So, I love the story... but watching some of those endings are like watching the end of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: Several endings have 10+ natural ending points, but every time you think it's about to end, the developer looks at you and cajoles, "You're almost there! Just a few more renders! Just a few more!" The story actually consists of five chapters, but one of those chapters is more like an epilogue as it is simply a collection of the multiple endings. No significant choices are made at this point. Only one choice happens, and that's to decide whether you fight or you run, and both options lead to the same outcome.
A quick rundown, (spoilering off major plot) due to witnessing the attempted murder of his father and the murder of his father's colleague (cue the title, Bare Witness; clever, no?) by The Outfit (yes, that Outfit), your MC--real name Shelby--is now in the Witness Protection Program. At the beginning, you get to choose a name for your MC because Shelby is far too uncommon and would be tracked down in about 20 minutes and are set on a train ride to Plattsburgh, New York, to attend college at the fictional Plattsburgh College of the Arts (PCA; likely based on School of Arts & Sciences - SUNY Plattsburgh); your character is into graphic design. Originally, the MC wanted to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), however WitSec outright rejected it because Chicago is where the witnessed crimes occured; pick any other school and they would vet it. Rather than stay at a dorm, your MC has chosen to apply his room and board budget to stay at a house where two other tenants are looking for a third to replace their recently graduated roommate.
The MC, well... the developer played with the sliders, left more than a bit of intelligence on the table to give the MC more in the way of strength, stamina, charisma, and... size. Real stat min/max'ing from the dev. For as much as he might have given the MC strength, he took the charisma and stamina up to 11... and MC's happy stick up to 12. Makes your favorite male pornstar seem pathetic. Needless to say, every woman in this game loves him and wants to be with him. He's a pretty one-dimensional Gary Stu. No, he's not rich, no he's not a genius... but that is what the women bring to the table. I guess if you're going to do it, this is the most appropriate way to do it.
The LIs themselves have great personalities, and no two of them are remotely alike... except they're all squirters, every single one of them; to a ridiculous degree. Feels like they should be dying due to dehydration and fluid loss. I digress. One of your roommates, Athena, is a bartender that's not afraid to whip some ass if someone acts up in the bar and she drives a motorcycle, but she's also a gamer in her spare time and is a romantic at heart. The other roommate, Heidi, is the resident smol and an infinite ball of positive energy, just as likely to prank you as she is to fuck your brains out. The girl who's juggling two on top of classes because she can't afford her lease payments (her fucking ex; it's a whole thing) while going to school? Yeah, that's Mora: she's a story-telling, tabletop playing sweetheart that got fucked over, but she always puts up her best face for the people she serves and goes to school with. The one you rode into town with on a train? Zenda, a posh socialite from London, doesn't spend a lot of time in one place because her wealthy family are always on the move; better be on your best with that one. Ironically, your cousin Sadie--that's right, one of them is your cousin (!) because WitSec fucked up and put you in the same town as your fucking cousin despite the fact that you aren't supposed to have contact with anyone from your old life--is going to school at PCA because she wasn't what SAIC was looking for. Did I mention there's a hot MILF in this game, twice the MC's age with emotional life scarring that has seriously changed her outlook on life (for good or for ill remains to be seen)? Yeah, that's Valeria--or Val for short--and based on the script file (because it didn't get buttoned up nicely into a compressed and encrypted RPA file), she gets one hell of a long and fleshed out ending. Maybe a little too long, but you get my meaning. Speaking of endings...
There are 11 possible endings, with 10 of those endings having a post-credit clip at the end depending on if you make one decision during the course of the game. One of the endings cannot have that post-credit sequence because that decision you make is actually front and center as the major contributing factor in the building and locking in the remaining ending.
Of the 11 endings, six of them are traditional binary relationships with two people (one each for all six LIs). Four more are polyamorous (two throuples, one quad, and one quint; not really a true harem as the quad and the quint contain a pair that have fun with each other instead of focusing 100% of their attention on the MC). The remaining ending is a--spoiler alert--solo MC ending.
Finally--of the six LIs--four LIs can be a part of a polyamorous relationship with the MC. One will absolutely reject it outright--because she is a one-woman show--and for you to continue with her, she will insist you break it off with anyone you've been intimate with. The MC likely infers that the other LI rejects it, even though she never implies it: Her issue is with the specific sexual partner who informs on your dalliance, that she's the competitive type that just wants to "win" and would rather gloat than have a healthy relationship. In either case, neither of those two woman will end as part of a polyamorous relationship.
Graphics are phenomenal. Lots of small details in each environment, the render quality is excellent, the LIs all have very unique looks. For instance, one LI was a fat kid, and she starts this game in the same way; she has noticable stretch marks, and her diet largely contributes to her acne (most prominent on her forehead). She loses weight as a result of working out with the MC and actually trying to restrict her diet to get healthy, her acne may almost entirely go away, but some of those stretch marks do not go away. Animations are excellent and plentiful.
Music is pretty much the top of the spectrum when it comes to AVNs. So much so, I've read that the developers are going to have to pull it for the Steam release; pretty standard thing to do really. Can't necessarily commercialize some of the music in this, but if you get it from here or from something that isn't Steam, you're probably fine there.
All told, you're going to love this. Easily one of my favorite VN's to date and I've been playing them basically non-stop for five years now. Five stars.
A quick rundown, (spoilering off major plot) due to witnessing the attempted murder of his father and the murder of his father's colleague (cue the title, Bare Witness; clever, no?) by The Outfit (yes, that Outfit), your MC--real name Shelby--is now in the Witness Protection Program. At the beginning, you get to choose a name for your MC because Shelby is far too uncommon and would be tracked down in about 20 minutes and are set on a train ride to Plattsburgh, New York, to attend college at the fictional Plattsburgh College of the Arts (PCA; likely based on School of Arts & Sciences - SUNY Plattsburgh); your character is into graphic design. Originally, the MC wanted to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), however WitSec outright rejected it because Chicago is where the witnessed crimes occured; pick any other school and they would vet it. Rather than stay at a dorm, your MC has chosen to apply his room and board budget to stay at a house where two other tenants are looking for a third to replace their recently graduated roommate.
The MC, well... the developer played with the sliders, left more than a bit of intelligence on the table to give the MC more in the way of strength, stamina, charisma, and... size. Real stat min/max'ing from the dev. For as much as he might have given the MC strength, he took the charisma and stamina up to 11... and MC's happy stick up to 12. Makes your favorite male pornstar seem pathetic. Needless to say, every woman in this game loves him and wants to be with him. He's a pretty one-dimensional Gary Stu. No, he's not rich, no he's not a genius... but that is what the women bring to the table. I guess if you're going to do it, this is the most appropriate way to do it.
The LIs themselves have great personalities, and no two of them are remotely alike... except they're all squirters, every single one of them; to a ridiculous degree. Feels like they should be dying due to dehydration and fluid loss. I digress. One of your roommates, Athena, is a bartender that's not afraid to whip some ass if someone acts up in the bar and she drives a motorcycle, but she's also a gamer in her spare time and is a romantic at heart. The other roommate, Heidi, is the resident smol and an infinite ball of positive energy, just as likely to prank you as she is to fuck your brains out. The girl who's juggling two on top of classes because she can't afford her lease payments (her fucking ex; it's a whole thing) while going to school? Yeah, that's Mora: she's a story-telling, tabletop playing sweetheart that got fucked over, but she always puts up her best face for the people she serves and goes to school with. The one you rode into town with on a train? Zenda, a posh socialite from London, doesn't spend a lot of time in one place because her wealthy family are always on the move; better be on your best with that one. Ironically, your cousin Sadie--that's right, one of them is your cousin (!) because WitSec fucked up and put you in the same town as your fucking cousin despite the fact that you aren't supposed to have contact with anyone from your old life--is going to school at PCA because she wasn't what SAIC was looking for. Did I mention there's a hot MILF in this game, twice the MC's age with emotional life scarring that has seriously changed her outlook on life (for good or for ill remains to be seen)? Yeah, that's Valeria--or Val for short--and based on the script file (because it didn't get buttoned up nicely into a compressed and encrypted RPA file), she gets one hell of a long and fleshed out ending. Maybe a little too long, but you get my meaning. Speaking of endings...
There are 11 possible endings, with 10 of those endings having a post-credit clip at the end depending on if you make one decision during the course of the game. One of the endings cannot have that post-credit sequence because that decision you make is actually front and center as the major contributing factor in the building and locking in the remaining ending.
Of the 11 endings, six of them are traditional binary relationships with two people (one each for all six LIs). Four more are polyamorous (two throuples, one quad, and one quint; not really a true harem as the quad and the quint contain a pair that have fun with each other instead of focusing 100% of their attention on the MC). The remaining ending is a--spoiler alert--solo MC ending.
Finally--of the six LIs--four LIs can be a part of a polyamorous relationship with the MC. One will absolutely reject it outright--because she is a one-woman show--and for you to continue with her, she will insist you break it off with anyone you've been intimate with. The MC likely infers that the other LI rejects it, even though she never implies it: Her issue is with the specific sexual partner who informs on your dalliance, that she's the competitive type that just wants to "win" and would rather gloat than have a healthy relationship. In either case, neither of those two woman will end as part of a polyamorous relationship.
Graphics are phenomenal. Lots of small details in each environment, the render quality is excellent, the LIs all have very unique looks. For instance, one LI was a fat kid, and she starts this game in the same way; she has noticable stretch marks, and her diet largely contributes to her acne (most prominent on her forehead). She loses weight as a result of working out with the MC and actually trying to restrict her diet to get healthy, her acne may almost entirely go away, but some of those stretch marks do not go away. Animations are excellent and plentiful.
Music is pretty much the top of the spectrum when it comes to AVNs. So much so, I've read that the developers are going to have to pull it for the Steam release; pretty standard thing to do really. Can't necessarily commercialize some of the music in this, but if you get it from here or from something that isn't Steam, you're probably fine there.
All told, you're going to love this. Easily one of my favorite VN's to date and I've been playing them basically non-stop for five years now. Five stars.
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