The Suicide of Rachel Foster is a short, uninspired walking simulator that involves grooming and suicide, glorifying the former while introducing the latter as an "out". It's unintuitive to navigate and clunky, making it a drag to play.

The OpenSSL bug at the very start of the game didn't help leave a good first impression either.

I had taken my time playing the game and preparing what I'd write in my review of it. It was definitely going to be a Not Recommended based on my playthrough alone.

After experiencing certain dialogues later in the game, from all the speaking characters no less, I decided it deserves a Not Recommended for a far more sinister reason.

Still, in all fairness, I gave it a chance and played the game to completion and even 100% it to see if the people responsible for this script and story changed anything to redeem themselves, but no, they kept their take as is.

Because The Suicide of Rachel Foster does NOT condemn neither the grooming of minors nor ephebophilia (the sexual interest in mid-to-late adolescents, starting from age 15. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephebophilia). The issue here is not only legal but also moral, something the studio who developed this game seems absolutely fine with.

The key number here is 16 since Rachel, the titular character, was a 16-year-old high school student at the time of her death and the man who groomed her, had sex with her and impregnated her was a married, middle-aged man and father of your playable character, Nicole.

This man seems to have received zero punishment because (and I had to google this to avoid someone jumping with BuT aCtUaLlY) the legal age of consent is 16 in Montana, where this horrible story unfolds.

What's worse is the game seemingly condones this. In a way, it even presents it under a 'favorable' light to the players (some of whom may well be minors).
I hope I don't need to explain further why this is wrong and unacceptable.

The following screenshots are the main parts of the game in which grooming and ephebophilia are explicitly mentioned.

I provided the text for your convenience in case it's too small in the images.

1. This disclaimer shows when you start a New Game. It is innocuous enough.
"The Suicide of Rachel Foster is a fictional game containing sensitive subjects that explore grooming and suicide."
https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/id/VolcanicPM/screenshot/2466361008657597613/

2. This part of the letter appears in the first few minutes of the game. Still, no problem.
"The affair your father had with that young woman ..."
https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/id/VolcanicPM/screenshot/2466361008657600606/

3. Now here is where it gets messy. Very late in the game, there are controversial conversations between the speaking characters. One describes the "relationship" between the married father and middle-aged Leonard with the 16-year-old high school student Rachel as:
"One day that beautiful luminous creature met someone. A human being that saw her, for real."
https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3245729517

4. The glorification continues.
"Yes, and I was the witness of what happened. A love, simply a love - nothing more - nothing less."
Between a middle-aged, married man and the 16-year-old high school student he groomed and impregnated?!
https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3245730088

5. Trying to portray grooming perpetrators as victims:
"But that love was too much and it would be punished."
https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3245730271

6. Then the actual groomer and adulterer is given a podium to "preach". This continues for a long time, the longest time allocated for a monologue in the game is for this person. Really?
Here is one line of many he spews.
"And sometimes it hates. It hates those who didn't allow it, those who cast it aside with indifference, those who can't recognize it."
https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3245730879

What. So. Ever.
At no point in the game is there any other opposing views to what you see above.
Is that why all the above was shown very late in the game? To have a bigger psychological impact on players, especially impressionable teenagers?

In fact, throughout the game, your character, Nicole, talks about this man, her father, the groomer, in very fond terms, describing him as a philosopher-genius and only once did she admit hating him. The other character also praises this man later on, twice.

The teen Rachel is described as such a lovely person.

As if this is some sort of very twisted fairy tale that went wrong.

This is why The Suicide of Rachel Foster gets a Not Recommended stamp.

If you need more reasons, you may add poor writing and unenjoyable gameplay.

I had a few paragraphs written specifically addressing bad writing, especially unrealistic character interactions, and poor game design decisions but all that pales in comparison to the above.

• The game has a breaking bug.
  You need to fix it within 10 minutes of launch or else you'd be stuck on a loading screen indefinitely after the introduction scene with the umbrella and the letter.
  If you have an Intel 10th+ generation chip, this bug will keep you stuck indefinitely on the first loading screen until you search online for the solution -from unofficial sources by the way- and manually apply it in Win OS.
  
  
• The movement is sluggish and the most annoying I've seen in any game so far, walking simulator or not. Even running is slow and you need to hold the key with no remap option; quite inconvenient.
  
  
• The dialogue between the most-featured two characters is unrealistic and at times idiotic.
  We have a very rude and disrespectful person at the beginning, who starts to flirt with a complete stranger she just met on the phone -the same one she was rude towards for no reason at the start-, relates to him stories of "Ol' Fart Monster" from her childhood and is later giggling when he hits on her. All this happens while she's exploring her late parents' hotel, the same one she couldn't care less about 24 hours prior. This is not how adults interact in real life.
  
  
• The story makes little to no sense.
  The main character is there to assess the place and literally states she intends to spend less than 20 minutes of her time there. She gets stuck in there because of a storm, stays the night but when she wakes up, guess what? She suddenly has this urge to explore the place she resented less than 24 hours ago. Her unexplained interest in the story of Rachel and trying to gather clues felt very forced.
  You, as her, go to bed. The screen goes dark and the next thing you see is a wall full of post notes and pictures all neatly set up on the wall. Apparently she woke up while the screen was dark and did all this to solve the mystery she didn't give a flying ♥♥♥♥ about throughout her entire life but now she just, dunno, has to! Can we get a facepalm on the rocks here, please? Thanks.
  
  
• Missable achievements
  
  
• Rudimentary checkpoint saving system.
  It doesn't allow two playthroughs to be done simultaneously either.

Not recommended