+ Cute characters
+ Mystery unravels at a fairly good clip
+ Branching mechanic is interesting
- Ending feels rushed
- Some plot beats are never resolved

I'm going to give this a positive review, because overall I did enjoy it! What "cozy horror" means is apparently lightly spooky horror with wacky shenanigans that never go too far. Beacon Pines uses a collection of familiar if campy tropes that wouldn't be out of place in a Sunday morning cartoon, like evil green goo and spooky people in mysterious hazmat suits. Luckily, the game doesn't get overly ambitious with its storytelling. It wraps itself up fairly quickly and paces its mystery well, revealing small bits and pieces across the different branching timelines.

The narrative branching has a cool mechanic in which you collect "charms," which are essentially words related to something you do or hear which you can then direrctly insert into the story to change it during important "turning points." Refreshingly, the game lets you loop back to those specific point easily whenever you'd like and shows you exactly where you have the option to make new decisions with any charms you've collected. You're never stumped, and you don't even really repeat much of the story when looping back due to how drastically the narrative branches at each point. There's only one true/happy ending, but the plethora of bad endings are fully fleshed out, actually advance the plot, and are fun to collect, which I can't say of all visual novels.

I was, however, a little frustrated by how some plot threads felt like they were dropped or unresolved, including one timeline that ends abruptly right as it's getting interesting, with a literal "to be continued," which the narrator snarks about before forcing you to go back to make different choices. Who that character is, and the mission they hint at, was never mentioned again that I saw. There were also times when the game felt like it was expecting to make an emotional impact but missed the mark, including its ending, which came far too abruptly for my liking. Overall, the writing is solid, but I wouldn't call it strong.

That said, the characters, while equally tropy as the plot, are endearing enough to want to spend some time with. Luka is The Protagonist and it shows, but he handles his oodles of tragic backstory with grace; Rolo fills the role of the comic relief character who more or less serves as a sidekick; and Beck is the new girl in town who's too cool for the place but secretly wishes she could make a few friends and put down roots. Together, the three of them form a good core trio for getting up to mischief and solving crimes. I'm not immune to silly stories about groups of friends going on adventures, even if the adventure itself is ultimately a little humdrum.

I would recommend this specifically for older children, despite some of the mildly gory horror elements, both because the protagonists are kids themselves, and because kids are more likely to buy into the story. For the rest of us it's a pleasant evening's distraction if you're willing to suspend disbelief and lean into the 90's kids' media vibes. Otherwise, if you want the grownup version of groups of friends solving small-town mysteries, there's always Night in the Woods.

TL;DR: This is more or less a visual novel with some nice quality of life mechanics and the soul of a spooky children's cartoon. That may or may not be your cup of tea, but I had a nice enough time with it to recommend it.

The way the story is painted is truly one of a kind and something I am glad I had the pleasure of knowing. The atmosphere is done perfectly and I felt like I was in a story book come to life. Its also one of the few games that have managed to bring a tear to my eye. If your going to play it i recommend doing so by making sure you have a large amount of time that you can go uninterrupted and to turn off the lights to be entirely immersed in the story.

It's good! Let there be no argument: it's good. Okay? It's good.

But it's unfinished. And sadly, the parts of it that are unfinished are the hardest-hitting, most emotional, most important parts of the narrative. At these times, the screen goes black and you're just reading text or having it read to you. The voice actor does her best with these sections but she's not good enough at her craft to elevate the material when important parts of the material just aren't there thanks to that black screen. These sections come off as placeholders intended to be finished that now probably never will be.

And let's be completely clear: those *are* the most important parts of the narrative. Understanding the nature of the relationship between Luka and his parents is the CORE of this story and the vast majority of this story is told in front of a black screen. It's a major blemish on the game.

Beyond that, the game is pretty short particularly given its price. I recommend it, but only if you can get it at a substantial discount during a Steam sale, and only if you go in knowing that the game drops the visual medium at key, core points of the story. Try to imagine Bioshock Infinite with all of the cutscenes with Elizabeth just showing black screens and a description of what's happening read to you. That's the level of miss here. It's good. But it's not the enduring classic it should have been. 7.5/10.