More air than in a bag of chips
Version reviewed: 0.13.5.3
Academy34 could be named a wolf in sheep's skin, but it is actually a ship in wolf's skin. You expect a mighty predator, but you get... a sheep. I was very close to saying "my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined" throughout playing this game, but it somehow redeemed itself just enough to keep me going every time I was about to drop it. Now, from the point of me having suffered through the entire content the game currently has to offer, let me share my thoughts.
The setting.
The Overwatch, duh! Or is it?
John Cena rips paper wall and says: "Are you sure about that?" And, after careful thinking, I am not so sure. Well, the game "features" Overwatch characters, but is it REALLY the Overwatch setting? Is it really how the heroes of the world are trained in the prestige elite academy? Always empty shooting range? Goddamn literature as a mandatory subject? Characters doing whatever EXCEPT actually training to become the heroes they should be? And then it hit me.
The setting is NOT Overwatch setting. It is a cliche university setting for hundreds of adult games starring a random freshman. The only difference is that the Overwatch characters are pasted on top of generic students and teachers and their personalities somehow loosely ducttaped to make at least any sense. This game is not Overwatch setting. It is a bland university setting mixed in a soup with a generous drop of Overwatch characters on top and some attempt for this to make any sense.
The plot.
"Are you sure about that?" Again? Plot? What plot? The character studies in bland university setting. What did you expect, an epic journey alongside the heroes of the world? Saving the planet from all things imaginable? Rescuing cute girls from evil villians? Nooooooope. Nope. Just studying. Just generic ducttaped filler for a plot with this "sandbox" game. It is a sandbox game after all! Do what you want. But wait, what CAN you do?
The characters.
The game features these character arcs:
* Tracer - this one is so generic and scuffed it looks like a "beta", "proof of concept", and probably was one. 1/5.
* Mercy - featuring 3-4 scenes, this one is tied to abyssmal time constraints, forcing the player to skip an entire week to advance to the next step. The heroine's actions seem forward and unnatural, barely explained and barely understandable. 2/5.
* Andre - this is not even an Overwatch character! +1 to my point of the game being a bland university setting with some Overwatch characters ducttaped over it. Why is it even included? What is the point of this character? How is it even relevant? Alright, rant is over (at least, about this one), what is this arc? Basically, some random shy girl, for which the player has to do some things to uncover her hidden, eh, sexuality? Some events are well made, some are not, maybe a 3/5. But do you care? You are here for Overwatch stuff, are you not?
* Mei - the entire arc is plagued with some random crap about meteorology. Yeah, maybe the character background should be relevant, FOR ONCE? But here it is just another extreme. As is with the main character, I constantly found myself asking the same question: why do I care? And, answering it, I started fastforwarding. 2/5.
* Brigitte - it revolves around one particular fetish - bondage. Do you like bondage? 4/5! Why not 5? Because the author likely does not, at least he didn't care to add much detail into the actual scenes. Don't like bondage? Buckle up. The fastforwarding goes brrrrrr. 1/5.
* Widowmaker - there is absolutely nothing there except for some boring introduction featuring one unavoidable NTR scene and a tsunami of text. 1/5.
* Sombra/DVA - here is where all the effort went. This is the only character arc worthy of playing. The only developed enough to feature several scenes and have at least some meaning to it. The only with some plot and character development. The only with quality sex scenes. 5/5.
The gameplay.
One word. Grind. The game offers no content except the character arcs described above. But to get those, the player needs to be at certain places at certain weekdays/weekend to advance them. All the while also earn money to buy stuff for some of those arcs. The gameplay is incredibly grindy. It is atrocious.
The game has a large map with like 10 locations, ALL of which are useless in freeroam, as they only serve as a trigger for a specific arc to continue. These locations are half entirely empty and half filled with random people, with which the player cannot interact in any meaningful way.
All the arcs can be advanced on certain days, so if the player is targeting specific arc, one has to skip weeks to get it going. And be careful when skipping, it can accidently ruin some other arcs! So, the player is required to micromanage everything the same time. Eventually most of the arcs end and only weekend and one other day in the week will be used, the rest of the days will be skipped entirely as they contain nothing of value. But why does the game insist on being a sandbox then? Just link the events in a list one after another in a VN fashion so the giant gaps are removed, it will be so much better.
Why the stupid map if it is not used for anything meaningful? Just force move the player into the next location which triggers something. Why all those useless characters the player cannot interact with? Why even bother drawing their sprites? Keep the player always engaged with the main characters and free the screen from rubbish!
But no, let's grind another week for one subpar sex scene.
The art.
Well, outside of Sombra/DVA arc, it is simply bad. Lazy. Low quality and also low quantity. And Sombra/DVA arc is, what? An exception? It features pretty nice scenes, but they all make like 10% of what the game has, so, well, not doing good here. The backgrounds are fine, but they are also generic. Why bother making a Loss joke and ligma joke on random boxes of pills in the background of Mercy's office, when Mercy herself has a face less detailed than a chunk of soap?
The summary.
The game is definitely not as bad to be terrible, but it is simply poor - 2/5. Poor in quality of scenes. Poor in setting. Poor in character development, girl arcs. Poor in text quality, poor in gameplay mechanics.
The meaningful stuff in the game is about 1h tops. But to unlock it all, be prepared to play at least 5 hours. Be prepared to skip almost an entire week to get a wall of text and mediocre scene. Be prepared to be forced into a weird fetish which the character is obsessed with, and which is the only way to get close to this character. Be prepared to grind. Grind money. Grind character arcs. Grind everything in this game.
I am not recommending it in its current state. Maybe in 2-3 years when the content arrives and can push the score to like 3/5. Or maybe the developer opens own eyes and remakes the game putting content before grind.
This game is like a bag of chips. You open it and there is a whole bunch of nothing inside. And even the chips themselves are mostly not worth eating.
P.S. My ideas for improverment of the game, as requested by the developer.
1. Old character arcs need to be remade. Yes, Tracer and Mercy may really be the first ones, but now, with the quality of latest content rising, those are tanking the overall impression the game has on the players. They are the weakest link and need to be dealt with.
2. In this game "money" does not contribute anything to the story. The parts revolving around money in this game should be free or should take money from imaginary "bank account" the player character has. The "extra" stuff currently buyable from Sombra should be automatically unlocked when the player unlocks the "base" version of the same event. The actions which result in player earning money should be removed completely. This alone removes a huge part of the grind.
3. The calendar (meeting organizer). A submenu of sorts which displays current week and shows head icons of characters the player can meet in certain places/timeframes. Something like meeting organiser? A week with 6 intervals with faces opposite days. Click on one day, it unfolds into timeframes for said day with faces opposite each timeframe. Hover over one face and it gives the location. This is just an example of what can be done, anything would do. And yeah, the button "skip until the next meaningful event".
4. "Chekhov's gun". If something exists, it should have meaning to it. For everything currently in the game, ask the question. Is there currently any meaning to this location/event/character? If there is none, remove it from the game. Remove or restrict all the game content which currently makes no sense, until it does. F.E. Block bus stop when the player has nothing to do there, so the player cannot even enter it.
5. "Linked List progression". Linked List is an array of objects, in which each object contains a body and a link to the next object in the list. Most university setting games operate on a linked list progression. Once the player finishes an event, the player is immediately teleported in time and space to the start of the next event. This will effectively cut all the needless time the player currently spends skipping days. But it will turn the game into a VN. If the game is intended to stay sandbox, it should be focused on the player always having something to do, in any location, in any timeframe. Sandbox is a sandbox because there is sand! Everywhere within the borders of said sandbox. If there is no sand, it cannot be called a sandbox.
6. Progress tracker overhaul. An arc is an arc. If it is Sombra/DVA, it should be named Sombra/DVA and not 4 separate quests. Within the arc there are events/quests. They should be labeled as "future", "in progress" and "completed". And each event/quest should have the description currently provided in the progress tracker.