Review as of version 0.4.2
Pros:
+ The story is pretty good
+ Music is awesome
+ The overall visuals are great
+ No grinding (except for sexy kind)
+ Nice clean UI
+ Rae's ass is majestic
Cons:
- Relatively short so far, but I guess that's temporary.
- Some poses and expressions look a bit awkward, but that's a minority of them (mostly odd lips in some bj scenes).
- Quite a few spelling errors, especially in the very beginning, but... meh... whatever... and it gets much better after the "prologue".
- Not all scenes look equally good.
- A bit too much femdom at some points for my taste, but not unbearable levels and mostly optional. I just wish there were options to turn tables in such events.
In-depth:
This game does one thing uniquely... wrong? Or right? Let's just say uniquely. It throws you in with no explanations and tutorials, just like the protagonist. And for the first few ingame days I just wandered around thinking "am I doing something wrong?".
But then this feeling goes away and you just go with the flow doing whatever. And it's kinda refreshing. Not thinking too much about stats, wakthroughs (although there is an ingame journal for quests), time constraints, routes etc, but instead just... playing.
The chill music also adds to this relaxing feeling.
The plot and setting are nice and once again, quite unique, which I like. And the overall writing quality is well above average. What I like is that descriptions of sex scenes are pretty colorful. Usually, in games like this, you just get animation and either none, or quite lame description to go with it. But not here. Nice. And the animations are also quite amazing, really. So it's a win-win.
While most of the choices don't seem to do much (to my knowledge), I still enjoy the slight differences in conversations they provide. I kinda want to replay again as a complete dick, to see if it really changes a lot of dialogues, but then again, I kinda like the girls too much to do it. I mean, come on, what kind of a heartless monster would tell Rae that she screwed up while cooking? Can't even think about it without cringing.
The characters are fine. I'm not used to cast being so small, but they are written better than your usual suspects.
Love Naomi. It goes back to what I said about the whole atmosphere and music, but her attitude makes every conversation with her this much more relaxing and chill, taking any worries away.
Caitlin took a bit of getting used to for me, but her interactions with Rae and just seeing how grateful she generally is made loving her extremely easy in the end.
Lyriel is very much my type (in terms of breaking girls like her), so I'm expecting it'll be very fun engaging with her more later on.
And then there's Rae... and you know... I may as well go as far as to say, after this game is finished, if all goes the way it does now, she is very likely to make it into my personal top-10 hentai waifus of all time. And trust me, I've seen and played A LOT, so it's a big competition. And she's not even my type normally. Still, she's absolutely astonishing, adorable and lovable. And probably has the best ass I've seen in a HS based game. You just can't NOT smack it every chance you get. It's mesmerizing.
The visuals are great. Finally, another person (other than a certain azure colored feline with his perverted teacher) that knows what he's doing with the camera angles, facial expressions and all that stuff. Great job.
Granted, there are still exceptions here and there. Some scenes have too big of a fov, to the point where characters look a bit deformed. Lighting could be better; there are a few scenes, especially with Caitlin, who has very light skin and clothes, that are overexposed (way too bright).
But these scenes are in a minority and don't sway the otherwise great impression at all.
So, overall, I think it's one of the more enjoyable experiences I've had in a while. It was surprisingly relaxing, and I just feel better after playing it. Can't wait to see it finished and polished.