eff_ess_oe

So idk how many of y'all out there know this, but I am a massive sucker for fangames of shit I like. I've played Ace Attorney: The Contempt of Court 3 times since picking it up in 2020, The 7th Stand User has been sitting in my backlog for a good while (I'll start it up over the holidays, I swear), and lord knows I've lost a good few hours to bingeing reviews and LPs of fangames for a certain sit-and-survive horror juggernaut.

This one, however, was one of my most anticipated games of 2022, and my God, does it deliver. nosedive (stylized in all lowercase) is a visual novel created by rhoda_pomelo and winkblue based on Part 5 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure -- specifically, on Bruabba. When it dropped and I played it through the first time, I knew I had to show it off to the world -- or at least, to my own little corner of the net. So here it is on YouTube. The audio sucks because I was recording through a crappy mic attached to my aux cord, but I have captions so you can tell what I'm saying. The audio will be better in the next installment, I swear.




As I said in the LP, the art is fucking GORGEOUS. rhoda_pomelo's pixel-sketch style really sets the mood for a noir point-and-click-style VN. I love the use of limited palettes and focus on one single color like the blue in the bar or the grey at the motel. Going off of that, there are some moments where another color pops in to add some contrast (e.g. the signs in the bar, the bushes by the motel) that I really appreciate. I can definitely see this color choice becoming more significant later on in the game, either as a way of adding symbolism with the colors in the limited palettes, or as a way of drawing attention with the contrasting-colored objects.

The writing is also top-notch. So far, the characters act just like they did in the original Part 5, but at the same time they feel like they're part of their own story. I'm usually picky with alternate universes in fic, but when the characters within them are written in this specific way, that's how I know it's a good one. Abbacchio and Mista's dynamic is also really entertaining with how they clap back at each other a lot, but still seem close (at least for now). The setting and atmosphere in the writing are super intriguing, leaving a bunch of questions that I can't wait to see answered in future installments.

My one gripe with the game is that it's so short -- however, as more chapters get added, I probably won't have that problem anymore.

Now, here are some of my theories/predictions for the game (under the cut, as we're getting into spoiler territory):

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