Along the Edge

Along The Edge is a choice-based visual novel where you follow Daphne Delatour, a young woman who inherits her grandmother's home and has to deal with the complicated legacy and supernatural rumors surrounding her family.
As you play the game, you make choices that shape the way Daphne's story plays out. You can choose how Daphne reacts to events, which characters she focuses on, and what order she does things, and those choices shape the way the story plays out. The choices about attitude are grouped into sun/moon (based on whether or not she is polite or calm with other people) and globe/star (based on how open she is to the supernatural). Which of the categories you feed into the most will change how Daphne feels about what happens to her and the ultimate end of the route she'll take. It was interesting to see the ways the different possible storylines played out, and to see the more subtle ways that smaller choices would impact the story. Sometimes those innocuous choices would change the tone or context of a situation even when the big choices were mostly the same (like a relationship seeming strained or happy, even if the events of the relationship are mostly the same).
The biggest downside to this was that it got kind of annoying to try to replay the game looking for different combinations. While many of the conversations differ based on your other choices, there are long stretches where the game is basically the same or very similar in most playthroughs. Unlike many similar choice-based visual novels, the game doesn't let you automatically skip dialogue you've already gotten. Skipping it manually is slower, and if you're in a hurry you can accidentally choose an option when a choice comes up. There is also only one save slot and it's autosave only, so if you want to play in a way you've already played, but just change a choice toward the end, you have to play through the whole game from the beginning. I'm torn because I do feel like the story is overall most impactful when you play through it slowly and stick with your choices, but it's also meant to be replayed and some of the more expository sections are hard to read over and over again.
The hand-painted art style is really beautiful and the soundtrack was really nice to listen to and enhanced the mood of the different scenes. There were a few places where the translations were a little awkward or there were typos.
Along the Edge told a really intriguing, emotional story. I enjoyed exploring the different places the story could go, even if at times that got a little repetitive. 8/10

The way it leaves you when you've finished it, stranded with so many feelings, at the same time shows how good it was.