But let me pop that bubble a little. Do you remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books? Did you like them? What was it that you didn't like? I'll bet it was the part where you pick a choice that seemed no worse or better than the other choice ("put on the yellow hat" or "put on the purple hat") and get incongruous results ("the yellow hat has given you syphilis!" or "the purple hat has given you immortality!"). You will suffer mightily during the course of this game. Let me break it to you right now. You solve some puzzles along the way, but you make a grand total of 3 choices in this game. That's right. Three. I'll even spoil it for you. Your first choice is between identical doors marked '4' and '5'. Yup! That's it. Your second choice is between three doors marked '3', '7', and '8'. Your last choice will be between three doors marked '1', '2', and '6'. And that is the only way to control the course of the game. At that point, even the yellow vs. purple question has more merit. There's simply no way to know how the story will turn out based on such decisions. What's worse is, there's only ONE combination of doors that will get you to the proper end. And let me lay the really bad news on you. You are forced to play the game multiple times in order to get the REAL ending. And those are two completely different paths, the probability of you stumbling on the correct combination is slim to none - and all the alternate endings are terrible, and give you no information on whodunit, or which doors you should have chosen.
Let me be as brief with the math as possible: [semi-spoiler, more like walkthru ahead]
531, 532, 536, 572, 582, 431, 432, 436, 472, 482: bad end
571, 581, 481: bad end
576, 486, 476: super bad end
So, did you catch that? That means that the only non-worthless ends are only if you choose 5, then 8, then 6. Let's call this Combo 1. And the other combination is 4, then 7, then 1. Let's call this Combo 2. How are you supposed to know or guess these combos? Walkthrough, I suppose. Or playthrough anywhere from ten to twenty times.
Because - get this - even though Combo 2 leads you to the proper, true ending, you cannot get it if you have not first already gotten the Combo 1 ending. So, even if by chance you landed on the right combo the very first playthrough, you wouldn't get the good end. Also, there are more arbitrary decisions you need to have made correct choices for in order to get it, so be careful! For instance, when someone comes up to you and says: "here, hold this", you'll want to say 'yes'. You don't know it right now, but you're going to need that random item later, and if you don't have it, back to the bad end for you, Combo 2 or not.
So, in all, the storytelling IS good, as everyone says it is, and when you get the proper ends, it IS interesting, but getting there can be odious, probably downright unbearable for some people.
