This review is as of v1.0.0 Android. Significant spoilers ahead.
While this AVN is notably better than about 90-95% of the content involving some narrative on this site and has an interesting uniqueness in its own right, it nevertheless has significant issues that weigh down the unique strengths it does have.
The Good
The underlying genre (psychological drama) was itself fairly unique for an AVN. To the extent this genre was adequately represented in this AVN, was where the AVN drew most of its strength. It presented a seriousness and reality that was a nice contrast to the usual unseriousness and fantasy you find in most AVNs. In this respect, the AVN was distinct and enjoyable.
The AVN was also not gratuitous with its sex scenes; the sex scenes actually felt like they had justification and a point. Moreover, the characters do not have comical proportions.
The Mediocre
The main concrete implementation flaw is the actual characterization. That is, in spite of this being a psychological drama, the characters are rather flat. The characterization is mostly by extrinsic relation and functional roles while intrinsic identity is severely underdeveloped to non-existent.
Consider, for instance, the character of Melissa: we are given that she comes from a broken abusive household, that she likes swimming, is the friend of Megan, and has a drug problem. But that's really about it: she is defined by the relations she holds to other characters and has some fairly generic characteristics that are used on a a primarily instrumental basis.
Other characters appear to be merely playing roles: Dick is the cartoon violent hothead, Peter is the cartoon abusive drunk father, Angela and Hedwig are the "temptations", Rena is the resentful and envious competitor, etc. Beyond these tropes, they do not really have any substance and so are thoroughly uninteresting.
The most developed character outside of the MC (who himself lacks much of one: he's effectively the weak IT guy) is probably Liam, whose cancer arc is probably the most well done arc in this AVN. However, even Liam is fairly 2-dimensional: the crazy friend who is opposite to the MC but loyal to the end and good at core.
The only character I really found to have any complex direction was Ana (the "crazy ex") with respect to an idiotically conceived but regretful act of infidelity and internal emotional turmoil; however her crazy ex archetype was played up to in such a predominating way that this more complex development was effectively papered over and about nullified by actions actually associated with her path and so fails to significantly get beyond the "ex from hell" trope.
The Bad
The most significant failing of this AVN is an unwillingness to commit to a sense of an identity of what it is. Is it a narrative about the inevitability of fate and the need to give up trying to control things and learning to cope with the world? Or is it about a broken character trying to heal and redeem himself by doing right by others, but is just too weak to do much in the real world or that his actions he tries to do right by others are merely an elaborate form of denial?
If the whole point of the AVN was that events just happen (with no underlying purpose) and there is nothing you can do to change them but can only choose how to react to them (as the ending seems to suggest), then why are there rather distinct ways that the AVN can be controlled to end in (nor are they clearly random but reflect consistent and choose-able courses of action)? Why are there courses of action throughout the AVN that clearly result in arguably better outcomes than others in smaller ways that truly last (Rena ending up with Liam, for instance, instead of Dick?)? Why are there virtually no choices about actually internally reacting to events themselves?
If, on the other hand, it is closer to the latter sort of narrative, then why does virtually nothing really happen over the narrative, until a very rushed conclusion? The MC starts out acting aimlessly...and continues to act aimlessly. Melissa starts as a kind of damsel in distress ... and continues to be a kind of damsel in distress. Megan starts as a naive and dependent actress ... and continues to be a naive and dependent actress. Since there is a lack of enduring change over the course of the narrative, and is closer to the viewing of mundane events of life day in and day out, there is a lack of any sense of the character actually changing (or changing things at large), but merely just cruising along day by day until something inevitably tragic occurs. Thus, there is simply not enough development for the latter sort of narrative to really be the case here.
The problem this presents is that it makes the AVN an inconsistent mess of choice and fate: on the one hand, you get some truly meaningful choices that do considerably effect events in the AVN, mixed with unavoidable traumatic events that seem to just happen for the sake of impact. If all of our choices were ultimately negated in some sense and there was only one extremely tragic ending (for instance, Liam always dies of cancer, Megan fails in her acting career / Melissa is permanently imprisoned to her abusive step father, etc.) that differed merely in how the MC coped with it, that would be more consistent with what I think is an intended underlying theme.
However, given the tension between the structure of the choices and the structure of the narrative, what this seems to result in is that whether or not an event in the AVN can be effected seems to be based on narrative convenience, which ends up vitiating the effectiveness of its more critical moments and makes the AVN feel rather arbitrary and cheap. Why can Megan and Melissa both not make it, who are both visibly small and light (even with the athletic trait no less), but Rena's presence coincidentally saves Liam's life? To my best guess, because the former maximizes shock value (on first viewing at least; on later viewings it just comes off as over-the-top shock content that mangles the story to its end) and the latter for some degree of replay value.
The end result is that the narrative loses a considerable degree of cohesiveness to being a string of strewn together emotional devices and setups positioned for maximum impact that lack a meaningfully abiding overall context, producing an inconsistent and futile experience.
The Verdict
While having a promising genre-story-archetype that does show itself in a certain underlying sense, the AVN suffers from significant problems of execution and structure that cloud over its strengths.
3.25/5-3.5/5. Since I can only use whole number ratings, it is closer to being a 3/5 than a 4/5 and so I have to rate it as a 3/5.
While this AVN is notably better than about 90-95% of the content involving some narrative on this site and has an interesting uniqueness in its own right, it nevertheless has significant issues that weigh down the unique strengths it does have.
The Good
The underlying genre (psychological drama) was itself fairly unique for an AVN. To the extent this genre was adequately represented in this AVN, was where the AVN drew most of its strength. It presented a seriousness and reality that was a nice contrast to the usual unseriousness and fantasy you find in most AVNs. In this respect, the AVN was distinct and enjoyable.
The AVN was also not gratuitous with its sex scenes; the sex scenes actually felt like they had justification and a point. Moreover, the characters do not have comical proportions.
The Mediocre
The main concrete implementation flaw is the actual characterization. That is, in spite of this being a psychological drama, the characters are rather flat. The characterization is mostly by extrinsic relation and functional roles while intrinsic identity is severely underdeveloped to non-existent.
Consider, for instance, the character of Melissa: we are given that she comes from a broken abusive household, that she likes swimming, is the friend of Megan, and has a drug problem. But that's really about it: she is defined by the relations she holds to other characters and has some fairly generic characteristics that are used on a a primarily instrumental basis.
Other characters appear to be merely playing roles: Dick is the cartoon violent hothead, Peter is the cartoon abusive drunk father, Angela and Hedwig are the "temptations", Rena is the resentful and envious competitor, etc. Beyond these tropes, they do not really have any substance and so are thoroughly uninteresting.
The most developed character outside of the MC (who himself lacks much of one: he's effectively the weak IT guy) is probably Liam, whose cancer arc is probably the most well done arc in this AVN. However, even Liam is fairly 2-dimensional: the crazy friend who is opposite to the MC but loyal to the end and good at core.
The only character I really found to have any complex direction was Ana (the "crazy ex") with respect to an idiotically conceived but regretful act of infidelity and internal emotional turmoil; however her crazy ex archetype was played up to in such a predominating way that this more complex development was effectively papered over and about nullified by actions actually associated with her path and so fails to significantly get beyond the "ex from hell" trope.
The Bad
The most significant failing of this AVN is an unwillingness to commit to a sense of an identity of what it is. Is it a narrative about the inevitability of fate and the need to give up trying to control things and learning to cope with the world? Or is it about a broken character trying to heal and redeem himself by doing right by others, but is just too weak to do much in the real world or that his actions he tries to do right by others are merely an elaborate form of denial?
If the whole point of the AVN was that events just happen (with no underlying purpose) and there is nothing you can do to change them but can only choose how to react to them (as the ending seems to suggest), then why are there rather distinct ways that the AVN can be controlled to end in (nor are they clearly random but reflect consistent and choose-able courses of action)? Why are there courses of action throughout the AVN that clearly result in arguably better outcomes than others in smaller ways that truly last (Rena ending up with Liam, for instance, instead of Dick?)? Why are there virtually no choices about actually internally reacting to events themselves?
If, on the other hand, it is closer to the latter sort of narrative, then why does virtually nothing really happen over the narrative, until a very rushed conclusion? The MC starts out acting aimlessly...and continues to act aimlessly. Melissa starts as a kind of damsel in distress ... and continues to be a kind of damsel in distress. Megan starts as a naive and dependent actress ... and continues to be a naive and dependent actress. Since there is a lack of enduring change over the course of the narrative, and is closer to the viewing of mundane events of life day in and day out, there is a lack of any sense of the character actually changing (or changing things at large), but merely just cruising along day by day until something inevitably tragic occurs. Thus, there is simply not enough development for the latter sort of narrative to really be the case here.
The problem this presents is that it makes the AVN an inconsistent mess of choice and fate: on the one hand, you get some truly meaningful choices that do considerably effect events in the AVN, mixed with unavoidable traumatic events that seem to just happen for the sake of impact. If all of our choices were ultimately negated in some sense and there was only one extremely tragic ending (for instance, Liam always dies of cancer, Megan fails in her acting career / Melissa is permanently imprisoned to her abusive step father, etc.) that differed merely in how the MC coped with it, that would be more consistent with what I think is an intended underlying theme.
However, given the tension between the structure of the choices and the structure of the narrative, what this seems to result in is that whether or not an event in the AVN can be effected seems to be based on narrative convenience, which ends up vitiating the effectiveness of its more critical moments and makes the AVN feel rather arbitrary and cheap. Why can Megan and Melissa both not make it, who are both visibly small and light (even with the athletic trait no less), but Rena's presence coincidentally saves Liam's life? To my best guess, because the former maximizes shock value (on first viewing at least; on later viewings it just comes off as over-the-top shock content that mangles the story to its end) and the latter for some degree of replay value.
The end result is that the narrative loses a considerable degree of cohesiveness to being a string of strewn together emotional devices and setups positioned for maximum impact that lack a meaningfully abiding overall context, producing an inconsistent and futile experience.
The Verdict
While having a promising genre-story-archetype that does show itself in a certain underlying sense, the AVN suffers from significant problems of execution and structure that cloud over its strengths.
3.25/5-3.5/5. Since I can only use whole number ratings, it is closer to being a 3/5 than a 4/5 and so I have to rate it as a 3/5.
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