Most of it isn’t told directly through cutscenes but actually needs to be read in Harm’s diary, which we felt was a bit of an odd choice, as it’s easy to skip or miss parts of the narrative this way. As much of its impact is lost if we were to spoil it, we’re going to refrain from actually giving away too much of what happens. The narrative that unfolds definitely warrants the trigger warning that is shown when you boot up the game. As it turns out, this door is the key to getting out of his current situation. He lives his life in a dream-like state, and the only escape is through a magical door into his own mind. The opening cutscene depicts how Harm has locked himself in his apartment, hiding from the outside world and finding refuge in his thoughts as he questions everything about his life. Protagonist Harm -what’s in a name?- is a young man suffering from manic depression, after his beloved commits suicide. We’ve taken a look at the PC version back in 2018 but with the game’s recent arrival on Switch and PS4, it seemed like a good idea to revisit Freaky Creations’ platformer. The majority of games that deal with mental health as a primary theme, like Into A Dreamor Stilstand, try to make the subject matter palatable but there are the occasional titles that are more heavy-handed and even incorporate trigger warnings before the game’s opening credits, like Doki Doki Literature Club or To Leave, which happens to be the subject of today’s review. It is of course important to normalize talking about things like anxiety and depression, and video games have proven to be an excellent medium to bring these themes into the public consciousness. In recent years, we’ve seen more and more games that aren’t afraid to tackle mental health issues.
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