This review contains spoilers, click expand to view.
I would love to meet the people who didn't go into this game with any expectations and then to ask them why they thought it was good. The Lion's Song is a string of mediocrity at best, thrown under a pile of lofty ideas.
Episode One is on the rails, it's an adventure in the sense that you're doing a lot of nothing that has a minimalistic payoff for this character. Spoilers, most of the episodes are you seeing how your choices with one character impacted another because in their own episodes you didn't do much. This is mostly an issue for episode 2, and 4, which aren't that bad but 1 and 3 are a hot mess.
One is awfully boring because you're unsure what you're actually doing. Once I completed episode one and redid my choices I didn't feel like anything had changed. Spoilers, nothing changes much in episode one based on your decisions in episode one or involving your character. You need to wait for episode 3 for the payoff of your character not involving your character to be poorly thrown in.
Episode 2 is interesting with very wide ideas. I'd also like to point out from a narrative perspective episode 2 is bad too. While it's interesting that how you interact with those around you reveals bits and pieces of yourself and those you're painting, none of that matters. The ending I got, along with the lines I got, ultimately reveals that I'm in love with a critic I've barely met and there was never any romantic exchange between the two and that my character is falling apart. Mind you the only hints you get are that you're not in a good place mentally. The idea that our lead was even romantically pursuing anyone should have been in the game in some actual visible way. That's the big ending I got by the way, that my character painfully wanted to be with this woman he's spoken to twice.
Episode 3 is insulting. It's "Let me throw this big idea in here so no one can argue it". For anyone who thinks this is negative for the sake of being negative, let me ask you. When in any moment alone or when limited to their own thoughts does Emma ever even remotely identify as Emil? The answer is never. Because Emma identifies and only sees herself AS EMMA. It isn't until the game exposes that she's a woman dressed as a man that the idea that she's either gender-fluid, non-binary, or trans is ever even brought up.Not once does the character themselves EVER have this conflict. If a character, Emma in this case, dresses up as a male solely for gain or a purpose it's very insulting to assume they're different. Emma's reasons for dressing as Emil are solely so she can be treated and respected as a mathematician. None of the later parts of this matter because the narrative is that Emma and Emil exist alongside one another and are constantly changing and altering their state. Except Emma is dressing as Emil, that's it. There isn't a moment where the two ideas ever become more than that until the game makes you throw out a choice that "Emil is just as much Emma as Emma is Emil." And that comes out of nowhere. So out of nowhere that the creators of the game either deadman the hell out of Em in episode 4, or they forgot that they made the revelation that Emma wasn't quite identifying as Emma. There's also the chance that it's a poorly written mess and in an adventure game the writing is most of what I want. What's most frustrating is that they correctly pin that Emil wasn't real and it was a fake identity IN EPISODE 4.
Episode 4 has it's problems but it's mostly to highlight the problems with the overall other 3 episodes. It shines when it's in it's own element, and falls short horribly when it has to fix the problems of the previous episodes. Each character has a 'phase' that runs along with the episode they're reflecting on.
Episode One's reflection is with that main character's brother. The parts of that SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN EPISODE ONE. I don't KNOW this woman, and I have zero attachment to her. I don't know anything about her and by the time it's revealed who she is and what her goals are, we're quickly told that she just fails.
Episode Two's Reflection is meh... It's less interesting than the people who are actively reflecting on it. Your main character breaks up with his girlfriend, goes to war, your mentor dies. But you had little to no attachment to any of them so who cares.
Episode Three is either empty as hell or I made the wrong decisions., It's literally just "The five year old who is your only friend grew up." Also everything was good for her, the people around her can piss off.
There's alot of unanswered questions and awkward moments that should be accounted for, but I'm guessing they were hoping for a second season. But Lord no. This isn't a fun Adventure Game, this isn't a fun graphic novel, it's surface-level fine and functional but as soon as you dig deeper you'll realize that's all it is.… Expand
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