The original Emily is Away is a game that beautifully places you back in the world of your youth. Of the days of when you first fell in love, of the bittersweet nature of high school romances.
I adore Emily is Away, I loved the game from it’s opening nostalgia fueled seconds. So it came as a welcome surprise when I discovered that in every way Emily is Away Too is an improvement, an evolution of the ideas and concepts presented in the first game.
Emily is Away Too is a game that so beautifully placed me back in the rose colored days of my youth that I constantly found myself marveling and wistfully remembering my own high school misadventures.
Giving players a whole new Emily to connect with, the true biggest shakeup for this new Emily’s story is the addition of a brand new, separate female character to engage with. The introduction of Evelyn promises a plethora of different story possibilities from the first game. Trying to balance keeping both girls happy, or completely sidelining one in favor of another makes every single dialogue option and romantic endeavor a monumentally difficult choice.
All of which is too say nothing of Emily’s wonderful dialogue options. Nearly every single choice felt right, every one reflected the overwhelming sense of fear, excitement, and emotional distress that defines all of our’s first forays into romance and love.
Then comes Emily’s addition of hyperlinks, file transfers, and the introduction of it’s version of Youtube and Facebook. Charting the rise of social media and the expanding world outside of just the messaging service that defined first game, Emily is Away Too is seeking to build a larger, more immersive world to break the hearts of it’s players this time around.
The demo of the game I played allowed me to play up to three of the games five chapters, fearful of learning too much right now I finished the fantastic first chapter and decided to leave the rest to my imagination. The intrigue, mystery, and heart-racing excitement generated from the game are an experience I want to feel in one beautiful, almost certainly sorrowful, and guranteed moving playthrough.
In short, Emily is Away Too is a video game tailored made for the millenial generation. One reflecting the angst, emotional tumult, humor, and soaring highs and crushing lows of love, youth, and friendship. A story like no other, featuring characters both singular and devastatingly real, this is the nostalgia fueled, bittersweet video game we most certainly need for our current, troubled times.
