Eliza

Genre: Visual Novel

Players: 1

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Review:

Eliza is a Visual Novel released on PC and Nintendo Switch in 2019. The game takes place in a near future where chatbot-style apps are used as a new form of therapy and with one app called Eliza gaining prominence for its use of real-life human “proxies” guiding counseling sessions by reading these chatbot scripts live and in-person to give the impression of a more personable experience. Players take the role of a woman named Evelyn who has started a new job as one of these proxies, although it quickly becomes clear that she has deeper ties to the company than she initially let on.

Eliza tackles some big ideas that are fast approaching more immediate relevance as technology increasingly improves, and does so in an intelligent manner that makes sure the player understands what’s going on without making them feel condescended to, all while telling the very human story of the woman who becomes a point of interest for multiple big names in the industry.

The company behind the Eliza app, Skandha, is Microsoft- or Google-esque both in its ubiquity, as well as in its way of dressing up its calculating corporate practices in a warm, friendly exterior. As if it wasn’t Orwellian enough to be met with the prospect of an AI acting as your therapist (behind the paper-thin facade of a human puppet mouthing its words), certainly there’s an extra layer of creepiness involved in a situation where the company nominally responsible for your mental wellness is also the one who designed everyone’s phone’s operating system and apps.

However, that’s not to say that Eliza is pessimistic or Luddite in regards to the topic of technology invading new areas of our lives. Nearly everyone in the game seems to agree on the need for better tools to help us with our mental health, and the great potential that such technology could offer in that field, although characters vary both in their assessment of how effective this technology is, as well as whether they believe the benefits outweigh the costs.

One of the more interesting elements in the game is the counseling sessions that players sit in on through the course of the game. For most of the game, players are fed lines by the Eliza AI and are offered no choice but to parrot those lines. It quickly becomes clear the value this sort of service offers, and also its limitations. The Eliza AI’s responses reveal themselves to be cookie-cutter in nature, and it seems ill-equipped to understand nuance or realize when an approach isn’t really working to break someone out of destructive patterns of thinking. Yet at the same time, it’s clear that for many of the clients you speak with, simply interacting with another person and being made to speak about the problems they face does seem to be a valuable way to help them examine those problems.

Throughout these sessions, but also in between them, we start to see Evelyn’s story evolve. Over the course of the story, she interacts with not only clients, but Skandha employees, as well as a few former employees. Each of these characters takes a different view of the Eliza program, and also has their own motivations for their interactions with Evelyn, and players are invited to consider these different perspectives and come to their own conclusions by the game’s end, both in their assessment of the Eliza program, as well as the best course of action for Evelyn to take for her future.

The game’s smart writing not only explores plenty of fascinating ideas, but also really does a good job fleshing out these characters, with every character having a strong, unique voice that only further makes the Eliza AI’s artificial nature stand out by contrast. It also helps that Eliza’s voice acting is absolutely impeccable, with all of the characters’ dialogue fully-voiced. This is backed by light synthesized music and hand-painted backgrounds and character portraits that convey the general feeling and appearance of the places and people you encounter well enough. A few of these locations have minimal animation to liven things up, but I wish the visuals went a bit further with this, as it is for the most part pretty static.

I am overall pleased with Eliza, but there are a few complaints I have. Firstly, while players are given a plethora of opportunities to make choices, they rarely seem to have an affect on the story. Often you’ll just be choosing between multiple ways of saying the same thing, and even if given a yes or no choice, the characters you speak with are often so single-minded that they’ll steamroll over a choice that conflicts with the one they’re looking for. Perhaps this dehumanization of the player, this lack of agency, is in line with the themes of the game, but that doesn’t make it less frustrating.

Regarding flaws on a more technical level, the text here can be somewhat small, especially in handheld mode, and at times it is especially hard to read, such as when you’re given options that have white text on a light blue or green background. This game definitely feels like the presentation could have been a bit better-optimized for the Nintendo Switch, and this is mirrored in the lack of touchscreen controls, something that seems like it would have suited the game well.

While the false appearance of choice and a few of the technical issues keep Eliza from fully living up to its potential, overall this game is a superb Visual Novel that explores some fascinating ideas in intelligent ways while still remaining very human and down-to-Earth. Players looking to partake in a thoughtful story with memorable and well-written characters should find Eliza well worth trying.

tl;dr – Eliza is a Visual Novel about a woman who works as a human “proxy” for an AI therapist. This game explores the positive and negative ramifications of technology in a way that’s both intelligent and yet also personable. While it’s frustrating that your choices usually seem to have little effect on the story, and the tiny text isn’t really ideal for the Nintendo Switch’s small screen, the excellent story, great characters, and superb voice acting still all shine through. If you’re looking to enjoy a smart story about technology, Eliza will not disappoint.

Grade: B

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