My first impression of the first playthrough of the ep9 (no need to mention that it was the Bella's path, right?) was like "Oh no, I've flashback of the boring freeroam party at the preps mansion from the ep6. Only that there's no cosy night with Bella, Jill and the wine afterwards, which almost saves the ep6". And the whole episode feels too short and eventless in relation to the main story arc. But I did four more PTs and even one more from ep1 to ep9 and I seem to have changed my mind.
First, when you play the game from very beginning to the last episode, you come to the episode 9 fully immersed into the story and the freeroam feels very natural and doesn't feel like some isolated spin-off of the game you're used to playing. Secondly, this episode is really big in content! It's just that the branching has gotten to the point where the number of possible paths has become significant and the difference between them is more and more noticeable. Let's say I was surprised that I didn't get the break up scene with J&M when Josy stormed out in tears in any of the six or seven PTs, even being a huge DIK. So, the ep9 is short storywise, but pretty wide in branching. It's just a little sad that it ended so quickly and most of the cliffhangers left lingering from the season one, but the episode itself is good.
But at least I found out that Riona does want to have a serious relationship. She doesn't say it but lets it drop
