some of the writing around version 0.3.7 is genuinely a dramatic decline in quality, as if the developer was in a rush to get content out. The introduction of Hanako feels like an attempt to profit off the recent attention to 'rent-a-girlfriend', and her insertion into the story feels contrived with no connection of substance to the story. The grammar and sentence structure is getting worse, and scenes are becoming less organic and more forced.
An example being the COVID-19 project in class - the teacher implies an accusation that the MC has been using Effie as a means to get easy marks, yet nowhere in the entire game is such a thing established - in fact the original scenario is that Effie and MC are a little estranged, with Effie hanging out more with her friends and MC going solo. And why are we actually somewhat being told in the game about what happened with Covid-19? I understand that it's to show that the characters don't know, but as a writer you don't ACTUALLY tell historical details - otherwise the writer ends up teaching history themselves, which they JUST established is boring.
The first actual sex scene we get with Aikame completely derails from the progression established from the relationship - This feels less like Aikame and more like a generic bathroom sex scene insert because I'm assuming readers were getting antsy that there wasn't any sexual progress with her yet. In the same scene Katsue is basically reduced to a mindless idiot even though she's supposed to be an established thief, a profession that requires more than subhuman intelligence to master. I had to force myself to finish reading the scene because everything about the dialogue was robotic and cringey. I got the impression that because the animation was a lot more involved in this scene, the developer lost the motivation for the rest it, as if they ran out of steam.
