Disclaimer: I only played the very low corruption / love route for Nicole since no other paths interest me even remotely, so my review is solely for Nicole's love path and may not be entirely applicable to any other routes.
A Mother's Love is another VN that could have been great... but is brought down by several severe shortcomings.
On a technical level AML is average. The renders are ok, but the animations are choppy, however they mostly do the job, but don't expect cinematic quality here.
Especially in dialogues the characters are often merely superimposed onto the background, breaking immersion a bit here and there when the character should be sitting somewhere or interacting with something. And there is no sound or music in the game.
And AML is unfortunately one of those VNs that is currently on hold indefinitely. With 11 chapters you do get a lot of content so far though, but the story is far from over and the game ends on a somewhat nasty cliffhanger that will make you feel a bit uneasy about what may or may not happen to Nicole, the female main love interest.
I usually don't complain about the English, I am not a native speaker myself, however the English in AML is really rough, your tolerance level for bad grammar and weird sentences must be pretty high, if you expect proper English you will not find it here.
And even if a sentence is grammatically correct it doesn't always make a lot of sense. Here is one example of many:
"Just don't think too much, it's not good for your skin!"
That's what you can expect here. It's not always that bad, but you will find dialogue like this throughout the story.
With that out of the way let's talk about why AML could have been great but is not, ignoring some technical and language issues.
I have played or read maybe 60 VNs or so and a recurring theme seems to emerge from many of them. While there are a few true masterpieces that tell a focused and coherent story with engaging and interesting characters far too many VNs (that I played) are simply too ambitious for their own good and want to be too many things at once.
Those VNs want to be "Pretty Woman" and "The Godfather" at the same time and this results in a very disjointed story that veers heavily between the romance plot and the second main plot that is overly dramatic and usually adds little or nothing to the romance plot. Many VNs would heavily benefit from a clearer focus on the important things, and AML is one of those. It would be in dire need of an editor or producer who tells the dev what things should be included and what things should be entirely cut.
Let's look at what the core of AML is:
it's about a high school graduate that has a more or less plain looking but otherwise nice and innocent girlfriend. When he is invited over to her house to meet her parents it becomes very obvious that he is immediately taken by his girlfriend's mother Nicole, who is not only the best looking female character in the game by far, but also one of the most attractive "mother" DAZ models I have ever seen in any of the VNs I played. So the instant attraction is absolutely believable. Nicole is simply stunning. There is no other word for that, she is a true beauty with elegance and style and in this VN no one even remotely compares to her.
So at the core we have the following dilemmas... a young man has a girlfriend, but the young man is falling head over heels in love with the mother of his girlfriend. The mother is torn between her blooming passion and love for the MC and her duty, obligation and love for both her daughter and husband. And Nicole is also somewhat taken aback by the huge age difference which tends to make her a bit uneasy.
What makes things even more complicated is that at first the MC is literally forced (by the game, not you, the player) to be a creep and somewhat abusive asshole. So early on you are more or less forced to gain corruption points to get the romance with Nicole going. And early on the MC does the usual VN things... he peeps on Nicole, he masturbates while she pleasures herself in the bathroom. Nicole (not knowing any of this) is also rather antagonistic towards the MC at first and wants him to break up his relationship with her daughter, because she feels he's not good for her. Nicole then offers the MC money in exchange for leaving the daughter alone, the MC then senses his chance and instead demands regular sexual favors from Nicole, which at first are all about touching and groping, but things escalate quickly from there (and Nicole is not unwilling after a short while).
However, if you then choose the love path for Nicole things improve significantly over the course of the game and what started out really creepy and wrong turns into a sweet and passionate romance and actual love story.
That alone should provide plenty of material for a good story that focuses on internal struggles and character conflicts There are so many angles to explore here already.
But AML then makes the mistake of eventually focusing too much on the villainous husband of Nicole who not only looks like the Joker from the Arkham games without make-up, but is a true psychopath who uses his real estate company to strongarm people into selling property to him, he usually offers sexual favors from one of his many female employees, in order to bribe potential sellers, in fact the husband John is the only male in the company.
John abuses and mistreats women like a true psychopath will do, playing sick games with them (eventually including his wife, he tries to gaslight her and literally tells her she smells bad, even if she doesn't of course). And then the VN has the MC join the company in order to uncover the husband's dirty secrets to gain some material that will ultimately help him with convincing Nicole that her husband is a monster so she will leave him for the MC. And of course it also offers him opportunities to get close to Nicole.
At one point this story takes over almost completely and it's just so over the top and tedious and totally unneeded since the relationship with Nicole is the true heart and core here. There are still various scenes with Nicole and things progress more and more, but to get to those scenes you have to click your way though endless sideplots that are of little interest really.
Apart from that AML makes yet another typical mistake. You are more or less forced to interact with completely useless and unneeded side characters. Worst offender is Marilyn who apparently also has some magic powers for some inexplicable reason. She's a lesbian who also wants Nicole, but if you treat Marilyn like a friend (even if you really wouldn't want to, but it's highly recommended for the love route) she'll be more like a creepy and silly wingman. This Marilyn tends to appear out of nowhere all the time, at Nicole's house, in the MC's bedroom at night, it gets annoying very quickly. Marilyn also (at one point) wants to watch the MC and Nicole when they have sex and since you don't want Marilyn to be the MC's enemy you need to keep her friendship points high and are thus more or less forced to agree to her creepy wish. Why the dev included her and her story is entirely beyond me. If this an attemp at comedy it falls completely flat.
Then you meet a nurse who lets elderly patients fondle and grope her at night so they get some comfort and action, this eventually evolves into an inane side plot about the urn of her sister and her abusive husband that goes on for much too long.
Then there is the horrible highschool teacher (the husband of the nurse) who is not only badly designed, he's also the quasi NTR character that may or may not (not, if you keep Nicole's daughter as girlfriend for now, which is also recommended in the love route) have sex with the MCs girlfriend Chloe, because one of Marilyn's magic spells went haywire and made her lust after him.
AML only really needs these characters...
The MC
Nicole
Chloe, the daughter
John, the scumbag psychopath husband as the only antagonist
ONE wingman / friend for the MC to whom he can eventually confide in and get some help from, preferably Sylvia
And then several side characters as flair with minor interactions and dialogue that actually adds something to the plot instead of rambling on about who they are, it's of no interest.
As things are are though AML has Marilyn, then Abigail the nurse and (should the game ever continue) almost certainly Sylvia the assistant of John at his company as the MCs friends and confidants (all three of them eventually know about the MC and Nicole).
All of these women should have been condensed into one character, preferably someone like Sylvia who is the only normal person of the three and is another victim of John's and has the proper motivation to help the MC take him down. Why a VN about a serious romance also has to include magic or annoying side characters like Marylin is beyond me.
And the entire plot about John's company should be much, much shorter and receive much less focus. Around the halfway point this plot derails much of the story for much too long. As some kind of consolation you do get a very long and quite important sequence with Nicole who goes on a short vacation with the MC, but to get to that you have to trudge through endless scenes about the real estate company and John's schemes.
The core of this VN and it's sole strength is the growing bond and love between the MC and Nicole. You do get many scenes between them, but almost all of them are of a sexual nature, there is some dialogue here and there of course, but instead of wasting time on useless side characters AML should have spent a lot more time on having Nicole and the MC just talk about things, so we learn more about who they are. They do that from time to time but it should be much more.
And we also know very little about Nicole even after hours and hours of content, she's a busy housewife, likes cooking, is stern, but also very caring and loving, but we know little about her dreams, her hobbies, her thoughts - and what thoughts we get are mostly about the MC or her conflicts about being in love with the MC and her slowly growing suspicion of her psychopath husband. The husband who cheats on her left and right and refuses to have sex with her throughout the story (until the cliffhanger, where he wants to get it from her as one of his sick power plays and probably because he's suspecting the MC and Nicole are much closer than he would want to).
Still, all the events with Nicole, even though they usually end up in a sex scene, are what make AML worth checking out. If you are on the love route things get ever more intense over the course of the game and the point at which Nicole is no longer bothered by the MC using her first name (she wants the illusion of distance for a long time and demands the MC calls her Mrs Heavens) and never ever scolds him for calling her Nicole anymore is really sweet and actually touching.
If AML was only about the relationship with Nicole with some (emphasis on some) drama about her husband's sick schemes and if it ditched completely unneeded sideplots and side characters like Marilyn, Abigail and Beeman and seriously shortened the interactions with the women at John's company, other than Sylvia who is the only essential character here, then it could have been a truly great VN (ignoring language issues here of course and lack of music).
As things are this is my recommendation for someone who also wants to play the very low corruption / love route for Nicole, which, in my opinion, is absolutely worth playing:
Don't skip anything early on until you get a good idea what the various unneeded side characters are about. Once you know the gist of everything just speed run through any of the scenes NOT involving Nicole, Chloe and Sylvia. John's scenes should be skimmed so you know what sick things he's planning, but it's not needed to read everything, you will eventually know what a sick person he is and that is all you really ever need to know.
And since this game has no music I recommend you play something like John Barry's magnificent "Out of Africa" soundtrack in the background, or maybe something like Gabriel Yared's "Message in a Bottle" (which is a bit more melancholic and not as epic as Out of Africa, but still fitting), the scenes with Nicole will feel like the most epic romance ever when the theme from "Out of Africa" plays in the background.
I really hope the dev can sort out his personal problems, AML, despite all the mistakes and unneeded things, is a VN that deserves a proper end and a happy ever after for Nicole and the MC.
So despite all my criticism I would still recommend you give A Mother's Love a try, even if it's on hold, maybe even close to being abandoned, ends on a nasty cliffhanger and with roughly 50% of the content and characters completely irrelevant to the actual story. But Nicole and the ever deeper and romantic relationship with the MC (IF you choose the love path!) is the unique selling point here. It could have been the older woman / young MC romance done right. It IS much better than almost anywhere else (based on the VNs I played), it's even more tragic then that so many other things in the VN detract from that experience. But still, give it a try... make it through the early scenes when the MC is really an idiot and asshole towards Nicole, it will get so much better after that.
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