I should love this game, seriously, it has a lot of my favourite things: Clever, spicy premise? Check. Colourful, cinematic renders? Check. Sexy set-ups? Check. Beautiful, sexually confident milf? Double-check. But... sigh... the execution makes it so very difficult to enjoy.
Father is suddenly absent, and son has to assume the mantle of master of the house, with all the fringe benefits. This is one of the most common plots on this site, but I think this game sets it up really well, with a fresh and engaging verve. The addition of the organized crime element creates tension, and making mom complicit adds a nasty, lewd undercurrent that I think goes great with the colourful, playful renders. You know what? It's like that Tom Cruise movie, Risky Business.
But that's about all I can say that's good. This is a game; most of the mechanics are straightforward, except for an irritating relationship points system that forces grinding. While the mafia-strip club element is by far the best thing going on, it fades away and is supplanted by the machinations of school elections and cosplay. It's like the adults left and the children took over.
The childishness is made worse by the fact that many characters, including the MC, are too young (imho) to really enjoy the lewdness. The MC should be close to graduating, but instead he's just learning that women have boobies. I find it hard to believe that the mom's libido would be stimulated by her tubby little manlet. After all, she's a gorgeous, worldly woman surrounded by tough, grown-up gangsters.
There's a kind of play on the Oedipus theme going on, but, as I recall, Oedipus was a mature man in the prime of his vigour when Jocasta
laid eyes on him.
A lot of the writing is arch, wink-wink, and tries to be meta. But, ya know, comedy is hard., and the writing can be very lazy. There's a lot of inner monologues, which is a trick writers use to add narration when they don't want to be accused of narrating. It's really tedious. The mom's thoughts as I imagine them are far more interesting than what the Dev tells me they are.
And sometimes the writing is just begging for rotten vegetables, like when the MC explains to his mom that grinding in VNs serves a useful purpose. I dunno, that's like painting a target on yourself. I can almost hear the chorus of boos.
What is funny, I think, are the the changes in expressions - the rendering of facial expressions is really good. In fact, the renders in general are excellent imho, very animated (I mean that figuratively) and lively.
We all know them, right? The VN with the amazing start that got abandoned, or finished too quickly, or decided to add magic, or aliens, or, in this case, let the children take over. Too bad.