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Improves On The Original While Keeping What Made It Special

User Rating: 10 | Emily is Away Too LNX

By shylocksimmonz | Review Date: June 19, 2020

It’s not often that a game’s sequel fixes many problems I had with the original without adding in new issues or changing too much. Emily is Away Too manages this feat very nicely. I thought Emily is Away was a great game but I felt the game lacked options in the way the story went and that it would have been nice to have manual saves. The sequel addresses my first concern by adding a second character you interact with and allowing you options to end up with either of them. So you go from the one ending to three possible endings as you can choose to romance one of them or stay single and friends with them. They didn’t add in manual saves which I wanted but they did add mid chapter auto saves so it does save more frequently then the original. The game still retains the fantastic sounds and interfaces that the original had as well as having great throwbacks to the movies and music of the time period. The game can be a bit rigid with certain rules. For instance when each of the girls consider hanging out with you they take into account having slightly different music or game tastes. It is a bit realistic I guess as some humans probably do that but looking at it objectively if you enjoy conversing with someone and have a connection then refuse to hang out because you like FPS games and they like RPGs it’s a bit weak of an excuse. That being said one of them actually mentions this later in the game so maybe I’m over analyzing it. The conversation system still has realistic dialogue that I could have seen myself having at that age and the story has a natural progression to it. There was one chapter where you have to attempt to talk to both of them at once with each response being timed. I’m not sure if it can be beat without one of them thinking you aren’t paying attention due to failing to respond in time but I tried my damnedest with my hands probably looking like Hugh Jackman hacking the DOD in Swordfish but still failed. It actually added some tension to an otherwise light game but was an impressive challenge.

I played Emily is Away Too on Linux. It did have one crash where when I launched the game the window just flickered and I couldn’t get the game to quit. I ended up having to do a hard restart. Other than that I had no issues. The game also doesn’t have a full screen option, just windowed mode. It uses the Unity engine. I played version 1.1.28.1933 of the game.

Disk Space Used: 107MB

VRAM Usage: 457-518 MB

CPU Usage: 1-4 %

RAM usage: 2.5-2.8 GB

Frame Rate: 64-75 FPS (Not that it matters in this game)

If you enjoyed Emily is Away you should enjoy the sequel as well. It adds some good features to the game; explores some different stories; and retains what made the original special. I paid $4.99 USD for it and feel that is fantastic value. I would have happily paid $20 for it. I finished it in 2 hours but felt it was a good length and didn’t feel stretched or thin.

My Score: 9.5/10

My System: