Don't be fooled by the overwhelmingly positive rating at the time of this review, there's barely a game in here and while the writing is decent and the presentation is very good, it still feels bland at times, tries too hard to be clever with simple themes, is full of small flaws, and leans too much on clichés. There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking that warrants the level of impeccable praise this game has been getting, but it’s still a decent (not very good, nor excellent, mind you) four-hour thriller with a bit of discomfort thrown in—but only if you’re really squeamish about the mere thought of pixelated blood.

Graphics, sound, and art direction
Artistically speaking, it’s one of the nicest I’ve seen in quite a while. It’s visually beautiful in its own way, the sound design is downright chilling at times and expertly crafted, with a great soundtrack to go along with it. The way certain things are presented in-game—both visually and narratively—is high-quality work, on par with some high-production interactive media. The game does know how to create an atmosphere that keeps you tense and uncomfortable.

Engaging enough to keep you hooked and make you want to see where it goes, but full of unexplained details, plot holes, and confusing bits that come and go without further explanation—not to mention the overcomplication of simple subjects.

Think of it this way: You’re making bread, and someone walks in and asks what you’re doing. You’re not going to get any extra points for saying, “I’m making an amalgamation of grain flour, single-celled microorganisms, sodium chloride, and H₂O.” Just say, “I’m making bread,” and the person will immediately understand, everyone will be satisfied, and life will move on. The same way you’d call envy envy, alcoholism alcoholism, and rape rape.

But this game doesn’t do that. It buries nearly every inch of writing and its underlying themes under an unnecessary “cleverification” of plot points—so much so that it almost feels like I’m playing the first Dark Souls, lore-wise. It gets obnoxious with all the “talking about something without actually saying it.” The mouthwash subplot, for example, ends up feeling nonsensical, like it’s just there for the sake of having some weird, out-of-the-ordinary plot device to push the story forward. And if that’s supposed to be some kind of obscure symbolism, then I’m sorry, but that’s something only the writer—and maybe their mom—would understand. I don’t play games for mental gymnastics, especially when it comes to the story.

Hell, even the part where the whole crew starts drinking it doesn’t make sense, especially given the in-game reasoning behind it, which is: they run out of food and start drinking the E N T I R E cargo of mouthwash... like ??????? . That’s like cutting your hair because you stubbed your toe on a coffee table. It makes absolutely no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sense.

The plot twists could be seen as a welcome way to keep things interesting, but they also suffer from excessive vagueness, burying the obvious behind unnecessary layers of mystery. By the time you fully grasp what it’s all about, you’ll already be done with the game. Hah… “game.”

Well, it barely is one, really. It’s more of an interactive story at best, with some walking and talking sprinkled in to pad out playtime. Yeah, there are a few chase and hide-and-seek sequences (three, if I remember correctly), but if you fail them, there’s no consequence at all. You’re just immediately thrown back to the beginning of the sequence to try again until you succeed. There’s no risk, just rewards for the sake of progressing the story.

There’s also a small taste of a mixing nanogame (because it’s not even a minigame) and another nanogame involving scanning codes, which serves zero purpose other than keeping you locked out of certain areas for the sake of extending playtime and… well, you guessed it, moving the plot forward. No risk, no extra reward.

But hey, if you played Layers of Fear and liked it, you’ll love the very, very, very, VERY barebones gameplay here. Which is a shame, because this had all the potential to be a great, fully fleshed-out horror game. And speaking of horror…

If you’re the kind of person who gets squeamish at the mere thought of pixelated severed limbs and blood, then this will be terrifying for you. But that’s about it.

Sure, the horse monster thingies™ could be considered scary, but it’s more of a “I’m 12 and I think Huggy Wuggy from Poppy Playtime is the scariest ♥♥♥♥ ever” kind of scary. The sound design is way scarier, to be honest, though I’d categorize it more as unsettling rather than truly frightening.

Same goes for some of the more disturbing scenes, like the one where you make Curly eat parts of his own leg or when you actually cut his leg with the knife. These are more uncomfortable than scary.

Unless all the horror is meant to come from the sensitive subjects this game touches on (already mentioned earlier in this review—wink wink), which is something that varies from person to person. If that’s the case, then sure, you could consider it horror, depending on your life experiences or even empathy for those who have been victims of such horrors.

But then again, that’s catering to a small percentage of the player base and expecting it to be the sole justification for classifying this as a horror game.

After reading all this, you might wonder why I gave the game a positive review instead of a negative one. And honestly, it’s only because Steam doesn’t have a middle option. As much as I didn’t get the thrill a fully fleshed-out horror game would have given me, it was still an engaging enough interactive story to keep me playing and leave me thinking about it afterward.

But this isn’t a "game" I’m going to run and tell my friends about. It’s just another thing that briefly passed through my life and lived in my mind for a short while.

Both refreshingly tasteful and deeply disturbing, Mouthwashing is one of the rarest gems in gaming, an insightful, thoughtful look into the minds of monsters and their victims, entirely devoid of shock value or unearned scares.