Review and Critique for Out of Touch v1.93
Review contains no major spoilers, but may spoil some of the sense of discovery and mystery Out of Touch has.
Overview
Out of Touch is a genre-bending adult mostly-kinetic novel that is part coming-of-age, melodrama, comedy, fantasy, action, horror and psychological/psychedelic thriller, all with a healthy dose of anime influence. While this may sound like an eclectic and contradictory mix of genres, Out of Touch manages to mix all these elements to create a unique and engaging story.
The story of Out of Touch concerns our young teen male protagonist CJ who is sent away from his home and his group of all-female friends after a tragic event and subsequent misunderstanding between himself and one of his friends. After several years in exile, CJ returns to his hometown now a grown, if immature, young man eager to reconnect with his friends and mend the divide between them. However, this is only where the story begins, and soon CJ and his friends are taken down strange and mystical paths where they must contend with mysterious cosmic forces…
Overall, Out of Touch is an astoundingly good game that represents some of the best storytelling that can be found in AVNs. It is also a well-made and presented game, with pleasing art and an incredible (partially) original soundtrack. This is not to say Out of Touch is a perfect game however, and there are some criticisms that can be levelled against particularly its pacing and its how it handles conflict between the characters. Regardless, I believe Out of Touch greater than the sum of its parts, even in its incomplete stage.
Genre
The prologue of Out of Touch may be slightly misleading, though not necessarily in a bad way. Going in blind, the story initially appears as a standard coming-of-age melodrama with the expectation that the story will resolve around CJ reconnecting and rebuilding his relationship with his friends. While this does form a central part of the story, it is later placed in the context of supernatural forces and fantasy elements. While observant players might be able to spot some clues to the true nature of setting early, even when the supernatural elements in the story to reveal themselves, it’s not exactly clear if they are actual real events occurring in the story or whether they are metaphorical (or CJ’s fever dream). Even when the supernatural elements are become more concrete within the story, there remains a degree of uncertainty to it – how much is “real”, how much is CJ and his friends’ perception of their events and relationship, and how much is meant to be a metaphorical representation of the characters and their relationships.
This uncertainty, in combination the mix of genres, gives the game a very psychedelic - or my preferred description, surreal - feeling. The surreal atmosphere of Out of Touch is what makes it really engaging. It really allows the story to take some unique and interesting directions through mixing those realistic and fantastical elements, while providing believable explanation for some of the more unbelievable tropes of AVNs. Personally, I view the fantasy elements of Out of Touch are meant to represent the real relationships between the characters, and they metaphorically represent the trials and tribulations they experience.
While the eclectic mix of genres generally works well, there is occasional issues with tonal whiplash where the story will quickly jump from one genre to another without sufficient motivation narratively. This is most obvious in CJ himself, given he is both the primary protagonist of the story and the primary comic relief. He quickly switches the tone between comedy, sentimentality, and nerve-wrecking thriller. It can undermine some of the more dramatic elements of the story because CJ’s often comedic and unaware nature means those dramatic moments have difficulty sticking.
Out of Touch is also planning to expand way from a pure visual/kinetic novel formula by including some turn-based battle mechanics. This seems like it would accentuate the eclectic and surreal elements of the game, however currently this is currently underdeveloped so it’s hard to comment on it at this stage.
Writing
The writing of Out of Touch is consistently good. Dialogue feels organic, if often surreal. The writing is quite funny and lighthearted when it needs to be, and sincere when it needs to be and nothing feels out of place. The major characters of Out of Touch all fill the stereotypical roles (archetypes), but once again the surreal elements of the story elevate this. While many stories use character archetypes as a crutch, here they are integrated well into the story and make sense in context. I found all the protagonists very likeable. Even the characters that have deliberately unlikeable qualities are easy to sympathise with and have a good amount of depth. Though, CJ never really taking a firm interest in understanding what the hell is going on can occasionally frustrating.
Out of Touch has adopted an episodic or pseudo-episodic format to its story. There’s a kind of ‘villain of the week’ element as antagonists (actual or metaphorical) are periodically introduced or reintroduced, CJ and his friends must face the threat posed by the antagonist before then gett a period to cool off, regroup and reconnect. The stakes are slowly raised as each antagonist is more dangerous than the last, and more of the mystery around CJ, his friends and the universe are revealed. It’s an enjoyable structure to the story, as it regularly allows our protagonists small victories, if only temporary.
The writing does have some issues, however. Pacing is sometimes inconsistent. It’s hard to describe without referencing major spoilers, but there are some subplots (or ‘episodes’ if applying an episodic view) that often are resolved far to quickly for my liking without being fully explored, while other subplots seem overstay their welcome and could have probably been edited down or broken up to maintain their punch. While it does have its positives, the episodic writing can lead to the greater narrative feeling disjointed, as it provides periodic pauses which break the flow of the story. Some of the characters have received significantly more screen time and development than others, though thankfully this seems to be improving. There is also the issue of arbitrary power creep that is common in fantasy and anime. It’s harder to be invested in the stakes when every antagonist has increasingly abstract levels of power.
Character conflicts and arcs sometimes feel insufficiently resolved before the plot moves forwards. Part of this is a deliberate thematic and writing choice, where past conflicts are never truly settled and require periodically revisiting as they develop (discussed in the Themes section). I don’t think this is a bad thing per se, but sometimes it misses the mark. Some of the advancements of the plot and character relationships are dependent on previous conflicts having been resolved. So, when the story invokes a previous conflict or insecurity that was ‘resolved’ it can feel like the character or relationship is returning to square one rather than building upon to the conflict.
Out of Touch is roughly a quarter the way through its planned 100 chapters. Personally, I found the more recent chapters to be the most well-written, which suggests that game will continually improve, and the best is yet to come.
Themes
To put on my analytical cap on briefly, I think there are three major themes present within Out of Touch. First, the importance of communication in relationships and how a lack of communication leads to conflict. Second, how lingering trauma (or conflict) is and how it requires ongoing attention with no easy fixes. Third, the virtue of the simple and mundane in face of the face of the grand and powerful.
Communication is a key theme, most of the major character conflicts are driven by a failure of communication between characters and therefore an inability to connect to one another. Only once characters are able to get past the physical and mental blocks to communicate their feelings are they able to resolve the conflict and connect, which in the context of the fantasy elements represents CJ’s and the character’s growing powers.
Most of the characters have experienced some form of trauma or are troubled by a negative experience of some kind. While the story has already progressed to addressing some of the trauma experienced by some of the characters, the story makes it clear that this is not an easy fix, and that the trauma that they experience can easily be reawakened by new events. Thus, trauma is not something fixed by through a once-off (even if magical!) event, but something than needs to ongoing attention, love, and care to address.
I think the most interesting theme is emphasis on the virtue of the simple pleasures of life in contrast to the dramatic stakes and awesome power that CJ and his friends constantly face. CJ (and other characters) have enormous power and potential. They are presented frequent opportunities to abandon their normal lives and embrace their power, but this is always rebuked. Despite the dramatic stakes at play, there is a sense of optimism from CJ enjoying the simple pleasures of his friendships (and romances) and is relatively unambitious. The regular simple life of the protagonists represents the good, and the meddling supernatural forces represent the bad, constantly trying to pull our protagonists away from their lives.
Art
I am personally not a huge fan of anime or the anime/manage art stye in general, this is not a slight against Out of Touch, but just my personal preference. That being said, I think the renders are all really nice looking. Ever character has a unique and interesting design which conveys their personality well. The graphical design is clean looking and suit the game well. The handful of animations in the game, while not perfect, are great, ambitious, and well above standard AVN fare. The only major complaint I have is that renders that contain multiple characters are noticeably grainy, presumably a hardware limitation. The game is relatively light on H-scenes at this stage, and while I would like to see more (the circumstances the characters find themselves in is the perfect excuse narrative), it doesn’t really detract from the game and I can see merit in the slower approach.
Other than that, I don’t have much to say, I’m not a particularly artistic person and you can view the preview images yourself.
Music
The music in Out of Touch is incredible and deserves huge amounts of praise, and a far cry from the usual generic open licensed soundtracks typically found in AVNs. The soundtrack is predominantly a mix of synthwave and vaporwave, with the occasional foray into other (mostly 80s inspired) genres when appropriate. As a huge fan of synthwave and vaporwave, I found the soundtrack amazing and is definitely my favourite of any AVN. Better yet, the soundtrack contains are a number of original songs that are superb and could easily be part of an excellent standalone album. The music is also used very appropriately throughout the story and really helps to draw you into the story. There’s only so many ways one can say the music in Out of Touch is super-duper good, but it’s super-duper good.
Conclusion
Out of Touch an incredibly engaging and well-written AVN. While not perfect, its flaws are easy to overlook in favour of the greater experience. The surreal atmosphere that Out of Touch has makes it unique and enjoyable, and its greatest strength.
It’s a really good game. Go play it.
