Sister Other Paranoia Review: O brother, why art thou?
I have everything all figured out. I am one jaded piece of shit who knows more than everyone around me. My peers, my parents, my so-called “superiors”… everyone gets a cold read from me that is completely accurate (while the warm reads are accurate to a fault). The only other person on this godforsaken planet worth my time is my little sister, who is sooooooooooo damn smart — so smart, in fact, that she dropped out of elementary school because she was too good for it. And when she said “we’ve been slowly committing suicide together” I really felt that. Yeah.
These are the vibes that will repeatedly slap you in the face while playing Sister Other Paranoia, developed by HazeDenki and published by Serenity Forge. Written by the infamous Nyalra (Needy Streamer Overload), Sister Other Paranoia boasts a strong denpa (social isolation) narrative with modern references, light emotional incest themes, and multiple endings. And for only $10 USD on Steam (20% off now during the Steam Autumn Sale), you could do a lot worse for your money… but, you know, you could do better.
Sister Other Paranoia opens up on our brooding protagonist talking about a time when he cold read a classmate so hard he was driven to commit suicide. Why, you ask? Because he said some stuff about his sister, Sahana, that he truly did not care much for. It was then that our protagonist realized he possessed the incredible gift of insight, which he considers “mind-reading.” The trick here is that the better he knows somebody, the better this talent works, so… you know, how much of it is mind-reading and how much of it is predicting based off known patterns of behavior? But I digress…
Our protagonist constantly belittles everyone around him because he is simply better than them. Why? Because they worry about varying degrees of frivolity, like a college education, being liked by their peers, or satisfying primal urges. He’s better than everyone because he’s a college student yet somehow a published author (which, to his credit, baffles even him); he doesn’t even cave when a certain type of girl is throwing herself at him (despite his disgust) or when his rough-around-the-edges coworker tries to befriend him. No no, he’s above all that. In fact, if everyone on the planet except for his sister were to die, that would be great in his book.
Look, I don’t want to shit on this game too much because this might actually resonate with some people. I remember being a teenager with an axe to grind at the world and wanting to be special. I think this visual novel could speak to a much younger male audience currently angry, depressed, and chronically online. But aside from one ending in particular (which is admittedly very sweet and out of left field) there’s way too much angst for this game to be particularly enjoyable. I wanted to root for the protagonist or — in the very least — not be turned off by him. I felt like I was reading some edgelord redditor’s commentary most of the time. From his pompous name-dropping of different philosophers to his soured world view on ANYTHING that wasn’t his sister, I just personally couldn’t a single point of interest to latch onto here. Is it just me? It could be, but a quick glance at Steam reviews indicate I’m not the only one who feels this way (in fact, Sister Other Paranoia is proving to be quite the polarizing experience)
I think the biggest disappointment for a lot of players (and the elephant in the room, really) is how the sister was handled altogether. The marketing seemed to tease some level of incest going on, and, let’s be real, the vibes were absolutely there. But aside from some emotional incest going on that could be written off as just wildly unhealthy familial enmeshment rather than actual emotional incest, there was nothing. In fact, not only was there no incest, there wasn’t even really that much of Sahana, period. The main character would go about his day with every other character, cold reads galore, only to come home to his shut-in sister who cold reads him back into reality. It’s abundantly clear Sahana was written to exist purely for the protagonist’s benefit, although, since our narrator is an extremely selfish young man, it could just be his unreliable nature.
Am I mad about there being no incest? No, I literally don’t care. But enough people have brought it up in the Steam discussions to make it clear that players felt like a bait and switch happened, so it’s worth mentioning.
Sister Other Paranoia doesn’t have any real incest in it. Let’s just get that out of the way for the people who were looking for that sort of thing. What it does have is a main character who comes off as incredibly immature, selfish, and depressed. Sister Other Paranoia can resonate with a certain crowd — I’m not gonna say this doesn’t have an audience, because it clearly does. But for those of us on the older, less angry side, this reads as some chronically-online edgelord’s reddit commentary, and that was unenjoyable the first time around in real life. As a fan of Needy Streamer Overload, I’m sad to say I found this side of Nyalra’s work annoying, but hopefully someone else can cut through the eye-rollingly pretentious writing style and find real meaning in it. It just won’t be me.
Final Verdict: 3/5
Available on: PC (Reviewed); Publisher: Serenity Forge; Developer: HazeDenki; Players: 1; Released: August 14, 2024; MSRP: $9.99
Full disclosure: This review is based on a copy of Sister Other Paranoia provided by the publisher.
