I’ll Kill Her

Genre: Visual Novel

Players: 1

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Review:

I’ll Kill Her is a Visual Novel released in 2023 on PC and Nintendo Switch, and just to warn you now, this game touches on topics of mental illness, parental abuse, and trauma, among other things, so if you’re susceptible to triggers pertaining to those things, consider yourself warned. This game follows the story of Stephanie, a photographer with emotional issues who falls apart after a breakup with her boyfriend, Brandon. This story plays out as a digital comic book, and there are no narrative choices for the player, it’s all about following the story.

Well, or trying to follow the story, I suppose. multiple issues make it difficult to understand exactly what is happening here. The author’s grasp of English isn’t great, and that’s even before the use of seemingly made-up words tossed in casually like “tovrop”, “albab”, and “sunaylk”. Just to be sure, I plugged these into Google Translate, and suffice it to say that nothing it came up with made things make any more sense.

However, perhaps even more than an issue with language is an issue with sloppy editing. I’ll Kill Her’s story is non-linear, jumping around in its timeline in a way that’s difficult to follow, often without completing a scene and leaving you wondering just why the story decided to cut to that at this point all of a sudden.

I have no idea if this story was trying to convey that Brandon got together with Stephanie’s classmate, that this was all in Stephanie’s head, or if it was trying to be ambiguous about it. Stephanie seems to be prone to sudden shifts in mood with little provocation, and so too does the story suddenly shift at times with no rhyme or reason.

The game can be completed within a half hour or so, and in addition there’s also a “dress up” feature that… doesn’t seem to have any relevance to anything. I don’t even know.

At the very least, I think the art here is very good, and some of the effects while reading were very nice, such as water dripping down the screen during rainy scenes. There are also nice sound effects where appropriate, and fittingly moody music.

However, even if the presentation is nice, and the game is only $4, none of that makes up for the absolute mess that is this game’s story. I still don’t know what point was trying to be made here, or even what actually happened within the story. And as highly emotional as it all is, it wasn’t really coherent enough to make me care to figure it out. I suppose this game might appeal to some players seeking an emotional story even if it doesn’t make sense. But most players are much better off skipping this.

tl;dr – I’ll Kill Her is a Visual Novel about a woman who has an emotional breakdown after a breakup with her boyfriend. The art and presentation here is great, but the story is absolutely nonsensical, with terrible editing and broken English (as well as what appears to be nonsense words tossed in seemingly at random). Even at a low $4, I can’t recommend this.

Grade: D+

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