Wonderful and deeply moving. One of the game's quiet ironies is how AAA titles (including Videoverse's game-within-a-game, Feudal Fantasy) aim for over-the-top epic drama, with state-of-the-art-at-the-time effects......while a low-tech story of ordinary people's lives, told with skill and sensitivity, can produce a more profound and lasting feeling in the audience.
I've seen some critics say that certain story elements betray a 20/20-hindsight view of the early 2000s (or maybe a 2023-hindsight view lol ^_^; ), with regard to some topics around inclusion. They're not wrong, but for my part I was happy to suspend disbelief in that dimension.
Bravo, Kinmoku, and thank you--not only for the fantastic dialogue, pixel art, and soundtrack, but also for the empathy, the vulnerability, the sense of human connection and interdependence that permeates the Videoverse.