Is it just my opinion or episodes 9-10 are not as good as the previous ones ? Of course, there are lots of different path to build, but the stories looks shorter end shorter... Waiting one long year for this is quite disappointing even if i still want to know what happen next (with Riona...)
About the amount of content (per playthrough) :
Splitting the game into 5 exclusive paths has the effect that the player sees less content on every path.
If we assume a split of ca 50% content for base story and 10% content for each of the 5 paths (for variations of scenes, side events), then a single playthrough of Ep. 9-10 would cover only ca. 60% content compared to maybe 80% in Season 1-2 where a playthrough could include several of the Main Girls.
The party planning mini-game for the Halloween party features twice the content than can be seen in one playthrough. You need to play the party twice to see all the events.
Additionally the number of lewd scenes is not distributed evenly on all paths, so if you play eg. Jill or Bella you have less content compared to other paths.
Lewd Scenes in Interlude + Episode 9-10 :
- Interlude : 2
- Others : 17 (Jade, Cathy, Nora, Lily, Nicole, Camila, Riona, Sara & Mel, Quinn, Heather, Madame)
- Sage : 5
- Josy & Maya : 6
- Isabella : 3
- Jill : 3
About the quality of writing :
This is a difficult topic.
+ I liked the Halloween party very much. Great ideas, renders, animations, music, ... Episode 10 content was also fine.
- What I disliked was the forced decision to choose between Others and a monogamous path with one of the Main Girls (Sage, MJ, Bella, Jill) at the end of Episode 8. This lead to a lot of artificial drama where mc broke up with all the (other) Main Girls. Most of the scenes were completely out of character where he dumped his (girl)friends to now concentrate only on his true love. I had a Season 1-2 CHICK game where mc was loving friend with Sage, Josy, Maya, Bella and Jill ... maximum drama and tears.
- It should have been a player decision if mc breaks up with the girls or not. If several girls are in love with mc, they could have talked about it and maybe find a sharing/harem solution instead of mc dumping them.
- The 5 exclusive paths mean that you now have to play at least 5 times through Season 3 (with all the free roams) to see all the content. In Season 1-2 it was sufficient to do 2-3 runs.
- As result of the path decision the game became more kinetic ... the mc now spends more time with his girlfriend but there are less decisions ... the player has no influence how the relationship evolves, it is mostly kinetic writing.
- There is much less interaction with the other girls. The gameplay felt different and lonely compared to Season 1-2 gameplay. As mentioned above on some paths it also reduced the number of lewd scenes drastically since mc now automatically turns down other girls if he is in a relationship.
- On the Others path mc now tries to talk the girls into a serious relationship instead of just having fun together.
- Many of the date events felt "out of character", some were just funny. mc had sleepovers and sex with most of the girls before, so no need to go out on a date to talk and see if you want to try sex and sleepover with each other ... Sage seemed to be completely out of character except when she talked about anal sex in the restaurant ... (After the first dialog in the HOT swimming pool I actually expected a foursome Sage+Camila+Heather+ mc with pizza as date.)
As a summary : high quality game ruined by 5 exclusive paths