I've played through Black Hoops once, and though the game heavily implies it is meant to be completed more than once, nothing in my first playthrough has managed to assure me it would be worth it. The one and only star I'm giving this game is for the art. Every other creative decision ranges from ill-conceived to inconceivable.
I. The writing in this game is atrocious. There's no cohesion to it, no pacing; random things just keep happening in no particular order, like in a mad lib. The characters are vacuous and uninspired, which may be partly because the story, despite taking forever to get anywhere, does not hold onto any of them long enough to properly flesh them out. There are no character development arcs to speak of, the characters remain one-note from the moment they are introduced to the moment their plot thread is abandoned. The English translation is incredibly poor as well, riddled with grammar and spelling errors, so whatever much-needed personality might have been injected into these characters through quirks of vocabulary and sentence structure is lost: everyone sounds the same, the language makes a smear out of the seemingly neverending line of dudes vaguely in their thirties, and together with the both confusing and confused plot it turns into a one-two punch robbing you of any emotional investment you might've otherwise had.
II. The gameplay mechanics—however few there are—are poorly explained and serve to detract from the experience rather than add to it:
(1) Your character has three stats you can upgrade: Stamina, Mentality, and Wisdom.
Some actions in the game cost stamina, it is replenished by resting in your apartment, and it can be done as frequently as you like, with zero impact on the plot. All this particular stat adds to your experience is some busy work. There are items that replenish it too, but they are never needed.
It's unclear how Mentality and Wisdom affect the plot, if at all. For example, there was one time late in the game where my character could not remember details of a conversation he had just overheard. Was my Mentality stat too low, or did my character just have the plot-convenient stupidity syndrome? Who knows, the game never tells you one way or the other.
(2) The one interactive sex scene I have seen is too loaded with distracting game elements to be arousing. There's a man lying naked on a couch in front of you, and instead of focusing your attention on him the game makes you hurriedly move your cursor to make MS Paint pink hearts loudly jingle their way out of wherever it needs you to press, making cartoon boyoyong sounds whenever you fail to click in time. All the while the man's facial expressions shift several times per second, as if he's being electrocuted. None of it is either interesting or sexy, not even by the standards of flash games from a decade ago.
III. The game is not reluctant to waste your time:
(1) There are thirty-four sets of CGs, adding up to around ninety individual images in total. Some, I would say less than half of them, are unlocked automatically at certain story beats. The rest, somewhere about fifty, are unlocked by spending points awarded at the end of each playthrough, one point for each individual image. My first playthrough yielded just three. This tells me that unlocking the whole gallery would take more than ten playthroughs, and each one of them is too long as is.
(2) Whenever you save your game, your progress is not saved at the frame you are currently on. The game instead makes a save beginning either at the start of the current in-game day or at the latest plot-relevant point it arbitrarily chooses. This means that, unlike in most other visual novels, if you want to see how the narrative changes with the different choices you make, most of the time you have to replay the day from the start.
(3) This is a tangent that you can safely skip. It's a small thing, but it's a telling QOL issue indicative of the game's overall attitude towards your time.
(4) Speaking of skipping, the Skip function doesn't let you skip straight to the next choice. You have to hold the Skip button down until the choice comes up, and that can be a while.
All in all, I can't recommend this game. I really enjoy its art, but I can't help but feel like the game part of this game bogs it down. Personally, I would much rather download the CG pack on its own whenever it drops instead.
(game version 3.0.0.0)
I. The writing in this game is atrocious. There's no cohesion to it, no pacing; random things just keep happening in no particular order, like in a mad lib. The characters are vacuous and uninspired, which may be partly because the story, despite taking forever to get anywhere, does not hold onto any of them long enough to properly flesh them out. There are no character development arcs to speak of, the characters remain one-note from the moment they are introduced to the moment their plot thread is abandoned. The English translation is incredibly poor as well, riddled with grammar and spelling errors, so whatever much-needed personality might have been injected into these characters through quirks of vocabulary and sentence structure is lost: everyone sounds the same, the language makes a smear out of the seemingly neverending line of dudes vaguely in their thirties, and together with the both confusing and confused plot it turns into a one-two punch robbing you of any emotional investment you might've otherwise had.
II. The gameplay mechanics—however few there are—are poorly explained and serve to detract from the experience rather than add to it:
(1) Your character has three stats you can upgrade: Stamina, Mentality, and Wisdom.
Some actions in the game cost stamina, it is replenished by resting in your apartment, and it can be done as frequently as you like, with zero impact on the plot. All this particular stat adds to your experience is some busy work. There are items that replenish it too, but they are never needed.
It's unclear how Mentality and Wisdom affect the plot, if at all. For example, there was one time late in the game where my character could not remember details of a conversation he had just overheard. Was my Mentality stat too low, or did my character just have the plot-convenient stupidity syndrome? Who knows, the game never tells you one way or the other.
(2) The one interactive sex scene I have seen is too loaded with distracting game elements to be arousing. There's a man lying naked on a couch in front of you, and instead of focusing your attention on him the game makes you hurriedly move your cursor to make MS Paint pink hearts loudly jingle their way out of wherever it needs you to press, making cartoon boyoyong sounds whenever you fail to click in time. All the while the man's facial expressions shift several times per second, as if he's being electrocuted. None of it is either interesting or sexy, not even by the standards of flash games from a decade ago.
III. The game is not reluctant to waste your time:
(1) There are thirty-four sets of CGs, adding up to around ninety individual images in total. Some, I would say less than half of them, are unlocked automatically at certain story beats. The rest, somewhere about fifty, are unlocked by spending points awarded at the end of each playthrough, one point for each individual image. My first playthrough yielded just three. This tells me that unlocking the whole gallery would take more than ten playthroughs, and each one of them is too long as is.
(2) Whenever you save your game, your progress is not saved at the frame you are currently on. The game instead makes a save beginning either at the start of the current in-game day or at the latest plot-relevant point it arbitrarily chooses. This means that, unlike in most other visual novels, if you want to see how the narrative changes with the different choices you make, most of the time you have to replay the day from the start.
(3) This is a tangent that you can safely skip. It's a small thing, but it's a telling QOL issue indicative of the game's overall attitude towards your time.
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(4) Speaking of skipping, the Skip function doesn't let you skip straight to the next choice. You have to hold the Skip button down until the choice comes up, and that can be a while.
All in all, I can't recommend this game. I really enjoy its art, but I can't help but feel like the game part of this game bogs it down. Personally, I would much rather download the CG pack on its own whenever it drops instead.
(game version 3.0.0.0)