Allegory's and more allegory's create a great story

Film three movies, shove them into a trench coat, make it only possible to proceed from one scene to another by finding what links them (be it props or people involved), and what you get is IMMORTALITY.

So, here's how things went down for me.

I spent the first 10 minutes or so taming the controls, which was an unexpected setback. I'm being told the game feels better with a controller, but ultimately the KB/M control scheme turned out to be perfectly adequate for me, just needed a bit of time to adapt.

Then I recalled that Sam Barlow was behind the project, and so vague memories of Her Story started resurfacing. Frankly, I didn't like it all that much, and while it did grow on me over time, I never came even remotely close to being truly impressed by it.

But in the end, ignoring minor control woes and not entirely positive impressions of a previous encounter with Sam Barlow's output, I'm happy to say that that IMMORTALITY hooked me with ease.

Zero structure coupled with heaps of seemingly detached, yet also clearly interlinked plotlines creates a mesmerizing puzzle that's insanely tantalizing to observe, consider, and actually unravel.

The moment things clicked for me because of a certain game mechanic kicking in is something I'll likely be remembering for a while. Honestly, I almost brushed it off and was about to roll my eyes, believing the whole thing to be a bug of some sort. But then it hit me, and hit me hard.

Majors twists and revelations aside, there's plenty of stuff with less impact to handle and get out of your way, and this is where the game also manages to shine. The logic that needs to be applied to keep making progress is hardly tough to figure out, with some of the "plays" you can make clearly being superior to others, and yet in my experience there's still more than enough satisfaction to be gained even while you haven't quite started revealing the actual mysteries.

Above all, IMMORTALITY would definitely fail if the actors were unable to deliver top notch performances across the board, but they were. I strongly doubt the whole thing was easy to craft, but somehow they did it.

Top marks.

Ffantastic. As soon as you are hooked by what is hidden beneath the surface, you will plunge down a rabbit hole of increasingly tighter lore and story that will make you refine your understanding of a dramatic fate until the metafiction crumbles onto you.

I'd wish for less sexual assault scenes (Antonia and Heather, at least, are depicted in rehearsal only but the screaming and horror are uncomfortable and unsettling). It seems to be a recurring motif in Barlow's work and is rarely if ever tied to the main story. It works in Ambrosio but the themes of 2oE can largely work without assault.