So, I wanna start this out by saying I've played two separate paths, and even had a 3rd branching save for the romance path, main save without Lea and other with her as girlfriend. Mainly because Lea is a buzzkill when it comes to her sister. My main save and favorite path was by far the romance harem, followed closely by the solo Emilie path (Which I only followed for the last update, didn't fully play through it).
I will briefly delve into the sharing path, however I wasn't a big fun of the storyline and approach that the path takes. I only followed this path for the sex scenes and only that reason, and only the "good guy" sharing path where you don't continue to whore her to Roberts men.
Onto the review...
So I played the romance path from start to finish, mainly the harem path with the exception of doing a Emilie solo save for the final update just to see how that path plays out at the end (I hate fully playing through games twice back to back, so wasn't going to play it in full). And I've got to say, it was one of the best visual novel experiences I've had thus far in my time playing them.
Now, it's not in my top 5 games by any stretch of the imagination, because it does have some glaring flaws, but it excels in certain areas so much that I can forgive its flaws and I appreciate and enjoy the game for what it does right. Speaking of what the game does right, lets delve into that a bit.
The Good
The Characters: The cast of characters in this game is awesome. They aren't the most in-depth characters ever, but I found myself really liking all of them with one exception being Lea who I thought was just okay. They all have distinct personalities and traits, sure they share some similarities as well, but they are for the most part around the same age, so it makes sense.
My favorite characters have to be Emilie, Cassandra, and Abby. Emilie and Cass have great chemistry and are both very lovely and caring girls. I love that Emilie is so in love with the MC that she is always afraid she is doing something wrong, but then the MC is there to reassure her and make sure she knows that she's done nothing wrong and that he loves her. The dynamic between the two star characters is a definite strong point in AF.
Cassandra is dynamite all around, she's sexy, outgoing, cute when she wants to be, and fiery when she needs to be. Seeing her be vulnerable after leaving Jason after realizing how much of a shit-bag he was, really shows that underneath her fiery and outgoing personality, that she has a soft and sweet side that must be protected from creeps like her ex.
I could keep going on about things I like about the rest of the cast, but I just wanted to paint a picture of a couple of the main cast to give an idea of what to expect. All the characters for the most part are fun and good people, who lean on the MC and at times he leans back on. It's a well oiled machine and Emilie is the glue that keeps it together.
On a side-note, Emilie is a total cuckquean, and I love it.
The World-building: Although the setting in this game isn't massive, it's solely contained within the city that the main characters reside, the game goes a good job of showing just how expansive the city is and how much is going on inside of it. It doesn't feel like an empty city that's a hub for fictional characters to fuck. Rather, it feels like a big important city rooted in corruption via lots of illegal and shady practices.
The Story: The story isn't the strongest suit, but for AVN standards it's pretty good. It basically boils down to: the MC and his old high school friend Emilie, whom has always had a crush on him, are both struggling finically and bump into each other on a chance day that forever changes their lives. After talking about how their struggling with one another, they agree to live each other so they can help each other out so they don't end up homeless, and they decide to do so but starting an AlwaysFan account (basically OnlyFans) so that they can make ends meet and survive.
After opening the only fans account they soon discover some corruption that runs deep, and in particular, it's corruption that is spreading through the man who owns the company who owns AlwaysFan, and some of his buddies. These men are doing things like: Kidnapping, drug dealing, raping, prostitution/trafficking, and even murdering. The MC throughout the story uncovers more of the corruption happening around him, particularly with the man who owns the site that him and Emilie are using to make a living.
After a failed kidnapping attempt, where Marcus' men try to take Emilie, the MC now takes all this corruption more personally, and makes it his mission to not only protect Emilie and his other friends/girlfriends, but to also take down Marcus and his entire operation. You can probably guess what kind of story to expect from there, I don't want to spoil everything.
The Okay
The Sex Scenes and Animations: I will just lump these two together, since for the most part the only animation is used during sex scenes, with a few exceptions.
The sex scenes aren't bad, but they aren't great either. At first I really liked all the sex scenes on the romance path, but they do get kind of stale after a while. Also, cosplay isn't enough to spice it up. There are some exceptions where they have sex that isn't really vanilla, and those are fun, but those are the exceptions. Also, there isn't much interactivity within the sex scenes, just one choice prompts to continue to a different position. However there aren't really choices or any interactivity within the scenes, which I admit is a little disappointing.
The animations are well... HS2, and pretty standard as far as HS2 animations go, though you can see some subtle slight improvements as the game progresses. Don't expect Ripples or Eternum quality HS2 animation and scenes. It is above average for HS2 though (at least later on), I've seen worse HS2 sex scenes and animation. I don't really play HS2 games for amazing animation though, when a HS2 game does have amazing animation and visuals, to me that's a plus, but with good enough characters and writing isn't a requirement for me to enjoy the game.
I will say, on the sharing path, not the animation, but the sex scenes themselves were AMAZING. As someone who likes both romance/harem and swinging games, I can definitely say that the sharing scenes in this game didn't get quite as stale as the romance sex scenes. Now I enjoyed the story and characters more on the romance path. However, the sex scenes overall across the whole game, were stronger on the sharing path imo. I never felt the sharing scenes get stale, and were always adding new elements and flavors to spice them up almost every scene.
The Bad
The first thing I'll just quickly gloss over is the flashing during the MC's climaxes in sex scenes. This one isn't a big deal but something that annoyed me for quite a while. I don't like it when devs do this, never have. If it happens once I can handle it, but when it does it multiple times in a row, every time, my eyes start to not like it. After a while it can get so irritating that I have to look away. This doesn't take away really from my overall enjoyment, but worth mentioning anyway.
The Sharing Path: While I REALLY enjoyed the sex scenes on this path, I will say that there is a lot that I didn't enjoy about the path, especially in the beginning with how it was approached and setup to begin with. Instead of talking with Emilie about being a prostitute and how she would feel about it as a way they could make more money to help with their struggles, instead he takes advantage of her desperate situation and her obsession with him, in order to push her into doing something she doesn't want to do without at all considering her feelings.
Then later on this branches into two separate sharing paths, both involving prostitution, but one where you continue to be an asshole and prostituting her to the very scum of the city mentioned earlier or one where you apologize and start being nicer to her, and then register her on a much safer, legit escorting site to continue making more money from her selling herself.
Now the latter is much better than the former, but the path to me was already ruined with how it began, not to mention that besides getting to decide what clients she accepts and doesn't accept, and deciding if the MC is just doing it for the money, or if he enjoys her doing it, you don't get to decide much else. They set their own basic set of rules at the start when registering to the website, but it's not really flexible for the most part (with a few exceptions like letting the cosplay nerdy client do anal or not, or sending cass/jenna with Emilie on a couple of select jobs), and it definitely could have been more in-depth and fleshed out as a prostitution storyline.The scenes were hot AF though.
Final Verdict:
The game is a tale of struggle, redemption, corruption, love, and sacrifice, with a cast of lovable characters and many cute and wholesome antics, or dark and disturbing, depending on which path you go down. It has a fun setting that is nicely introduced throughout the game, and some antagonists that the game does a great job of making you hate, making their eventual downfall all the more sweet.
It's not the pinnacle of visuals, and it's not the best AVN story out there, but it definitely meets the standard and quality that AVN's now-a-days should be meeting, and in terms of the writing and characters and their development, it excels at. With the exception of me not being a big fan of the sharing path, and the annoying flashing screen during the climaxes of sex scenes, I can't say anything else negative about this game. Everything else about it I enjoyed. Even the romance path sex scenes that eventually got stale were still varied enough to not make me bored, they weren't as exciting as some of the sharing path sex scenes in the later stages, but not bad either.
Probably the strongest thing this game has going for it, is the relationships, most notably the relationship between the two stars of this game, the MC and Emilie. I didn't really touch on the solo Emilie path much, but the ending on that path was super cute and wholesome, and it really ties together the story nicely and shows just how far the pair have come after overcoming their struggles together.
Pros+ Cons- Neutral+-
+ Characters and Character development are top notch
+ World building was nicely done and the setting was enjoyable
+ The relationships and character writing were great
+ Overall good storyline with a satisfying conclusion
- Flashing screen during sex scene climaxes (For a large portion of game)
- Sharing path could have been more a bit more fleshed out and it didn't have the most enjoyable start.
+- The sex scenes were really good for the most part, but did become quite routine and stale after a while on the romance path. (With a few exceptions)
+- Animations were pretty standard for a HS2 game, and the sex scenes could have had more interactivity and depth.
Overall, I really enjoyed this game, and if I didn't love the cast so much and also really enjoyed large portions of the storyline and world building, I probably would have only given it 4 stars. However, I definitely think it deserves the five stars. It might not be in my top 5 or even top 10 games, but it definitely deserves its high rating and praise.
I will briefly delve into the sharing path, however I wasn't a big fun of the storyline and approach that the path takes. I only followed this path for the sex scenes and only that reason, and only the "good guy" sharing path where you don't continue to whore her to Roberts men.
Onto the review...
So I played the romance path from start to finish, mainly the harem path with the exception of doing a Emilie solo save for the final update just to see how that path plays out at the end (I hate fully playing through games twice back to back, so wasn't going to play it in full). And I've got to say, it was one of the best visual novel experiences I've had thus far in my time playing them.
Now, it's not in my top 5 games by any stretch of the imagination, because it does have some glaring flaws, but it excels in certain areas so much that I can forgive its flaws and I appreciate and enjoy the game for what it does right. Speaking of what the game does right, lets delve into that a bit.
The Good
The Characters: The cast of characters in this game is awesome. They aren't the most in-depth characters ever, but I found myself really liking all of them with one exception being Lea who I thought was just okay. They all have distinct personalities and traits, sure they share some similarities as well, but they are for the most part around the same age, so it makes sense.
My favorite characters have to be Emilie, Cassandra, and Abby. Emilie and Cass have great chemistry and are both very lovely and caring girls. I love that Emilie is so in love with the MC that she is always afraid she is doing something wrong, but then the MC is there to reassure her and make sure she knows that she's done nothing wrong and that he loves her. The dynamic between the two star characters is a definite strong point in AF.
Cassandra is dynamite all around, she's sexy, outgoing, cute when she wants to be, and fiery when she needs to be. Seeing her be vulnerable after leaving Jason after realizing how much of a shit-bag he was, really shows that underneath her fiery and outgoing personality, that she has a soft and sweet side that must be protected from creeps like her ex.
I could keep going on about things I like about the rest of the cast, but I just wanted to paint a picture of a couple of the main cast to give an idea of what to expect. All the characters for the most part are fun and good people, who lean on the MC and at times he leans back on. It's a well oiled machine and Emilie is the glue that keeps it together.
On a side-note, Emilie is a total cuckquean, and I love it.
The World-building: Although the setting in this game isn't massive, it's solely contained within the city that the main characters reside, the game goes a good job of showing just how expansive the city is and how much is going on inside of it. It doesn't feel like an empty city that's a hub for fictional characters to fuck. Rather, it feels like a big important city rooted in corruption via lots of illegal and shady practices.
The Story: The story isn't the strongest suit, but for AVN standards it's pretty good. It basically boils down to: the MC and his old high school friend Emilie, whom has always had a crush on him, are both struggling finically and bump into each other on a chance day that forever changes their lives. After talking about how their struggling with one another, they agree to live each other so they can help each other out so they don't end up homeless, and they decide to do so but starting an AlwaysFan account (basically OnlyFans) so that they can make ends meet and survive.
After opening the only fans account they soon discover some corruption that runs deep, and in particular, it's corruption that is spreading through the man who owns the company who owns AlwaysFan, and some of his buddies. These men are doing things like: Kidnapping, drug dealing, raping, prostitution/trafficking, and even murdering. The MC throughout the story uncovers more of the corruption happening around him, particularly with the man who owns the site that him and Emilie are using to make a living.
After a failed kidnapping attempt, where Marcus' men try to take Emilie, the MC now takes all this corruption more personally, and makes it his mission to not only protect Emilie and his other friends/girlfriends, but to also take down Marcus and his entire operation. You can probably guess what kind of story to expect from there, I don't want to spoil everything.
The Okay
The Sex Scenes and Animations: I will just lump these two together, since for the most part the only animation is used during sex scenes, with a few exceptions.
The sex scenes aren't bad, but they aren't great either. At first I really liked all the sex scenes on the romance path, but they do get kind of stale after a while. Also, cosplay isn't enough to spice it up. There are some exceptions where they have sex that isn't really vanilla, and those are fun, but those are the exceptions. Also, there isn't much interactivity within the sex scenes, just one choice prompts to continue to a different position. However there aren't really choices or any interactivity within the scenes, which I admit is a little disappointing.
The animations are well... HS2, and pretty standard as far as HS2 animations go, though you can see some subtle slight improvements as the game progresses. Don't expect Ripples or Eternum quality HS2 animation and scenes. It is above average for HS2 though (at least later on), I've seen worse HS2 sex scenes and animation. I don't really play HS2 games for amazing animation though, when a HS2 game does have amazing animation and visuals, to me that's a plus, but with good enough characters and writing isn't a requirement for me to enjoy the game.
I will say, on the sharing path, not the animation, but the sex scenes themselves were AMAZING. As someone who likes both romance/harem and swinging games, I can definitely say that the sharing scenes in this game didn't get quite as stale as the romance sex scenes. Now I enjoyed the story and characters more on the romance path. However, the sex scenes overall across the whole game, were stronger on the sharing path imo. I never felt the sharing scenes get stale, and were always adding new elements and flavors to spice them up almost every scene.
The Bad
The first thing I'll just quickly gloss over is the flashing during the MC's climaxes in sex scenes. This one isn't a big deal but something that annoyed me for quite a while. I don't like it when devs do this, never have. If it happens once I can handle it, but when it does it multiple times in a row, every time, my eyes start to not like it. After a while it can get so irritating that I have to look away. This doesn't take away really from my overall enjoyment, but worth mentioning anyway.
The Sharing Path: While I REALLY enjoyed the sex scenes on this path, I will say that there is a lot that I didn't enjoy about the path, especially in the beginning with how it was approached and setup to begin with. Instead of talking with Emilie about being a prostitute and how she would feel about it as a way they could make more money to help with their struggles, instead he takes advantage of her desperate situation and her obsession with him, in order to push her into doing something she doesn't want to do without at all considering her feelings.
Then later on this branches into two separate sharing paths, both involving prostitution, but one where you continue to be an asshole and prostituting her to the very scum of the city mentioned earlier or one where you apologize and start being nicer to her, and then register her on a much safer, legit escorting site to continue making more money from her selling herself.
Now the latter is much better than the former, but the path to me was already ruined with how it began, not to mention that besides getting to decide what clients she accepts and doesn't accept, and deciding if the MC is just doing it for the money, or if he enjoys her doing it, you don't get to decide much else. They set their own basic set of rules at the start when registering to the website, but it's not really flexible for the most part (with a few exceptions like letting the cosplay nerdy client do anal or not, or sending cass/jenna with Emilie on a couple of select jobs), and it definitely could have been more in-depth and fleshed out as a prostitution storyline.The scenes were hot AF though.
Final Verdict:
The game is a tale of struggle, redemption, corruption, love, and sacrifice, with a cast of lovable characters and many cute and wholesome antics, or dark and disturbing, depending on which path you go down. It has a fun setting that is nicely introduced throughout the game, and some antagonists that the game does a great job of making you hate, making their eventual downfall all the more sweet.
It's not the pinnacle of visuals, and it's not the best AVN story out there, but it definitely meets the standard and quality that AVN's now-a-days should be meeting, and in terms of the writing and characters and their development, it excels at. With the exception of me not being a big fan of the sharing path, and the annoying flashing screen during the climaxes of sex scenes, I can't say anything else negative about this game. Everything else about it I enjoyed. Even the romance path sex scenes that eventually got stale were still varied enough to not make me bored, they weren't as exciting as some of the sharing path sex scenes in the later stages, but not bad either.
Probably the strongest thing this game has going for it, is the relationships, most notably the relationship between the two stars of this game, the MC and Emilie. I didn't really touch on the solo Emilie path much, but the ending on that path was super cute and wholesome, and it really ties together the story nicely and shows just how far the pair have come after overcoming their struggles together.
Pros+ Cons- Neutral+-
+ Characters and Character development are top notch
+ World building was nicely done and the setting was enjoyable
+ The relationships and character writing were great
+ Overall good storyline with a satisfying conclusion
- Flashing screen during sex scene climaxes (For a large portion of game)
- Sharing path could have been more a bit more fleshed out and it didn't have the most enjoyable start.
+- The sex scenes were really good for the most part, but did become quite routine and stale after a while on the romance path. (With a few exceptions)
+- Animations were pretty standard for a HS2 game, and the sex scenes could have had more interactivity and depth.
Overall, I really enjoyed this game, and if I didn't love the cast so much and also really enjoyed large portions of the storyline and world building, I probably would have only given it 4 stars. However, I definitely think it deserves the five stars. It might not be in my top 5 or even top 10 games, but it definitely deserves its high rating and praise.