WILL: A Wonderful World Critic Reviews

I picked up WILL: A Wonderful World at the recommendation of a friend, and I don’t regret doing so. It’s an incredible title in many respects, with characters and storylines that stay with you and a surprisingly heartfelt twist in the overall plot late in the game. I wouldn’t say it is for everyone, given the topics it covers, but those willing to move past that will discover a VN that makes them pause, feel things, and honestly think about the state of the world around them. Seeing how all the characters’ stories connect in such big and small ways to one another, and just how it all comes together in the end, is a truly memorable gaming experience. At its core, WILL: A Wonderful World is a story about potential and continuing hope, even in the face of horrible and traumatic adversity. That is a message we could all use.

The system of letters changing the outcome of the story is innovative and could have gone into video game history, if only the idea had been fleshed out a bit more.

WILL: A Wonderful World is a game that stands out for its story, the complexity of its plots and how they unfold. It is a great title at the narrative level, although some more playable mechanics are missing.

WILL: A Wonderful World is a solid addition to the Switch’s undersupplied library of visual novels. The core text moving mechanic is surprisingly engaging, but the consistent focus on some of humanities worst aspects gets a bit much after a while.

WILL: A Wonderful World has some effective, albeit dark, storytelling and a neat hook, but the gameplay is severely lacking. It also randomly crashed on more than one occasion, but fortunately there is frequent auto-saving. I did enjoy how the stories intertwined with one another, but there were also times when I wouldn’t get a letter from one character for hours and it would be hard to pick up where his or her story left off. Before picking this one up, be aware that it’s essentially a novel with multiple characters and various endings to discover to move the overall story forward. I’m thinking to myself: it is a wonderful world, but not necessarily a wonderful game.

I was ultimately left feeling like I was in the writers’ heads instead of their story, and the game overall felt self-serving as a result. But like my favorite reality TV shows, I kept coming back anyway.