families were torn apart. The risk of failure was absolute. [/spoiler] In Afterimages: The goal is setting up a stage and selling crinkles. The stakes are... mild disappointment? An awkward conversation? If they don't finish setting up the stage on time, the concert gets delayed, everyone goes home, and life carries on completely unchanged tomorrow. The only tense part maybe was that crowd crush part, but it was once again glossed over instead of explored? I hope the writers take this into serious consideration for their next game as they eat their chicken adobo with rice. I be dropping a review that's not just true, It's Royal-Tru Orange.