And neither does Octopia
Last year, I played all of Eastward and it's DLC Octopia. They were enjoyable experiences, and I completed both of them. They both have absolutely gorgeous, sumptuous artwork and limited but very enjoyable soundtracks.
They also super don't work as stories, and certainly not as narrative games.
It's been several months since I've finished the games, and I'm struggling with why I thought and still think that. I cannot remember a time I've felt more disappointed in a narrative experience in recent memory. It wasn't even bad, it was just deeply disjointed. (Sidenote: there is at least a small part of me that wonders if this is in part a cultural difference, as I am not from the same region as the dev team.) There were constantly elements being set up and characters getting introduced who then either faded away into the background or were superseded without any cohesive explanation.
On top of that, the balance was all over the place. The first chapter takes a decently long period to establish itself, the second chapter is shockingly brief, and then the third chapter is long enough that it could have been it's own game - though I will note that that chapter also had some of the most disjointed logic and characterization. Even though there was a huge number of characters with fun designs, their desires and characterization changed from moment to moment, and the way that change was presented felt as though the game was saying 'this is how this goes, how are you not getting it?'
The fourth chapter is a weird monkey train side plot that does not explain it's existence or tie into any themes within the rest of the game. The sci-fi/magic explanation for it is flimsy and - in part because we have a silent protagonist and a blindingly naive side protagonist - underexplored. There's implications but no explanations or even feelings expressed about the great departure that is happening. I was really thinking of quitting by this point, but I'm pretty sure this is where the sunk cost fallacy really kicked in for me.
The fifth chapter goes on for too long; It is an exposition dump told exclusively by way of feelings and ungrounded character reactions rather than information. (Even inaccurate but characterful information here would have been a gift!) It fails to tie any plot threads together and I simply don't understand what literally happened in the story. Even the ending, which is obviously orchestrated in such a way to indicate intense heartstring-pulls, doesn't hit because I literally don't understand what has happened to any of these characters. The world is foggy and out of focus, even within the context of the limited scope that these characters see.
All that said, do I think you should play it? Well, I want to see them make another game. Hopefully where they learned some lessons about what works in a narrative game, because the character designs, animations, pixel art in general, and music are all are gorgeous. Though, it is important to note that they did make another game, albiet a DLC: Octopia. It's roughly a Stardew Valley-alike, but it does not work from a gameplay perspective, even worse than from a narrative perspective.
The real death knell for Octopia is the fact that this spin off is ostensibly about cooking and collecting ingredients: it's how you move the plot forward and also the primary means of progression and interaction. It also has no interactivity. You collect ingredients by farming, foraging, or (f)purchasing, and then... You hit exactly one button twice to make the recipes. I consider this a failure of game design. How can you make a game that is laser focused on cooking and then never let the player do any cooking?
I really want these games to be better, as I did find many things that were enjoyable within them, but as a whole, they are beautiful, in-cohesive messes that fail to live up to the high expectations set by the great heights of their best parts. Play for the art, but you've been warned that the story will not deliver.