V0.035-Bugfixed
Gosh-fucking-DAMN this game is a masterpiece.
The music is good. Finely frosted flourishes on a brilliant crafted cake without an inch of fondant, subtle and meaningful. Nothing gamechanging, pun intended, but not the near warcrimes some VNs like to commit with their soundtracks.
The visuals are the first wonderful thing.
The sheer attention to detail in the character designs is brilliant. It’s believable and modern, avoiding the cut-and-paste stylings that I’ve seen people on this site joke about so often. Personality and cohesion are difficult forces to balance, and it’s done expertly here.
Then there’s the conscious use of framing. The author clearly understands what it means to play their VN, how exactly we, the player, are intended to feel. Fundamentally, we are not along for the ride; we are the MC and thus part of the ride.
This becomes apparent with all the time spent not just in the MC’s head, but when we stare through his eyes too. We are forced to literally see things from his perspective, empathize with his feelings and goals.
But then there’s these pure arresting (really, really hot) moments, where a character will react nonverbally to something. Whether it’s the timid adjustment of Alice’s hips or the childish realization that Hailey does, in fact, like to suck on meaty things, the setting AND characters AND perspective are all realized at once.
I could spend a thousand years talking about these damn characters, but I’ll stick to the MC because it’s where most of the writing is.
The MC is a bad person. Immediately, right out the gate, there is no question that he is a predator. The author is not here to discuss “what makes a predator?” or some surface level examination of “is bad thing really bad? If so, why me likey the bad thing?!” No, it is a given. He violates people’s boundaries, even genuinely traumatizes them, and gets away with it most of the time. And even when he doesn’t? Socio-economic privilege saves him from immediate social repercussions. He is an honest-to-god (literally) predator who feasts on the vulnerable.
More than that, his writing is honest. Not tortured, not confused, but determined and straightforward. The MC is a hedonist, a person living for the pleasure of the moment and little else. He gives that he cannot predict the future, and takes that then he must live for the present by grabbing what he wants (often literally).
But, still, there’s an empathy to his portrayal. An honest sense that, although he, and thus you, are a monster here to tear these people’s lives apart, you are not soulless. You can see that his goals align with others’ somewhat, and when kindness is a virtue to pleasure’s ambition, his toothy grin is all the warmer for it. He does not intend to hurt them (unless it’s kinky); it’s an unpleasant side effect of ambition, a casualty of the war he fights inside himself.
And that war, between the angel and demon- my GOD the angel and demon. I cannot BEGIN to stress how well they’re executed. Many, many of the Renpy VNs have this sort of figure in them, and it is absolutely infuriating how few of them use the trope properly.
These two fuckers have an honest political conflict- the politics of morality and pleasure. When what is right is pleasing, both agree. When what is right is displeasing, they war. The character, just by acknowledging these competing forces as another’s voice, dissociates his own morality. He insists that they are not him, yet we see time and time again that the distinction is meaningless. He uses this internal battle to feel like he has control over his predatory behavior; it’s a fucking coping mechanism. That’s fucking AMAZING, what VN author has an honest understanding of a sexual predator’s psychological coping mechanisms?????
Philosophy aside, they have incredible chemistry. Honestly, every character does. They all relate to each other in actual ways, rather than being CGI cutouts with backbreaking tits and kneegrinding hips all stuck in the same virtually rendered environment.
I have to stop myself here, but this author actually know what the hell they’re doing with this game and it’s so goddamn refreshing.
Also I'm convinced the title is commentary that I haven't parsed yet, in case you want more reasons to plumb the depths of this game's text.