i was really surprised by this one. i should know better by now, of course, but when a game is colloquially thought of as a joke, you're kind of set up to go into it unable to take it seriously. i'm glad i gave it a real shot, though, because i ended up really loving it. it's very cool.

i think the voice recognition is shockingly good. there's definitely some friction, i won't sugar coat that, but you have a remarkable amount of ways you are able to navigate the world with just your voice. as an example, asking rio ( the main character, not you ) to "check grey box" when you're looking at something you're not sure of, she'll go, "do you mean this?" and the game will reveal to you that what you were looking at was actually a "computer". there are so many different ways that you can ask her to check stuff out & examine in detail, it's actually really fun & rewarding to build a kind of synergy with her while piecing your way through the world.

this is especially true in combat. understanding what you need to say to get her to do what you need is crazy stressful, but mercifully fights move fairly slow to compensate. it feels soooooo awesome to combo moves with her once you figure it out, though ... getting her to jump or dodge out of the way just in time & then string together 3 commands to kill monsters quickly is incredible! it's agonizing when it doesn't work & while you're still learning what exactly the game wants of you, but ... it really is worth it to put in the effort & patience to figure it out. there's just such a fun logic to how you play this game ... it's delightfully immersive.

there's definitely criticisms to be had though. firstly, the frustration in not being able to get the game to recognize what you're saying CAN be a deal breaker -- there were definitely times where it felt like there was just no hope in trying to push through, because no matter what you say, rio just wouldn't understand. no matter how much you try to work around things, sometimes the game just would not be able to process your words correctly. this is solved with lots of synonyms being present ( in english, at least ) but it doesn't totally discard these frustrations in hindsight.
it's maybe worth saying, that for a game entirely built around communication, a little misunderstanding is core to the process -- people misunderstand each other & communicate poorly in real life, too. but in this case, it's less about not saying something clearly, and more a technologic limit ... which doesn't feel good, as a player.

another criticism i have surrounds the plot? mainly, i think it's a total letdown that the game is more or less setting up for rio to be revealed to be a homunculus ( she speaks about "missing something" normal people have, she says she "doesn't have a heart", she's looking for a "stone", her last name is hohenheim ... ) but then actually reveals that she's just a descendant of the late great legendary alchemist, and there's some crazy drama surrounding that that drives the story. i say this is a letdown, because her being an artifical person would have slotted exceptionally into the gameplay. as it stands, her saying, "i really want to be told a command right now!!" or being surprisingly helpless until you give her explicit permission to act feels really, really odd; there ends up being no real explaination for this by the end, which really did dampen impact for me. i will admit that this is totally just my own expectations being let down, and not any kind of earnest critique of the writing ( which is completely wild, by the way ) but i DO wish there was more in the plot that meaningfully tied in the gameplay contrivances.

and also, i'll just mention really quick that it's really foul feeling that the game sets up as you having a girlfriend, that girlfriend immediately going missing, then making you play the game with another woman who you are clearly meant to flirt with & bond with ... and then writing in a lame cop-out that axes your girlfriend as soon as you find her. it just feels like such a bad indulgent story ... which is typical in this era of video games, but it still doesn't make it feel any better.

but yes. lifeline. i think it's amazing. it's a simple gameplay loop made complicated & dramatic through unique mechanics & structure. i think it did a really, really good job with this premise. i will say, though ... this is one of the most exhausting games to play i've ever seen. it's tiring to talk this much, even to a computer!