Conclusions first:
Best interactive visual novel this year with deep thoughts, terribly heavy story, fantastic art style and graceful soundtracks.
Backbone probably won't qualify as a game. Very little gameplay elements were present in the whole experience, and the storyline is set. Your choices will not make a difference. However, this doesn't stop me from rating this piece of work one of the Must-have Indie games.
Starting with the obvious: art style and soundtracks. These two should strike anyone as the most prominent features of Backbone. The mix of pixel art and neo-noir film style is very expressive. Background music is unique in every scene, and they bring out the atmosphere MASTERFULLY.
The plot, contrary to what most of the negative reviews stated, is fine by itself, it just took a more subtle and abstract approach. This is due to the philosophical and political problem devs try to discuss in the game, and I believe both the narrative method and the half-open ending contributed towards that purpose quite well. It's a bit like the TV version of Evangelion; things were left unsaid and story was sad and unfinished, but that's how things were meant to be.
I must stress again that the music did a huge favor here. Try searching for the OST on music platforms and you'll see what I mean, a bit. Retro, slow jazz just vibes with the mood of this sad, pathetic story.
Character building is marvelous. After all the playthrough is only 3-5 hours long, perhaps even less for a quick reader. However almost all characters in the story are convincing, have individual motives and are possible for you to relate to. Of course this cannot happen within a bleak, lamely built world, and I must say that the devs told you how the world is like without telling you. Details just sink into every corner.
And I don't know if it's a personal preference or what, but the feeling between Renee and Howard gets to me the most since, perhaps, Harry Du Bois and Dolores in Disco Elysium. Or I'm just a sucker for heartbreaking love stories, you decide.
One last point I must mention is the use of metaphor and parallelism. It's hard to describe, but you'll see how the lead writer cleverly used literature methods in this video game. In retrospect that makes sense since it's more like a visual novel(
Anyway, Backbone gets a 10/10 from me for being deep, moving and breathtakingly beautiful. But it's definitely not for everyone.