The Suicide of Rachel Foster

Let me preface by saying that this game is meant to upset you. It is a PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR GAME. You are not meant to walk away with a smile. It is telling a very dark tale with heavy emotional themes that will draw you into the depravity. If you are not interested in that, this game is not for you.
Personally, I loved this game. It touches on some very heavy themes in a somber light and tells a familiar story through multiple perspectives in a fresh and unique way. It does not shy away from a dark topic, nor does it throw it in your face. Instead, it lays it out in front of you in a way that reflects a real-world approach and response. It does not shock and awe you: It tells the truth calmly and directly and lets you sit in the reality of its pain and sorrow. Masterfully done and deeply unsettling for all the right reasons.
There's a lot of controversy regarding the message of this game, and so I wanted to give a clarifying perspective in my review: (Reading past this point will spoil some basic plot points. If you want to play blind, do not read this.)
Many reviewers dislike this game because they feel that it justifies or victimizes a pedophile while villainizing the girl he groomed. I understand why people misinterpret it that way, but this is NOT what the story is doing. The story is portraying a unique perspective by allowing the player to see into the abusers mind through various elements. Most abusers do not see themselves as abusers, so within his own mind, he considers himself a victim. Many players active disgust at this portrayal is actually a testament to how well it was written. The depravity of his mind was so great that he failed to see just how obviously wrong his thoughts and feelings were. Because you are seeing from his perspective, you as the player are caught in his self victimization and his desire to be pitied. THIS IS NOT THE CREATORS CONDONIG HIS BEHAVIOR. THEY ARE GIVING YOU A PSYCHOLOGICALLY-ACCURATE PORTRAYAL OF A PREDATOR'S MIND. It is meant to upset you. It is meant to disgust you. The point is for you to hate the way he tries to justify himself, so any negative reviews regarding his portrayal are feeling exactly the kind of anger the creators intended.
The villainizing of Rachel is a perspective based on the real-world views towards girls who are groomed and raped. It calls attention to the thoughts and ideas behind the "well what were you wearing" and "she should have known better" concepts that are very real in our society. It is designed to show you just how dangerous and cruel victim-blaming can be. THE CREATORS ARE NOT BLAMING THE VICTIM, THEY ARE TELLING A STORY IN WHICH THE VICTIM IS BLAMED AND SHOWCASING THE CONSEQUENCES THAT FOLLOW.
Keep in mind that the events described happened when Nicole was 16, not when she was a developed adult, and you are actively playing through her only real attempt to process it several years later. Her thoughts and feelings are messy because they are realistic. When families fall apart, the children lash out emotionally at everyone involved because they don't know what to do with their anger and they don't understand the situation well enough to point it somewhere constructive. Likewise, they model after the adults around them: her mother very openly blamed Rachel, so naturally Nicole does too. The process of working through your emotions means finding things that are incorrect and unjustified and correcting them, a process which this game portrays beautifully through Nicole.
I have also seen many reviews that dislike the villainization of the mother for leaving. While the mother is villainized in the story, its not for leaving him. It is because she, as an adult who understood the situation, still chose to blame Rachel for her husband's grooming. This in and of itself is yet another highly realistic portrayal of actual human response, where a wife who can't reconcile her love for her husband with her hatred of his actions takes the easy way out and blames the perceived "source" of the issue. She is absolutely wrong for this and her negative portrayal is meant to express that.
When playing, please remember that the format of this game means that you are viewing right and wrong through the eyes of the characters, not through the actual moral structure of the creators. Creating a story where someone does bad things and believes them to be good does not mean that the story's creator thinks they are good.

Admittedly the story leaves a lot to be desired--the twist is not well designed and leaves the player quite confused as to the resolution of the story. Additionally, the ending choices are a bit forced and feel like a stand in for a better thought out conclusion-- in the last 60 seconds of the game the main character loses her mind? It doesn't make sense with the story in general.
That said, I think the game is beautifully designed. Exploring the hotel is a lot of fun, and they nailed the suspense of doing so. It's replayable in that you'll definitely be tempted to load back in once done with the story to really explore and see what else there is to see in the hotel. I would almost expect there to be a lot of puzzle searching and solving like in the Resident Evil games, but that opportunity was sadly squandered. Walking around in the game makes you think a lot about the potential for the setting. Great design and detail work there, but you'll likely be disappointed at the lack of depth.
Overall I'd recommend if you can buy below the $10 mark, above that I think I'd say no personally given the lack of depth.

The game looks beautiful!
I really can recommend this game if you want a little walking simulator with a great atmosphere and a deep story!
However, I would only buy it on sale because it's not very long.

The Suicide of Rachel Foster is that of a cautionary tale where 'bad people do bad things'. The game should not be censored just because people don't like the subject matter.

6/10
The game has an eerie atmosphere and a sad, creepy story. But the story feels like it had a lot of missed potential. And the well-known last day bug still hasn’t been fixed, even after all this time.

I sit down, play through the whole game.

Is it a walking simulator game? Yes.
It is mention about "taboo topic" aka Pedophilia and also romanticizing suicide (?) ? Yes.
Did I read other reviewers and still buy the game to try out? Yes.
Did I regret it? No.
Would I recommend this? Yeah, why not?

If you don't like it or any of the topic the game has, then don't play it. Simply add this game to your ignore list and never talk about it again, easy.

I don't care what they told you at the internet school, this game does NOT promote nor EXCUSE pedophilia.
The biggest sin this game made was to assume that people will have critical thinking, and will see that what it tries to convey, is the damage and suffering caused by the stupid decision of an adult. From ruining a teenager's life, to ruining his own, his family's and her family's life and to some extent the whole community. At no point, it felt like the story was excusing or promoting any sort of pedophilia.
With that being said, I do believe that although the affair was the epicenter of the whole tragedy, and it is discussed often, it does not explore much of the events or what led to them, but rather mostly the outcome.
I found it strange that the brother would have really believed in the "true love" between Rachel and Leonard. My only assumption is that they tried to portray him from the perspective of this confused small child who felt sad for his sister because she had a disability and she would have found someone to accept her for who she was? Yet now he's an adult, as he said himself, so he would know better what was going on, right? Either way, it's a strange path to go down on and it would have been better to be left unexplored.
The most frustrating for me were the cringy fake dialogues (they sound so lifeless and generic, worse than ChatGPT), the unenthusiastic voice acting and constant technical soft locks (!!!! I played the game 4h and got soft locked 4 times! I had to replay the whole day 9 twice because it locked at the end of the day!!!). The ending was also weird with the brother just walking out randomly... like ok, he wanted closure, but he just decided to leave suddenly. It felt like they just wanted to rush and finish the game and that was the easiest :-/ After all that pain of listening to their cringy dialogues, he just disappeared on me?!
It just feels like the game wanted really hard to be some kind of deep, serious Twin Peaks but ended up trying to do too many things at the same time and failing at most. It didn't explore things that well or deep, it went into some directions where it shouldn't have, it tried to be something it's not. It's not a bad game, but could have been a lot better.
I would have not recommended it full price, but given how cheap it is now, it's worth it as a 4h entertainment.
!!! Note: As many others said, it can be quite sad if you really think about it and if you're struggling with personal things in your life, it's better to stay away from it. It's a very sensitive topic and explores people's ruined lives. !!!