More than anything, I want to start this review with a reminder in response to some of the more common things I've seen people say/ask about Lynne. Lynne is very clearly labeled a kinetic story on its page. Steam only has a catch-all tag for Visual Novels that does not filter out kinetic. In a VN, you typically have branching paths that rely on player input. KNs are more akin to a movie you read, or a book with digital accompaniment. You have exactly zero moments where you can affect the outcome of this story.

Lynne focuses on the near-titular protagonist Lynn. Lynn is a fifteen-year-old girl in London dealing with the weight of her father's expectations following her older sister's unmarried pregnancy. Surrounded by people who she can't quite bring herself to reach out to, Lynn finds herself growing more and more... obsessed with her classmate and sharer-of-namesakes Lynne, who looks like her, but "better."

Lynne makes for a very interesting, albeit brief, read. As someone who dealt with anxiety and feelings of inadequacy growing up in the public school system, it's hard to not sympathize with Lynn. Sure, my life might not have been a fit for an episode of The Jeremy Kyle Show, but her feelings of isolation and depersonalization are easily relatable to anyone who ever worried about "letting everyone down" in their educational career.

Comparisons to Doki Doki are understandable but not quite appropriate. Doki Doki is in the same genre, yes, but they're very different types of stories. Both are dark stories relating to schools that toy slightly with the concept of what's real and what's not, but Lynne is far more grounded. If I were to choose something to compare it to, Lynne is much closer to media like Black Swan and an episode of original Skins.

While I found Lynne to be a thoroughly enjoyable experience, I definitely found myself feeling almost like it was a demo at times. A few plot points are only ever hinted at once or twice, then never mentioned again. Not in a manner that makes it feel incomplete, but more of that I was only being told a tiny bit to entice me. Perhaps like developer ebi-hime's previous works Six Days of Snow and A Winter's Daydream, there will be a secondary work that, while tangentially related, would shed a little bit of light on this world?

All in all, the one real complaint I had does not diminish my overall opinion of the game. If you like dark stories, especially angsty ones, it's worth it. If you're like me and originally only came in for the free achievement, take a moment to read through. Worst case scenario, you feel like you wasted an hour or two.