Just finished the update and don't really know where to begin, but one thing is for sure; I'm pissed off! I started off with the usual anxiety of not knowing where this was going, but at the end, I'm just really pissed off with this episode.
I think one of the reasons is that I've gotten used to games where there aren't so many consequences and it's a nice bit of escapism from the harsh realities of life, and this game was that for the first 3, even 5 episodes to an extent, but now it's just delivering gut punch, after gut punch, after gut punch that I'm starting to think DPC might be something of a masochist.
I've been here a lot and I know people have, by and large, been giving DPC the benefit of the doubt by saying "it won't be as dark as AL" and that "he won't do what he did before", well he's doing it in terms of the emotional stuff and, in what is just my humble opinion as an avid fan and player, it feels like the game is gradually getting worse with all of this dark drama and the gut-wrenching relationship melodrama.
Without going into too much detail and in no particular order, these are all the things that pissed me off about this episode based on my main runthrough:
1) The Sims-like "rebuild the mansion" management system
2) The DnG game
3) The whole nothing burger that was the MC's Mom's letter
4) Not getting to resolve things with Jade as to why the MC didn't show up for their rendezvous
5) Not being able to talk to Cathy and Jade at the bar
6) Having to choose between Jill and Sage
7) Essentially getting "cockblocked" from Nicole for going on the date with Jill
8) Tybalt's slimy blackmail
9) Automatically turning down Lily's request
10) Mona geting expelled
11) Cathy resigning
12) Maya's Dad showing up and literally everything to do with what he's doing to her.
I'm honestly so fearful of what's to happen now, particularly with Maya, because this is the darkest part of the game so far with so much depressing and worrisome shit being thrown at us all at once that I'm starting to think DPC enjoys this and that all of us hoping for this to be a generally light-hearted game couldn't have been more wrong.
I'll probably come back to this game in a couple of weeks once the walkthrough is released and see exactly what the deal is with the different choices, but I think I might also need to take some time to decompress after this episode because aside from pissing me off, I'm not liking the direction this is going in and I'm not sure if I can do this for 6 or more episodes if it keeps going in this direction.
That's more or less how I felt after playing
Acting Lessons; DPC has a genuine gift for creating compelling characters - ones with the potential to truly move us as players - but he is irresponsible with the power that gives him. Leveraging that sort of emotional investment is certainly a classic trope, but it requires a delicate touch. Don Bluth pretty much made his career by stopping just short of scarring my childhood for life!
I'm not sure DPC knows when to stop. As I said before, I'm confident we can have happy endings with a LI of our choice, but I'm not sure what each of those endings will do to the other characters. It's my real fear about this game.
That said, I think I enjoyed this episode a lot more than you because I was already worried about all that and thus I could focus on the small things it does well with the various characters.. That, and I'm a lot more accepting of the fact that we WILL have to turn down some of the girls. To me, the concern isn't that we will be cut off from, say, Jill if we choose M&J, it's how cruel that rejection will be to Jill and what our relationship with Jill will be like after.
On that front, I think there are some mild positive signs in this episode. Calling Sage is mandatory for MC who are her fuck buddy, but was not mandatory for MCs who were just friends with her. That means my Jill-centric run through didn't have to turn down the second date to tend to Sage because he never knew she needed someone to tend to her. Similarly, that same MC could turn down Bella's offer to help clean up his room and thus avoid a lewd scene with her; I would have preferred to be able to accept her help and just let her go home for the evening, but I'll take what I can get.
Similarly, my main M&J run never had the second date with Jill, apparently because she picked up on the fact he just wasn't that into her. So for all the talk about how awkward it was seeing Jill and Josy at the library, there really wasn't much problem.
That said, I don't like how Jill handled the blackmail thing at all. The idea is valid, but the execution was lazy. It forced Jill into the stereotypical, naive debutante role she had so successfully avoided until now. I harbor serious concerns about how all of this will eventually unfold, and I'm hoping this was just a minor slip-up that will be corrected in Episode 7. So I don't want to complain overmuch about a character derailment that hasn't actually happened yet.
Anyway, my point is that all of this suggests to me there is at least some hope that unchosen girls might make it through the story in decent shape. That's a net win in my book, though obviously a trivially small one and we should all take to heart Josy's advice to take things slow emotionally.
