Game Over: GNOSIA

My wife is a member of one of the podcasts we have here at GameGrin: the Pal's Anime Lounge. In it, the crew watches various movies and shows that are based on games and then talks about them! Since we are side by side, I usually get to hear most of the podcast, and I also occasionally join her in watching.

Back in October 2025 — seven months ago, at the time of writing — the cast watched some episodes of the GNOSIA anime. For those who don't know it, the game is a single-player sci-fi deduction title where there's a crew of people trapped in a ship. The problem is that one (or more) of them isn't human, and it will eliminate a member every night until caught.

In order to find out who it is, the crew gets together to discuss it and point fingers. By voting, they choose who is the most suspicious, and they get put into a cold sleep; afterwards, they must wait for the next day to find out if they got the Gnosia.

After watching the anime and having the podcast, my wife was excited about the game; the premise sounded gripping, so I was on the same boat. Fellow podcaster Gorzagorz was kind enough to give it to her for her birthday! Naturally, we ended up playing it together. 

Ever since learning about it, I have been excited to experience the visual novel, especially because I never got to participate in the Among Us hype. Playing something akin to The Thing without needing a group of friends was just what I needed.

In GNOSIA, we play as a protagonist who finds themselves stuck in a time loop, like a sci-fi version of Groundhog Day, except it's not the exact same events every time. Instead, we have to deal with changes every run, as the participants may not be the same, and that includes us: even we can become the dreaded Gnosia plague.

The game offers a total of 15 characters, and the variety between them is downright stunning. It's not just that their appearances are so different (and beautifully colourful or unique): they all have strange stories that can be unveiled slowly.

That is actually the main reason we are looping — there's an organism that has taken hold, and it demands to be fed knowledge. The more we get to know about these characters, the closer we get to freeing ourselves from the Silver Key.

Unfortunately, while this is an amazing premise and the cast of characters is downright charming (and phenomenally positive towards the LGBTQ+ community), the gameplay itself wasn't at all what I had anticipated. The boardgame-like experience can be entertaining, especially with the surprising number of abilities, but the actual visual novel gameplay is basically non-existent.

It boils down to picking the settings (such as enabling or disabling roles, choosing how many characters there are, and even deciding what the player will be) and trying to win, whether you're Gnosia or not. This is obviously not a bad thing: it's what you expect from the deduction genre, but what was disappointing was that the plot holes, which were plentiful; every time we sat down to talk about the characters or the story, we uncovered more of them.

I feel that having an actual visual novel–style experience would've made it easier to connect to the characters and feel the impact and anxiety of the plot. There was a lot that could've been explored and built upon here… though the plot holes would have still bothered me. 

While it's understandable to have some, especially for a narrative with surprisingly complex gameplay, it felt like there wasn't any revision towards the end. It was evident when comparing some characters and their information to each other, such as Kukrushka and Gina.

The former has an interesting story that connects to the overall premise, while the latter's backstory and information are bland. By that, I mean one of the slots is taken by "likes Japanese food", which sounds like something you'd add to a dateable character.

My wife and I assumed that perhaps some of the characters were thought of before the dev team had a good grasp on GNOSIA's personality. The team didn't go back and do any touch-ups to the backstories or even the narrative itself, creating frustrating plot holes; perhaps it needed some more time in the oven.

Despite that, GNOSIA has some of the most unique characters and backstories I've encountered, and developer Petit Depotto would've done a fantastic job overall had the game just been a boardgame-like deduction title. 

In spite of that, there was something so charming and gripping about GNOSIA that my wife and I played it for 32 hours, totalling 189 loops. We got every achievement and even unlocked the "true ending".

I felt better when I saw it, as it answered some of the issues I had been having — some that heavily revolved around Krukushka. Knowing how the characters' lives unfolded after brought a much-needed sense of closure, which was just what I required to jump straight into the anime.

Regardless of its flaws, GNOSIA stands out with its uniqueness, and it was an experience I don't regret. The only real complaints I have here are that there wasn't enough thought put into the story, and that I wanted more time with the characters; if anything, that's just a huge compliment.