Man, I don't know if this is the site for this, but this here is a very special series that means a lot of things to a lot of people. It's been described as life-changing, thought-provoking and completely unique. That statement is normally followed by "--But not for everyone", which is normally a dead ringer for my next obsession. Hello Charlotte is my next obsession, but not in a good way. I'm frustrated. I've never considered quitting an RPG maker game before, but this had me close.

Charlotte is a little ray of sunshine who hangs out with a bunch of whacky, quirky fellas in a very secluded apartment in some undisclosed pocket of probably the void. Aliens, Gods and puppets are all entities that are mentioned but not elaborated on, so I'm assuming they'll all be demystified with time. For now, the constant mention of "maggots!" and "meat!" and "religion!" serve only to annoy me as they exist to create an aesthetic with currently little meaning.

Hello Charlotte's main appeal is most certainly it's art. Hand drawn portraits, while not my cup of tea, certainly help create a unique identity and the locales are often a bold mash of mediums. Black, white, and brighter neons create a nice pop. There is one particular place in the game where traditional RPG maker assets are used and I'm assuming it was intentional. In the end, you'll be the one to decide if this look is endearing or well-meaningly messy.

Well, let's get down to it: There's something about Hello Charlotte's design that really rubs me the wrong way. This game has shock deaths. You'll be running around, very confused, trying to trigger the proper flag for the next event and then voilà! Your goofy soap-eating friend just sawed your head off with a chainsaw, how hilarious is that? Normally these kinds of goofers can be a kick and a giggle, but many of these deaths come at times with no warning and are frustratingly cheap as to possibly increase the difficulty.

You better make sure to save often, because you're going to die plenty. Not just the cheap shock deaths but the general exploration will get you, and they lack much direction. Some puzzles are alright. Some make me wish death upon myself. I found myself redoing certain sections several times due to inopportune save points and nasty surprise fails.

I have played games with these issues and I've loved them all the same. Maybe I'm being a bit harsh. The reality is that I'm not endeared to this game in the slightest, as the story and characters ring to loudly of tumblrisms and things I've seen many times before. Look, I've been to art school, I've seen the "religion but fucked up" and "meat as a visceral motif" thing more times than I'd like. This game isn't for me. The locations and characters clearly have some crazy lore going on, but it's difficult to care when it feels like everything is so weakly cobbled together. Everything means something, right? But a big part of me doubts it, and a bigger, more cynical part of me hates it for making me doubt at all.

TLDR: I'm a crusty old man who loves RPG maker games and I want desperately to see what is so great and life-changing about this game. I genuinely don't think Hello Charlotte, or at least the first episode, is very good. However if you aren't a crusty old man, if you're 14 and you think blood and guts are cool and you like drawing your OC's on the edges of your math homework and listen to 21 Pilots, you would probably like this. I don't mean that in a condescending way. Finding meaning in something I can't just means I'm not the audience for this. The characters I find cringey, the themes I find surface-level and the game design that pains me to play might be valuable to somebody who isn't as cynical as me.