When I saw that the dev from 'Come Home' recommended this game, I immediately looked for it here to try it out. I played through what's available (up to ch.4), and... well, it certainly tries to travel the same path of deep characters, multiple relationships, vanilla romances, and high quality storytelling. Unfortunately, it misses the mark.
The story: Shelby's background was compelling, and definitely deserved more exploration. His relationship with his dad was so wholesome, and the witness protection angle was unique and could have been really, really engaging. Even the little bit the dev gave us (about masking an accent, moving a lot, 'learning' a new name) was fascinating. I wish this got more attention.
The characters: Shelby(MC) aside, I felt as though everyone other than Sadie and Mora were so flat you could slide them beneath a closed door. Let's run through them -
Heidi offers MC a room because she thinks he is attractive? Reverse that, and it's creepy AF. The casual way she opines about walking in on him in the shower, or deciding to leave the bedroom door open *the first night he moves in* WITHOUT giving Athena the choice to opt out of being spied on during sex is just gross. I disliked her enough to 'nope' her from the start - a first, for games of this genre.
Athena didn't bother me as much, but following her romantic arc was so confusing and poorly paced. It felt like she went from playing video games with her cousin and MC, to confessing her love for him the next time they hung out (get used to that, it happens a lot). Uh... what? Shouldn't there be some steps in between? No buildup at all, no reason for the player to be invested in choosing her.
Valeria was who I chose for MC by the end, but it was more out of pity than because I thought the romance was set up well. I liked the way she could relate to MC's tragic past with her own, but.... again, just like with Heidi, wtf was that introduction??? As a recap, she's sitting in a bar and decides *at first sight* that MC is going to be her FWB for the next 4 years until he finishes college. She's 42 years old and beautiful and wealthy, but needs only a single glance and a beer order to decide that? No concern about personality, or background, or beliefs? Just "oh, you're the first college freshman I met this semester, let's fuck and btw, go get a STD test bc I don't like condoms, but feel free to screw anyone else you'd like." Because of all this, Valeria made no sense to me.
Sadie was one of the two bright spots. At least her instantaneous attraction to the MC was justified. I did sort of wish she stayed chunky, though. Even with her, however, there's very little in the way of romance shown. They meet one or two times, then "7 WEEKS GO BY" and he's finger-banging his cousin in the gym. Weird. Nonetheless, she was one of the best relationship choices in the game, despite a pretty weird continuity error after the Halloween party.
Zenda was another woman with just absolutely zero pacing. MC meets her on the way to college and they chat on the train (nice! relatable!). Naturally, she instantaneously decides to invest her time molding him into a proper boyfriend (for unknown reasons) and investing huge sums of $$ into said project. It's Heidi all over again. Why does Zenda like Shelby? What makes him worth her - a beautiful, cosmopolitan heiress - time? Because the game demands she does, of course! Quit asking questions!
And lastly, we have Mora, who was the shining diamond in a box of gravel, character-wise. She had a sympathetic backstory (like Valeria), a completely understandable reason to be interested in the MC (that's explored in a realistic manner), and the romance progresses at a sane pace. She's well-written, to the point that you (as the player) want her life to improve and for her to be happy. She even acts like a virgin, with... what, 4 or 5 months of in-game time passing before she goes 'all the way'. Two thumbs up, there.
Again, I want to emphasize that as a run-of-the-mill, vanilla porn game, Bare Witness is perfectly fine. The renders are solid, there are choices and options, there's frequent sex. But - and maybe I'm completely off-base here - I don't think that was the dev's aim. Based on the story, the amount of dialogue and character background info, the thematic narrative that revolves around relationships rather than sex, I feel like that's a fair assumption to make. But when the pacing is set at a rate you'd find in a Brazzer's clip, the characters don't fit with the story. Why try to make a 'serious' story if that's the foundation of reality you're building on? Just make a straight up 'Grandma's House' VN, where there's no story and just 100% porn.
