Coming back to this game reminded me just how tough staying loyal to Ashley is....
I have an emotional connect to four of the girls in this game, and that's never happened before; Ashley (of course), Rebecca, Valery & Aurora.
I just spent a good portion of the day already (about 5 hours, it's now 1 PM here, thankfully I'm using scrappy's mod) going through all those four routes and seeing what I would've missed if I just only focused on Ashley the entire time, and now, I'm even more conflicted.
Ashley - The love that got away whom we now have a chance to reconnect, reignite, and grow together, and I love things like that since I am a romantic like that and the story her and the MC have is great. The date in the park is so sweet, so cute, it just would've been better had they actually kissed after they professed their love for each other.
Val, as we all know by now, needs a lot of help and I am really invested in her story, her past, and helping her get out of the situation she's in. She's a great character, a beautiful girl and just someone I really want to help, especially if I was in a relationship with her.
Rebecca is just so GOD.DAMN.ADORABLE I can't help it. She's so cute, so loveable, so huggable all I want to do is jump through the screen and be with her. I love Asian women and there's very few girls in these types of games that check all the boxes of what I look for in a girl, but Rebecca does that.
The only problem is, doing the other routes, is seeing Ashley's concerned/worried face when she sees the MC with other girls, that's what bothers me the most here. Vicky and Sung don't do anything for me and neither does Jenny or Elizabeth.
My choice in this game is still Ashley, but I am definitely curious as to what happens with the routes of the other girls. I can see it's going to be very VERY hard for me to stick with Ashley completely. I usually choose one girl, per game, and that's that. AOA throws FOUR that I really like at me. I don't like harems or MFF/MFFF things so I won't do those sort of endings.
Ashley is the safe solo route that I really want and for right now I have to stay on that path. Even doing the other three routes made me feel bad, really bad about the whole thing, so I don't know. Not going to be easy for me to choose and it usually very much is.