This game was so good until the talk with Maya and Josy in DIK House Library.
We have every kind of choice 'til here but right now I have no choice but "forgive them and accept them as a friend". I don't want this ffs. You made me choose everything I wanted to choose but when it's the most important choice in the game, I don't have a "I don't want to be your friend" option. Fuck this, disappointing...
That resolution was a no-win scenario for DPC - though it's entirely one of his own making.
He wanted the player to sympathize with the hurt and shock of the MC, so he had Maya and Josy do something shocking and potentially painful. He then amped up the drama by having the PC mope about it for the whole episode.
It certainly helped sell the MC's trauma, but by the same token it also prevented Maya and Josy from mending fences with the
player, not just the MC. Combine that with the ludicrously rushed resolution that focused far too much on them forgiving each other than earning the player's forgiveness and it's no wonder that lots of players just want to write the whole mess off once and for all - no matter how badly that would fuck up DPC's story.
On top of that, Episode 5 was poorly positioned to fix the problem since it was so short. In the wake of the library debacle, we
needed three things: a) a chance for players who hated the characters to berate them (even if it ended with them being friends again, the dressing down could be cathartic); b) re-establishing a camaraderie between the three that would illustrate why the MC wants to stay their friend (and thus why we should care); c) explaining what the new relationship between the three would be for those who succeeded in trying for something more.
Unfortunately, those needs were derailed by the inability for Episode 5 to actually advance the plot in any way. It practically trapped the various plots and relationships in amber for safekeeping. As a result the closest we got to a) was ducking out on Josy's request, and c) was a borderline joke with Maya all but asking the MC to keep sleeping around.
Worst of all was b). Not only did the episode completely bail on rebuilding any sort of platonic friendship between the three, the friendship route chose to focus exclusively on how sad the girls were to be only friends and not lovers - even when the girls turned us down! It's true that in the wake of the library scene we probably did need to be reassured there was still a solo path for each girl, but that could have waited an episode.
By cramming that message in to the exclusion of all others, it not only failed to reestablish the friendship between the trio, it wound up making the threesome path look that much weaker in comparison.
It's nowhere near as bad as the original failure in Episode 4, but it's means we have to readdress the issue yet again, which will only overexpose the characters to those who are sick of them even more. It's one more pothole Episode 6 is going to have to patch. No wonder the thing is going to be huge.