Repeat That - Until Then

 

When the weekend weather is cool and damp, the best thing to do is grab a warm blanket and start up your favorite video game. It’s the perfect excuse to relax at home. As you immerse yourself, it may feel like the outside world is fading away—or maybe you are. When the rain picks up outside and you pause for a break, déjà vu sets in: you’ve lived this weekend before.

Until Then is a visual novel with beautiful pixel art that follows Mark Borja, the resident procrastinator, who’s trying to graduate high school by the skin of his teeth. We get a good feel for Mark's character in the opening scene, where he forgets to complete a book report and resorts to creating the presentation slides the morning they’re due with his friend and project partner, Ryan. In a satisfying scene, Mark and Ryan pull off the last-minute project, receiving a passing grade.

After pulling off one last-minute project trick, Mark attempts to get away with another low-effort project. During the preparation phase, Mark literally runs into a new student—and the future love of his life—Nicole. From here, the story turns into a cute love story but slowly snowballs into the story's main theme: grief, which feels really polarizing after the first few hours, which are so cheerful and bright.

At the end of it all, Until Then is a story about loss and how you choose to process it. Do you become obsessed with what you’ve lost, letting it consume you and getting stuck in place, or do you move on and attempt to heal?

The start of the game takes place shortly after an earthquake so large that people thought it was going to end the world. It is referred to throughout the game as The Ruling. The earthquake displaced tons of people, sending them flooding to other cities for refuge. Many lost all their possessions and were forced to start over; some even lost family members. However, Mark wasn’t really affected—his little piece of the world remained unchanged.

Nicole, on the other hand, lived through The Ruling. Her family moved after the disaster, and she lost people, silently sitting in her own grief over the loss of a life she once knew. While her family is safe, she lost her best friend, and the passions that once brought her joy now only bring bitter anger. Mark can never fully empathize with this until he visits Nicole's old town and sees the destruction from The Ruling, commenting that it didn’t look that bad on the news.

I really like the way social media is used in this game. As the player, you can scroll through Mark’s Facebook-like feed and skip over articles about The Ruling, probably totally by accident. The articles are long and look depressing; a player may choose to stick to looking at the posts made by Mark's friends about their after-school activities or hanging out together. This mimics the way people can ignore tragedies they don’t want to see in the world with a single swipe. Mark’s comment about the news sugarcoating the devastation is also very reminiscent of reality. Viewers see what they’re shown, and it’s rarely very ugly in general news. I don’t think we can fully comprehend how bad The Ruling was until we stand before it.

Next is my favorite character and the perfect foil to Mark's senior journey: his best friend, Cath. Her story makes me want to scream and shake Mark as hard as I can, but I can’t blame him—he’s never had to look for or read into the signs Cath gives. If you know, though, you know. Cath’s parents are strict, but at first, they seem like normal, caring parents who want their daughter safe; however, they call a lot. Cath starts to silence her phone when she’s hanging out. She’s also desperate to spend time with her two best friends, Mark and Ridel, in the same ways they had in previous years. However, Ridel’s movie is taking off, and he’s too busy making plans that could help his career launch. Mark is starting to hang out with Nicole more and is getting serious about pursuing his hobby of playing the piano better. Nicole is his coach.

As players, we notice how Cath falls by the wayside, and honestly, my heart was breaking. When Cath mentioned she needed her prom dress to have sleeves, I felt so defeated and wished for Mark to realize she was hurting. Cath’s grief stemmed from watching her best friends find their spark and chase what made them happy while she felt left behind. At first, Cath claimed that seeing the spark in Mark’s eyes as he talked about the piano club inspired her to find her own spark. Unfortunately, we never get to see her flourish.

The ending of this game took the air from my lungs, and I was amazed at how the writers never tipped their hand, keeping it close to their chest. I never saw the gut punch that was to come from the happy-go-lucky main character, Mark. After a fight with Nicole, who harshly proclaimed that Mark had never lost anything to the earth-shattering calamity that was The Ruling, Mark returns home, admitting he did lose something. All the emails we saw Mark write to his mom during the game are revealed to be going to drafts because Mark's mom went missing and died before the calamity. Mark and his dad had been pretending she would be found, talking about her as if she were still alive.

It was heartbreaking watching Mark hit his lowest point, but that’s when he knew he needed to be open with his friends about his mom’s death. It felt like a weight lifted off his shoulders, a relief. Mark speaks with his dad and decides it’s time to work through the grief and live a life that isn’t cast in shadow, pretending that everything is fine when it’s not. It’s okay to hurt and accept that things won’t be okay now, but they will feel better later.

The story of Until Then left me sobbing, and the best part is that this is only Act One. I won’t go into Act Two, but it’s interesting the way the game handles it. There’s a piece of the story that I really like, but it hasn’t played much of a big part other than to set up the other acts. I haven’t finished Act Two yet, and I’m hoping it plays a bigger role because it was really built up to be this big reveal that doesn’t amount to much more than an “it was in our heads” moment.

Until Then introduces the idea of déjà vu as a scientific phenomenon where some people re-experience whole days but differently, and this reset happens when it rains. The game explains it well, and it gave me Steins;Gate vibes, but it did kind of go over my head. It sets up Act Two, as the game seems to reset and show you the starting scenes again, but things are different. Characters who were your friends are no longer your friends, and story beats play out differently while Mark starts to become aware of it. It’s a neat way to keep the story moving, but I nearly missed it, as there isn’t too much indication that this is what happened after seeing the same starting scene following a false ending.

If you like the sound of this story but think a visual novel might be boring, worry not! Until Then has so many fun mini-games! There’s a scene where you play the piano using the arrow keys in a DDR style, a Rhythm Heaven-type game, and many more non-rhythm mini-games! Plus, there are choices galore—you decide most of Mark’s answers. It’s an incredibly interactive and engaging visual novel.

Not only does Until Then excel at seamlessly transitioning to mini-games, but the visual aspect of this visual novel is stunning. The pixel art is lively and animated with a bouncy flair. The locations have been thoughtfully crafted to showcase the Filipino influence the creators wanted to highlight. Each character has a distinct style that sets them apart, even when they’re in standard school uniforms.

The pixel art is beautifully detailed for each full-body sprite, but the close-ups are where the pixel art really shines. It took me a moment to realize the close-ups were still pixel art—they were so expertly crafted, with perfectly smooth lines. The lighting plays a big part in this game when it comes to setting the tone for scenes. I could recommend Until Then on art style alone; it’s a work of art.

Until Then was a treat for the eyes and the heart. It’s a slow burn filled to the brim with emotions you can’t help but get sucked into. You’ll become attached to the array of characters and the fun flair with which they’re written. With its unique take on the visual novel formula, Until Then will be a story that sticks with me for a while. This game made my heart flutter and shatter all in Act One alone. I’ve seen people ask for new game recommendations, and I can’t help but point them to Until Then.