Fantastic Art with No DIRECTION nor DEPTH
I wanted to like this game, and to an extend, I do, but this game fails to delivery on just about every expectation I had.
No place for romance in..
The game has you play through the daily lives of two of its MCs, Ian & Lena. And, for some reason it wants to connect the both of them as if they were bound by destiny. Which is obviously contradicted by every thing else in this story.
The premise of romance is simple. Both the MCs are struggling financially and emotionally. They should totally link up together so they can heal, right? Wrong!
Playing through the game, I couldn't at all tell where the chemistry was between the two protagonists. What was so important that these two should be together? Where was the string?
Lena was not an addition to Ian's life, and nor was Ian to Lena's. And it also doesn't help that you could control both the characters.
If you play Lena as intended, then you're playing as a depraved sex worker, drug addict and all around a massive red flag. Not much of a romance choice for Ian, is she?
No place for likeability in..
All the characters in this game are straight up unlikable, except for maybe Alison. The female LIs of this game are either selling their body for money, or trying to, or are simply argumentative. Is this really the extend of their depth?
The male LIs aren't any better either. All they wanna do is smash, and that they will with anything that breathes. They will act quite nice when Lena is sleeping with them, but will start being real sleazy and petty when they get rejected. I wonder how come Lena's side ended up this bad.
No place for bros in..
You heard it. Not only are there no likeable romance options, there aren't any likeable bros either. As Ian, you're left with : -
a) Perry - a dorky man child and a borderline creep. Who you have to take pity on so you don't steal his crush, btw.
b) Wade - A former stud, and now a full time slob. You'll stab him in the back and steal his disloyal girlfriend as the snake friend that you're.
c) Jeremy - A bro when it comes to assisting you in the GYM, but everywhere else you'll end up butting heads over who gets with the girls. i.e., the competition.
No place for depth in..
Yep. Unfortunately, this lacks any level of depth whatsoever. Not once I was invested in a single character or plot point in this game. As the male MC, you just go about trying to court all the women, and long behold, most woman here are an aspiring pornstar.
As the female MC, you go about trying fuck anything and everything. Man, woman, a pencil sharpener?! Doesn't matter, she will sleep with anyone and anything when in heat and need of money.
A place for sex in..
Unsurprisingly, this game had lots of sex scenes, if you don't mind holding CTRL through all the story so you're unaware of the brain functions of it's ludicrous characters.
A place for Karen in..
One of the characters in this game is an absolute Karen, but that later turns out to be a good thing, as the hate-fuck relationship is just all the hotter. So, good job on that!
No place for strong MCs in..
I wonder why Ian is the male MC. He is the least jacked man in this game, other than his two juvenile friends. Just about every fight he got in, the other dude was 2 weight classes above him. All I could think was this man about to get killed any blow to the head.
He also had to use maximum strength to try and win a match in wrestling against a onlyfans woman. Ever heard of bulking, Ian?
Lena isn't much better either sadly. Instead of finding better solutions to her financial problems, her ideas are - to write cliched lyrics and earn no money, launch an onlyfans account, or work with sleazy men and be sleazy for cash. Where's the strong will, Lena? Can't be bothered to work a 9-5 and learn a high-paying skill?
No place for execution in..
I know I have been rather harsh throughout this review, but that's because I know this game could've been a great deal better had it been executed properly. I can see that the developer tried to build something good but somewhere they got confused and lost direction.
The romance and the thread of destiny, as the tittle suggest, doesn't exist between the two MCs. All in persuit to give the player freedom of choice in place of niche. But rather, you get forgettable characters, even more forgettable story and all around a very shallow game.