Night in the Woods

To enjoy it completely, Night in the Woods needs a more "patient" kind of appreciation. I've seen reviews giving this game a low score, calling it a "walking simulator", and this overgeneralization could not be any more lazy. This game isn't meant to be another form of mindless entertainment. It's a beautiful experience that requires you to enjoy the little things in life. The charming and relatable characters that you choose to talk to, the countless secrets hidden everywhere for those with enough curiosity, and the spontaneous minigames that serve no purpose other than to make the experience more memorable. Along with that, the music in this game is unbelievably beautiful. I can't put into words how it's impacted me, and that goes for the entire soundtrack as well. All of these qualities create an immaculate experience that could never be replicated, and hearing people brush it aside as "pointless" breaks my heart.
"At the end of everything, hold on to anything"
Despite this theme's presence throughout the game, Night in the Woods ironically taught me to do the opposite. The moment I put down any experience such as this one, I can't help but feel pangs of nostalgia. It's as if I'd just been born and I wanted to be back in the womb. I would normally blame these feelings on maladaptive escapism, wanting to ignore my real life and live someone else's instead, and while that is a part of it, my problem was rooted in something much deeper. I undoubtedly love this game with all my heart, in the same way you would a close relative. Every replay feels like seeing a distant friend after a long time apart. From the safety I feel from tracks like "Home Again", to the support expressed in every line of dialogue with Mae's parents, this game feels like home in every sense of the word. Every time the story comes to a close, I'm devastated to see all of the characters I've bonded with leave. I would spend weeks afterword ruminating on memories I had with this game, and for hours at a time, I'd be stuck in my head wishing I was still experiencing this masterpiece. That was until I realized that, just like with any close relationship you lose, you need to learn to let go. Night in the Woods has taught me so many life lessons and I'll never forget the ways it's changed my life. While I'd love to live in the comfort it gives me when I'm playing it, I know that it can't last forever. Some time apart is what's needed to truly appreciate all it's done for me.
Thank you for everything Alec Holowka.
Rest in peace.

This game is so important to me. It has permanently increased my standards for writing in video games, which is unfortunate because I have never found another game like it. It's hard to describe everything that makes this game so perfect.
I hope someday something this good gets made again. Until then, I'll just be replaying NITW every October forever.

“I believe in a universe that doesn't care and people who do.” -Angus Delaney
A quote that stayed with me reminded me that even if the universe is possibly meaningless and we have no purpose in the grand scheme of everything, the people around us make it matter. We matter.

Even in a universe that doesn’t care, we matter because we care.

amazing game 10/10 art, music, dialogue, characters, etc

The best way to describe my experience playing this game is like taking out the laundry while knowing the world is slowly ending.
You're placed in a world that's painfully mundane, a small town in the middle of nowhere. You spend your days mucking about with your friends, listening to the gossip of strangers on the street and going to bed every evening, in the same room, in the same house. It's a place where nothing happens, but where something is just wrong.
At first it's your character's feelings of aimlessness as she tries to navigate being an adult. Then comes the realization that the people you talk to have buried their desperation, dreams and fears in those mundane conversations you have with them. And finally at the heart of everything there hides a quiet horror. That everything you know is slipping away, has already slipped away, and you're just wandering around aimlessly because knowing the very fact that everything will one day end has shattered your world into meaningless shapes.
You walk through the same streets everyday, talk to the same people. But the woods in the distance, always there, remind you that the old shops you knew have closed, the days are getting shorter as the leaves begin to fall, and that every passing minute is gone.
The main character spends the story chasing a ghost. That ghost, I think, isn't there to haunt the past or the future. It's just a part of the human desire to hold on to a time that seemed safe, to hold back the rot and decay of the abyss from a cherished place. In the end she finds it in a hole in the middle of the woods. But that hole isn't just in the woods, it's inside her, in the town, in the center of everything. A bottomless void slowly expanding to swallow the entire world.
The game doesn't tell you how to defeat the bottomless hole.
Instead, it's just the protagonist and her friends surviving, because she decided in the moment the abyss took hold that she is still alive, and that was enough.
Because At the end of everything, hold on to anything

I've known about this game for a really long time, and every time someone tells me to play it, I think, "I should, huh?" and then just kind of never do. I live my life, do my daily things. Go with it. Then, I finally decide to buy the game. And, just like that, magically, everything in the game's premise lines up with mine (except the whole - you know). But, everything else? All too familiar. All too real. All too relatable. Leaving. Coming back. Bad job. Giving up. Growing up. Seeing people leave. Worries. Numbers. And... it just felt like, this game 'waited' for me to be ready to play it. Probably just a coincidence, but to me, that's something magical. I definitely recommend this game. I wouldn't be typing this out if I didn't. It gets you thinking. It doesn't matter if you learn anything from it. It doesn't matter if it changes or doesn't change your life. It happened, you played it, something something something. It's just a part of you now, and well, I think, that's what it's supposed to be.

This is now my entire personality (or personalities...). Not sure a game ever got to me as much as Night in the Woods did. It's got it all; relatable characters, SO MUCH sarcasm and -dark- humour, awesome ost that will live rent free in your head, amazing story that will catch you off-guard. It's silly, weird and funny, until it gets really dark, sad and existential dread-y.
11/10. Wonderful experience that I'll be stuck doing over and over again :)

This game changed my life.

I truly mean it when I say that. This game genuinely changed my life in ways I never could have expected from a stupid little indie story game I downloaded off Xbox Gamepass on a friend's recommendation. Playing it again for the first time in 3 or 4 years has only reignited my love for it. That's all.