Yuppie Psycho Review (Augmented_Orange)
Good game, but could be better.
On the gameplay side of thing, it looks daunting but it's actually fairly forgiving, which works well for the horror theme + limited saves combo: you get a fair bit more saves than you'll need, boss rooms are heavily telegraphed and generally have a save point right before them, most threats are static or fixed patrol, healing is plentiful as long as you don't just facetank your way through everything...
There are however two main issues.
Odd event flags: there's a lot of great stuff you almost certainly won't see on a first playthrough because you either didn't drop everything you were doing mid-task and explored every area to notice that a special option unlocked (and would then relock once you completed your task), or because you explored slightly "out of order" and that permanently locked certain options for that save file; in both cases, there almost never is any logical connection between what you did and the options you locked/unlocked, let alone any sort of warning, it's all so arbitrary even the people writing guides aren't exactly sure how certain events are triggered.
Linearity: the game is a LOT more linear than it seems, I'm not just talking choices but also mechanics like magical contracts (three exist in total, with one being mandatory and another being essentially useless outside one of the ending sequences), electric components (only 2, both on floor 4, not locked behind any sort of optional puzzle or challenge), boxes (utilized in one scripted sequence and to unlock a mostly pointless shortcut that doesn't let you bypass any danger), little events like the hungry lady in the elevator (she's hungry and tries to bite you whether or not you've stolen her food from the fridge)... This is especially noticeable on replays, there isn't a lot of room for skips or self-imposed challenges or even just trying something new.
Now, let's talk story.
Yuppie Psycho's story is highly unusual, in that it's very good except for its core.
Plot hook? Great.
Setting? Great.
Themes? Great.
Side characters? Great.
Big plot twist? HUGE SPOILER AHEAD LOL the Witch literally did nothing wrong, it's all the fault of the Snake, a character introduced maybe two minutes before path A ends (and that includes a cutscene), no there are no previous clues about its existence, no there are no clues either if you go down path B instead.
I suppose the idea was to leave both main paths incomplete, requiring you to play both to fully understand what's going on, but path A gives you basically all the important info while path B gives you almost nothing.
Also thematically it's yet another "ancient evil" story + background dump for characters we barely get to know (Rei and Domori), Hugo's betrayal of the Hunters hits much harder and that's not even part of the endings proper.
At least there's a decent variety with the endings themselves: some are tragic, some are hopeful, some are hilarious you can make Chapman the CEO and watch as he completely fucks it all up...
Overall worth playing, curious to see if the dev's next game will handle its story better.