izigame.me

A very sweet game with some big flaws, Emily is Away <3 is a well-crafted piece of nostalgia for a particular generation. While technically the third game in a series, it's not a sequel to the other two to my understanding, and I didn't feel out of the loop at all despite jumping straight into it.
TL;DR
If you're the kind of person who can drop a game like this after a single route no matter what kind of ending, strongly recommend. If you value exploring different options and learning to know different characters on other routes, you may be disappointed.
So. The good. The first playthrough is *superb*; capturing entirely that feeling of being a dingus dongus teenager at a funky-wunky widdle time when all that was sweet and unique about the internet was ground into profits and corporate slop. There's relationship drama, you can accidentally say some awful things with all of a teenager's best intent, and all the characters seem to be living their happy little lives in the slice of 2008 Facebook presented.
Then the ending comes rather abruptly. Which is...fine, I suppose, even if I would've preferred some kind of an epilogue to events. If you're happy dropping a game here, if you're satisfied with one ending and aren't morbidly curious about going back in time and redoing things to see more, Emily is Away <3 is an easy recommendation.]
But if you're not, then the game starts to show its flaws in design and writing from the second playthrough onwards. You can replay the game from the start of any chapter. The first thing you realize is...how much time it takes. The cute mechanic of typing random letters on your keyboard to generate the text of your responses, which on the first playthrough was fairly immersive, becomes a hindrance. And the auto-advance feature is too slow.
Everyone on '08 Facebook makes practically the same posts no matter what you choose. The illusion of an alive community shatters. But you disregard that and focus on the chat conversations: that's what most of the game is about. Except...things unfold the exact same way. Or maybe a little worse; you get a bad ending instead of a bittersweet one. Or a hollow ending. What gives? Maybe if you began a new game in the other save slot that's been helpfully provided to you, and try to date the other girl.
You restart the game. The first chapter unfolds the same as before: the two romance options, Emily and Evelyn, both invite you to a party. One of them is more of a bookworm while the other is a party girl. You pick the other option...and hey, that's odd. She, too, has an unwanted weirdo guy going to the party. Like the other girl.
Whatever, you think, and continue playing. Chapter two comes. And you realize...she is line-for-line saying the same things the other girl said in her route. Events unfold the exact same way. You go to the halloween party. She wears your hoodie. You go to a concert. The only differences are minor, tacked-on things: the music they like is different, the other plays games and reads while the other does art.
That is it. You drift away from the girl you didn't date. She sends you the same messages the one you're dating now sent in the other route. The girl you're dating tells you to friend someone from her English class, exactly like the other girl did in her route. It's the same. A side character starts dating the person you didn't choose. Your girlfriend becomes friends with some guy who's obviously into her, and...the only options you have to deal with this are the same ones you had in your first playthrough with the other girl.
It's frustrating. But if you're stubborn like me, you keep playing anyway – probably installing Cheat Engine to make the game run at 20x speed so that going through text you've already seen doesn't take forever – and then something weird happens. You made the exact same choices as you did for the first girl, but...now, with the other girl, you got a good ending? What gives?
One final *baffling* game design decision is what gives. For some reason that is truly beyond my comprehension, it is impossible to have a good ending with the girl you choose to date on your first playthrough. Chose Evelyn at first? No matter how many times you replay the chapters and try to make the best choices, you will never reach the ending where you two are happy together. But you can make the best decisions with Emily, and have a happy ending.
I do not understand at all why the game developer decided to make it this way. If the second playthrough was as good as the first; okay, fine. But it's not. The developer copied their own homework and changed some words around and called it a second romance option. It's bizarre.
I treated Evelyn well, took care of my friends, and trusted her word – bad ending. Then I edited the save file to make the game think Evelyn was my second choice of route and replayed the last chapter – suddenly, Evelyn loves me a lot and we stay happily together. Even though all my earlier decisions were the same. What a thoroughly mystifying game design decision.
It wasn't enough to sour my whole experience, especially when I got the game at a steep discount, but...your mileage may vary.