I beat the first EIA game a few years ago, mostly because it was a free game and it had a good nostalgic hook that drew me in. When it was concluded, it reminded me that I am so glad I survived through the heartbreaking age of AIM and the lyric riddled bios that AIM included. I finally got around to grabbing the second game this past month and while it was more of the same, which isn't a bad thing certainly because why fix what isn't broken, it also reminded me of more of the same: I am SO HAPPY that part of my life is over.

For a lot of my life, I was told constantly "you will miss this" when faced with things that I was dealing with, specifically school. I can assure you now, being nearly 30, that I do NOT miss school. I do not miss the ridiculous bullshit that comes with the social aspects of it, and I do not miss being graded on a standard of learning that hasn't actually developed much past that of the 1950s. I was never a 'popular' girl, nor was I even a 'semi popular girl'. I'm not going to toot my own 'i was different from other girls' horn, because that's been proven to be downright ineffective when relating to other women because in the end we're all connected no matter the nail polish we wore or the bands we listened to, but I am going to say that I was the kind of girl who had no friends, who stayed in her room all day and read and listened to a record player well into the birth of MP3s.

I'm not saying these things to prove myself as a proto-hipster, because, god, who the hell would want to be recognized for THAT accomplishment, but I am saying these things to state why these games affect me.

The entire EMILY IS AWAY franchise (and yes, it is a franchise now, with two games in the bag and a third on the way, and let's also not ignore the strange feeling one gets when ones own past becomes franchised) is sort of the technological equivalence to having an out of body experience. Playing these games brings up a lot of bitter memories for me, as a young gay girl crushing on other girls via messenger programs and reading into every single goddamned thing they said as if it were somehow a clue to their true feelings towards me when in reality it meant not a single thing. But more than those things, what these games do is force me to relive an era of my life that I'd rather not remember, and yet I continue to come back to it? Why is this?

Part of me thinks it's because while I'm not exactly aching for the past, like being in school, I do ache for parts of the past. When things were simpler, when I used a messenger to talk to girls I liked, when my biggest worry in life was what icon to use on my profile (which, let's be real, is still kind of a problem). I realized that I am not nostalgic, I am nostalgic FOR nostalgia. I want to miss things like other people do. I want to miss school and having friends, but to miss those things, I would've had to had enjoyed school and had friends, so. I don't long for the days when these things were better, I long TO long for the days when things were better. I didn't have those better days, so I wish I could have, and that's sort of what these games serve as, is an escape to those times without all the bullshit that comes with it. I remember what it's like to talk to a girl you thought you had a connection with and then only to have her be typing, then stop typing and instead reply "ok" and leave you wondering. When those moments happen, whether in the past in real life or in the game here, the pit of your stomach drops like the ball on New Years, except it's not a joyous feeling. Though, I don't gain joy from New Years, but that's a whole other story.

EMILY IS AWAY is another basic jaunt through a time period when you bonded with people you liked over music and you talked trash about others you hated in multicolored fonts. In some ways, it's more tense than games that were made to be tense just because it's so fucking real, and real life will always be more tense than any sort of fiction.

The difference however is that eventually, a new game is made and Emily signs back in.

Not everyone signs back into your life in reality, and that can hurt.

With Tumblr fanfic-level writing and an embarrassingly unlikable cast, Kyle Seeley somehow manages to outdo the absolute misogyny of his first entry--which culminates in a sexual assault while having no condemnation thereof, as well as rewarding and seemingly encouraging possessiveness of women--by creating a game that bases your entire ending on perfectly repeating the same three traits about yourself over a span of 5 chapters, which themselves take place over a span of 2 years. Answer one of those traits incorrectly at any point in the laborious 5 chapters? Well, lol, suck it, you get trauma-dumped at and then told you're manipulative because some ambiguous trait of yours changed over the span of 2 years in-game. (In my case, it was saying i might not want children to one of two characters in chapter one, and then being called a lying psychopath because i told another character, a year later, that I did want children.)

I am in constant awe of the absolute dredges of writing that gamers heap with praise. There has never been a demographic in more desperate need of being sat at a desk and forced to write a few book reports.

I should be the demographic for an AIM-worship game; I grew up on AIM, I still have the damned incoming message sound as my text alert; I used Phoenix, and then, when that died, I used NINA. I am 100% blinded by my nostalgia goggles, and even those were not powerful enough to overcome the absolute sewage that is Kyle Seeley's writing.

Wow! Ok so this game was an amazing experience for me. It is the first visual novel I have played, and this really blew me away.

The game is formatted to mimic an old AIM chat, complete with you picking your screen name, profile image, color scheme, and buddy info (the nostalgia is REAL).

You then navigate through two chats, one with Emily and one with Evelyn, both of whom your character clearly could have some feelings for, and with the right choices over the course of the game can date.

As someone who was in High School 2004-2008 this really hit me in the feels. I am not someone who really misses High School. I didn't have a bad time, but I didn't really come into myself as a person until college (like many people). However, this game almost transported me back to 17 year old me, which was both amazing and unsettling. The lingo, the bands being discussed, the things that made you "coool" the movies quoted, all of them just BOOM right on point.

The two love interests in the story are not terribly unique, but feel very much so like many of the people I knew in high school. The conversations and events that happen in the game are not wild, but they feel real. Each conversation, long and meandering, slightly pointless, and occasionally talking about music or relationship drama completely recreates how I felt chatting on AIM back in the day! Hours spent chatting aimlessly on well AIM, and Emily is Away Too nails it.

Despite characters not being too well fleshed out, I found myself incredibly invested in them, and after making some poor choices on my first play through was gutted when my love interest dumped me. Resolved to fix my mistakes, I immediately played a second time, but made a slightly different mistake, yet again getting dumped!

The emotional response from me was absurdly real. I felt hurt, and transported back to being awkward teen. Little mistakes blown out of proportion until they exploded in some dramatic way. However, I couldn't end the day with just being dumped and alone, so I dove in a third time!

By this point I had listened to my Pop Punk mix from the 2000s several times but I didn't care. At 12:30 AM (on a work night) I finally got the romantic ending I wanted! It speaks volumes that this game basically consumed all my free time on Sunday, but let me break down my feelings some.

Ejecting from this little virtual world, I reflected how deeply this short, and simple game resonated with me. I didn't realize how quickly I would slide back into the grove of AIM, enjoying the little beep as a new message was sent to me. I forgot how pointless, but also comforting having several little chats up, while I surfed the web and listened to music could be. But I also forgot how much time drains away in these interactions LOL!

Cute moments in the game, like asking the girl you like to prom, let me create some moments that never quite materialized in my own high school experience (I went to prom, but my date and I didn't click, and it wasn't fun). This game blends the innocuous bonding moments, with some quick and brutal choices you have to make.

After some brief reflection, I realized one of the love interests, Evelyn, reminded me heavily of my significant other, who I started dating back in 2008. They both liked horror movies and punk music (though my real life SO leans more into Emo LOL). Both of them had similar conversation quirks and interests. In many weird ways, this game transported me back to courting my life partner, which was an amazing weird and awesome experience! (helps now that we are married I know it has a happy ending in the real world, no matter how many times Evelyn dumps me !)

After playing the game three times, listening to 7 hours of bands like MCR, Sum 41, Avril Lavigne, and other similar artists from a mix I made (best way to play the game), I felt an odd mix of bitter sweet nostalgia, but also satisfaction. In some ways I found myself wistfully thinking about the dozens of people I thought I would know my whole life back in high school, and how they are mostly just names on a FB page now. Should I contact them? Maybe I should go to a high school reunion (I have skipped all mine for the past 13 years)? I should follow up with some of my old high school friends.

(I am happy to say that most of these feelings ebbed away, go to my High School reunion ugh!)

But mostly, I walked away satisfied, I had vibed with my teen inner self some, and then got to reflect how happy I would be with where I am now....

This has been a LONG and rambling review, and I'm not certain how much actual reviewing I have managed to do here. BUT, the point I am trying to make is this game was an bizarre, but very rewarding experience to play thru.

If you were a teen in the 2000s do yourself a favor and give it a try. The story is like 2-2.5 hours, so it isn't a massive investment, but with multiple ending my guess is you will give it multiple tries.

Now if you will excuse me, I am going to begin adding all the emo and pop punk music I can find to my apple music LOL. The seems pretty swell (god im glad using swell fell out of vogue!)

Rating: 8.5/10

I would argue that this is better than the original in almost every way.

It takes the formula of sitting on AIM and talking to Emily, but this time there is another girl, which means talking to two people and having multiple endings, along with branching paths. This is a little spoiler, so skip to the next paragraph if you don't want to read it: this ends up leading to a good moment where both of them are in a crisis and the game only gives you so much time to respond to them, which means you will eventually let one down. Now, it's a little silly that this girl gets mad at you for not replying in a minute, but still, it's a cool narrative trick that I appreciated.

Along with picking your profile and choosing what to say in response to these girls, the developer created more immersion by making them give you links to things like songs and profiles. You can even get files transferred to you. I appreciated this addition to the formula because it made me dive deeper into this; this is exactly what so many people do. There were plenty of different songs but there's something oddly endearing and satisfying when you get a link to Rebecca Black's "Friday" during the last chapter.

The writing is also better. They're still relatively one dimensional, but they're charming. In the first one I wanted a little more depth, and I think the developer opted for more options rather than depth in the character, but I'm pretty forgiving of it.

Having multiple endings has created a bit of a flaw, and really the only issue I have with the game, albeit a small one. With Emily is Away, the narrative was driving down one path, and this lead to a lot of heartbreak when you want to type that you want to be with Emily but can't. That ending messed me up. Unfortunately, this isn't really that, or it could just be my playthrough since I was legit as fuck and kept a good friend while maintaining a girlfriend (a skill I lack in real life). It was a nice ending, true to life, but it didn't have that narrative oomph that the first had. Maybe some of the other endings are different, but I don't plan on replaying.

Regardless of the tiny problem I have, this game excels and betters the original. This time you have to pay for it, but it's cheap, so check it out.

I was first introduced to this game on the The Polygon show podcast. Hearing Simone de Rochefort speak so lovingly about a game set in an AOL Instant Messenger UI transported me back to 2002 immediately.

Before buying Emily is Away Too, I played first the first one (Emily is Away) and felt a sense of nostalgia I've only felt when re-watching the extended editions of Lord of the Rings. I found myself re-living AOL conversations so close to ones I actually had with friends in High School. By the end, the choices I had made were nearly exactly the decisions I made over a decade ago. It was fun, but I was curious to see what else could be done with this nostalgia-laden game experience.

Upon learning that Emily Is Away Too branches in more distinct ways than the first, I was actually worried that I'd get fed up or feel the need to play the game through multiple times to feel satisfied, but my worries were for naught. I wasn't able to keep up with everything in the game, but the mistakes I made in earlier chapters looped back around into a satisfying conclusion.

Much like the mistakes I made in high school, I wish I could go back and tweak some of them, but I like the way both the game (and my life) turned out, so I think I'll put this game away for now.