Overall vote: 8.5* (updated score, the next bit is based on my old score)
Ok I was late to it but finally up and finished playing this one too and well what can i say, for now my vote is 9- but it may change cause in the future after playing some more Atelier Sakura games I do plan on rechecking all my ratings.
Truth be told I do have mix feelings about giving this a 9- (the highest i ever gave was a 9 for Marina 2 and the only other 9- on my ratings was for Hoka no Otoko after story)
But let's start reviewing this one and as always if you don't wanna be spoiled finish the game and come back afterwords
• The first thing I wanna point out is that if there was one game that you could use to compare this one with it would be another Atelier Sakura game called The Student Council President is my sexfriend
I do feel like this one is sort of an upgraded version of that which was one of the reason I ended up giving it an higher vote than that one.
• Aya Ooteki to me is like top 5 or even top 3 of the hottest FeMC that AS wrote
• When it comes to sex scenes and I don't mean just individual sex scenes but the overall quality of ALL sex scenes in the game, I think this one and only Marina 2 can compete for the crown of the AS game with the best sex scenes. (So far at least since there still many AS games I've yet still to read)
• It give us the perspective of all 3 parties involved which was a surprise and a very welcome one at that. I truly liked it and I hope this is not just an one time only, hope they will do that for other future games too
• Nice long prologue which for others might disagree (understandbly)
But imo I like my porn with a story behind and it did serve me to connect and be invested in the characters
One neutral point:
• There were 2 sex scenes that were blatantly taken from the "report" game series playbook. On one hand there were both hot but on the other hand if they wanted to put that kind of spice too it should've been done differently, it didn't fit the vibe, didn't fit in the contest of events and it was way too little
Now I shall go a little bit with things I didn't like:
• The corruption / progression of the story gets a little bit wild, too unnatural, left you scratching your head and borderline at the edge of "acceptable".
• The big problem at its core is that there is way too little "story" in - between sex scenes. Of course this is a problem that a vast majority of eroge have
• If there was a lenghty section of Aya wondering, feeling guilty, questioning herself, figuring out what to do.
All of that is present but is way too brief and then the next sex scene happens immediately, making us questioning the nature of Aya, casually making her a slut (that is a process that should be done slowly) and way too soon destroying the good impression she build up in the prologue.
• If I can bring up the other similar AS game again.
Over there blackmail was involved so it wasn't an issue, but here there is a big issue of how fast and easy it was for Aya to succumb to temptation
Some last pointers about the ending:
• Choices didn't matter except for one different sex scene and some dialogue changes
• Honestly the ending left me sorta disappointed, the writing by the end got sorta sloppy on the "story" side
• This obviously got more budget than the Sexfriend game so I was kinda expecting multiple endings
At the end of the day through the good far outshined the bad. I gave Sexfriend a 8.5 reason why I have this one 9-. I far enjoyed it despite the few down points and I really hope they translate the whole series especially the second game which has a gorgeous FeMC and the story seems really good
Edit. Yeah as I said at the start this review is based on my old score. But in the end I feel uncomfortable placing this in the 9 range. So in a head to head i do still prefer this one to the Sexfriend game but as far as scoring goes yeah same score for both of them
Ok I was late to it but finally up and finished playing this one too and well what can i say, for now my vote is 9- but it may change cause in the future after playing some more Atelier Sakura games I do plan on rechecking all my ratings.
Truth be told I do have mix feelings about giving this a 9- (the highest i ever gave was a 9 for Marina 2 and the only other 9- on my ratings was for Hoka no Otoko after story)
But let's start reviewing this one and as always if you don't wanna be spoiled finish the game and come back afterwords
• The first thing I wanna point out is that if there was one game that you could use to compare this one with it would be another Atelier Sakura game called The Student Council President is my sexfriend
I do feel like this one is sort of an upgraded version of that which was one of the reason I ended up giving it an higher vote than that one.
• Aya Ooteki to me is like top 5 or even top 3 of the hottest FeMC that AS wrote
• When it comes to sex scenes and I don't mean just individual sex scenes but the overall quality of ALL sex scenes in the game, I think this one and only Marina 2 can compete for the crown of the AS game with the best sex scenes. (So far at least since there still many AS games I've yet still to read)
• It give us the perspective of all 3 parties involved which was a surprise and a very welcome one at that. I truly liked it and I hope this is not just an one time only, hope they will do that for other future games too
• Nice long prologue which for others might disagree (understandbly)
But imo I like my porn with a story behind and it did serve me to connect and be invested in the characters
One neutral point:
• There were 2 sex scenes that were blatantly taken from the "report" game series playbook. On one hand there were both hot but on the other hand if they wanted to put that kind of spice too it should've been done differently, it didn't fit the vibe, didn't fit in the contest of events and it was way too little
Now I shall go a little bit with things I didn't like:
• The corruption / progression of the story gets a little bit wild, too unnatural, left you scratching your head and borderline at the edge of "acceptable".
• The big problem at its core is that there is way too little "story" in - between sex scenes. Of course this is a problem that a vast majority of eroge have
• If there was a lenghty section of Aya wondering, feeling guilty, questioning herself, figuring out what to do.
All of that is present but is way too brief and then the next sex scene happens immediately, making us questioning the nature of Aya, casually making her a slut (that is a process that should be done slowly) and way too soon destroying the good impression she build up in the prologue.
• If I can bring up the other similar AS game again.
Over there blackmail was involved so it wasn't an issue, but here there is a big issue of how fast and easy it was for Aya to succumb to temptation
Some last pointers about the ending:
• Choices didn't matter except for one different sex scene and some dialogue changes
• Honestly the ending left me sorta disappointed, the writing by the end got sorta sloppy on the "story" side
• This obviously got more budget than the Sexfriend game so I was kinda expecting multiple endings
At the end of the day through the good far outshined the bad. I gave Sexfriend a 8.5 reason why I have this one 9-. I far enjoyed it despite the few down points and I really hope they translate the whole series especially the second game which has a gorgeous FeMC and the story seems really good
Edit. Yeah as I said at the start this review is based on my old score. But in the end I feel uncomfortable placing this in the 9 range. So in a head to head i do still prefer this one to the Sexfriend game but as far as scoring goes yeah same score for both of them