GNOSIA Review

After narrowly escaping the Gnosia-infested planet of Liu-An, a group of misfits find themselves in the interstellar cruiser, the DQO. However, success has escaped from the grasp of our heroes, as a Gnosia has made it onboard, forcing the ship's artificial intelligence, LeVi, to enter self-destruct mode, unless the cast deals with the threat.

This is where players find themselves taking on the role of a customisable amnesiac protagonist, starting their journey at an instant-learning machine following severe injuries whilst helping the survivors. Now, waking up in a strange ship, surrounded by a group of strange survivors, stuck in a strange situation, they must figure out who among the crew has been infected, all the while knowing nothing about them.

Following the character creator, where players are able to select a colour to represent them, a name, and a selection from a few traits, all of the lore above (plus some extras unnecessary for the review) is dumped on the player. It passes a bit too quickly, and though it works like a bit of meta-narrative to understand all of the information in one go, it felt bad as a newcomer going into the experience, trying to soak it all in.

The tutorial goes through everything we'll need to know to survive the Gnosia infection. Five total actions can be done before a voting phase can occur, and after the fact, every character will vote for who to send to Cold Sleep for the day, hoping to catch the Gnosia threat.

After the tutorial concludes, the protagonist is infected by a lifeform known as the Silver Key, which feeds off knowledge acquired and forces its host to loop until it has obtained everything it wants. Jumping through world lines endlessly until everything is attained, finally freeing the host from its clutches and heading to a different universe in search of another.

This is where the primary gameplay loop comes into play, as GNOSIA tasks players with getting to know its bunch of lovable characters in an attempt to free themselves from the grip of the Silver Key. To fulfil its needs, players need to engage with special event markers that showcase a unique cutscene, either with a single character or several.

Each of the scenes — be it humour-filled, lovely, or terrifying alike — teaches something about one of the characters present inside, with every one of them having several pieces of data to acquire. The goal of GNOSIA is unlike other visual novels, instead forcing the player to gather everything available across hundreds of loops.

What makes the Werewolf-like deduction sections so fascinating is the very capability to loop endlessly, as getting to know characters throughout the loops means that it becomes easier to deduce who is a Gnosia based on their personality. In a fantastic bit of meta gameplay, player knowledge plays a crucial role in spotting foes, learning their behaviour as crew and Gnosia alike, and then calling them out and completing each run.

Each loop differs from the last, as well, as there can be a total of 15 crew members, up to six Gnosia, and several other roles that make each side easier or harder accordingly. The Engineer can investigate one character per day to determine, without a doubt, whether they're human or Gnosia; the Doctor can determine, also without a doubt, whether a member sent to Cold Sleep was human or Gnosia; the Guardian Angel can protect one person from a Gnosia threat per day; and so on.

Though interestingly, despite being a single-player narrative experience, players also get the joy of playing as the villain throughout some (or many) loops. Taking on the role of the invasive species, we're tasked with bringing the number of crew down to be equal to the number of Gnosia, claiming the ship for the extraterrestrial threat.

Playing as any of the roles brings all sorts of fun gameplay options, such as deceiving, learning how to spot liars, and even abilities based on the primary skills the player can level up throughout the loops, which makes it a progressive roguelite feel. It took me 189 loops to reach 100% on Steam, meaning unlocking all of the skills, pieces of information, and even the hidden True Ending to conclude the experience.

After nearing 100 loops, GNOSIA starts to drag on a bit, however, as the inability to secure unique events to unlock more information meant that I was often playing a run without purpose, not advancing any particular narrative. It's frustrating when there are specific requirements, and the game doesn't give enough information to know how to progress, except for an Event Finder before every loop that "should" create specific requirements to make the event work.

"Should", however, often didn't quite lead to "did". Sometimes, we're tasked with surviving to the end with a character that's particularly susceptible to being voted out or killed by Gnosia (Raqio...). Other times, it's having to complete the game whilst being teamed up with a specific character, and having them voted out or taken by the Gnosia nullifies that loop. There are even requirements that task the player with actively losing against a specific enemy Gnosia, or waiting for a character to do an ability following a hyper-specific set of scenarios that we have no control over.

When GNOSIA was good, it was great, and Petit Depotto excelled at making a cast of characters I really wanted to get to know and genuinely felt endeared by. But story beats were too far and few between for my liking, and sometimes, the best you'd get is a character's favourite food.

There's a massive discrepancy between character lore and importance, and loving a character that doesn't have much going for them means that scenes would oftentimes be shallow in contrast to others. The overarching narrative did a lot to carry the weight, which kept me engaged for over 100 loops, but I can't help but feel like I wanted a bit more from the visual novel take on Werewolf.

Near the end, I'd mastered the gameplay enough that I could win with the least-favourable settings for any role; attain a consistent victory as one Gnosia against 15 crew members, or beat six Gnosia as a measly crew. The capability to learn behaviours played perfectly into the ludonarrative, and catching who was evil based on small behaviours made looping feel like a genuine part of the gameplay rather than a mechanic that was there just to keep the player engaged.

My complaint boils down to the fact that I wanted more out of the characters and less rapid clicking through dialogue I'd seen hundreds of times across hundreds of loops. And though I wanted to spend more time with the vastly lovable characters that I couldn't get enough of, I also think GNOSIA is a unique experience that can't be enjoyed anywhere else: a roguelite visual novel with ludonarrative growth and progression based on both knowledge and meta upgrades.

It's unique and amazing for what it is, and I know I won't ever experience anything like GNOSIA again. I'll cherish my experience with it, and despite having looped over 100 times, I wanted more time with the characters and more story to uncover.