Nowhere Safe is the first game out of a (so far) trilogy.

Likes:
+ Hello.
+ The music was okay.

Dislikes:
- Missing: Logic
- Wasted potential

Thoughts:
Hmmm. A little (unneeded background) about me. I am a big fan of psychology. =)

Well, actually, it's more like psychology in general rather than the actual academic psychology. I only know about Intro to Psych, and nothing more. Still, it's one of my interests. Nowhere Safe was listed as a psychological thriller type of game, so I was definitely intrigued.

I've always been interested in this genre, you know, psychological stuff, crime stories, etc., so I had no qualms about trying out this game when I came across it online.

I'm not exactly sure what to say here, though, because the characters were all pretty unlikable for me. It seemed like all of them have their own problems that actually didn't have much to do with the story. No, wait, scratch that. I like it when characters have flaws, problems, even, because it allows for a good character development to happen. But I don't like it when flaws exist just for the sake of it. That's basically what I felt in this visual novel.

First of all, I think the main character is nuts.

...oh, she's nuts alright.

Wait, maybe that's a fact, not an opinion. Yeah, she's definitely nuts. And by nuts, I means she's the kind of person that you probably wouldn't want to be acquainted with. She's actually suffering from a phobia where she can't go out of her house AT ALL, which is called Agoraphobia. But her phobia isn't the reason why you should have second thoughts about befriending her. It's her attitude.

Her agoraphobia is basically the whole point of this visual novel, at first glance. She lives by herself and never goes out, not even for work, but she can get away with it because apparently, she got a large sum of money from a court case many years ago, when she exaggerated (read: outright lied) about a harassment incident that happened between her and her former boss. Oh, and she has this really supportive best friend (spoiler: who she dislikes) who does all her errands for her.

Because she's nuts, that's why.

Despite all the unfortunate events in Kimiko's life, her attitude is actually so bad that I found it hard to sympathize with her. Most of the time, she acts like a spoiled brat who blames others when things don't go according to plan. The whole story is weaved around her, about her phobia, about her relationships with others. This is my first issue, the first wasted potential. There could have been a more in-depth approach regarding her phobia, but it was pretty unsatisfying in this VN. The reason given for the said agoraphobia was also quite unclear to me. Apparently, [spoiler!] when she was younger, she had gotten a boycut and some friends (ahem, Aya), teased her about it. Which is the reason why she dislikes Aya and why she doesn't like going out. But... I thought just 6 years ago, she had a job, where her boss apparently hit on her? Eh, I'm confused.

I told you, she's nuts.

Another wasted potential (well, at least, as an otome writer, this is how I see it) is the relationship between agoraphobic Kimiko and domatophobic Kento. Since Kimiko cannot go outside and Kento cannot go inside, the two have "dates" in the doorway. Awww. The otome writer in me liked these scenes. Unfortunately, it was another wasted potential, as their relationship wasn't explored much outside of this. From the start, it was clear that Kento and Kimiko were meant to fall for each other, but the game doesn't really make us see why we should be rooting for the two of them. It just said so.