Review as of v0.3. This is not a spoiler free review.
I want to like this game. I really, really do. The effort and attention to detail in this game is obvious. Characters are rendered beautifully (although the goofy switch perspective button on the Tara scene speaks to how similar Tara and Jaye's models look; change the shape of their bodies at least!). There's a unique attention to lighting and shadowing, to beautiful effect. And the narration really does its best to set up all the story points.
But despite how much I try, I can't really bring myself to fully commit to this game.
I can offer a bunch of small complaints that are all individually irksome in their own way...
... the Prologue sequence is way too long. You already have an extensive, obvious exposition dump about the character's (well, his parents') backstory. But then you get the most unnecessary bar conversation scene, featuring a bartender/owner that has yet to meaningfully factor into the story, and a bunch of wasted panels of pointedly unfunny 'banter' between him and the MC. I understand trying to give a backdrop for a big infodump, but when you're dumping a ton of exposition that early into the story, it's best to just get over it. Now you have a big exposition infodump, AND an extraneous, dragging bar conversation scene with some rando. Woo!
... both the MC and Jaye have terrible cases of one-itis, to the story's detriment. We as the audience never get to know why these characters are so hopelessly obsessed with each other. We don't feel the connection they have. We just have to assume it's true while they go around being toxic little shitheads to each other. Neither of them come off as likable in any of their interactions. The developers naively presume that the audience would feel the connection they envision in their heads. But we really, really don't.
... the MC's is apparently some kind of sex god with a magic penis, considering he can make women obsessed with him even if he just lays there. Which contrasts so heavily with his one-itis. Why is he still hung up on this one woman when he can seemingly get with anyone he wants? Jaye seems to have no special quality that makes her more engaging, interesting, or otherwise elevated above the rest. Yet we as the reader are beaten over the head with how the MC sees her in every woman he fucks.
... Jaye as a character feels more like a prop than a human. Her emotions, maturity, and situation seems completely suspended in time for us to pick up "five years later." You never really get the sense that Jaye is behaving like a real person with her own goals, habits, and challenges. She's there as an impediment when the story needs an obstacle, as a lure when the story needs a pivot, as a prize when the story needs a sex scene. Worse, she's presented as someone so obviously obsessed with the MC that she would completely succumb to him if he so much as made a move, which makes the MC look worse for waffling about for so long before, invariably, he tries something with her in a future update.
... randomly thrown in "lesbian" scene when neither of them are into women. Yay! I guess the developers don't want to somehow threaten some antiquated notion of purity of her character, and they somehow feel that it's better if she has a lesbian lover than a male lover. Which is convoluted, but a lot of neckbeards hate the thought of women having any kind of romantic interest other than the MC. So sure, let's give her a less threatening/more titillating interest. But the whole notion that she wouldn't be attracted to the person whose face is buried in her genitals is just bizarre. It just makes both Tara and Jaye seem less like relatable people and more like sexual props. Jaye's clearly reserved for the MC (even as the MC is off fucking a bunch of other women; which is fine if you want to play into the Alpha Male fantasy, but then why does he become so useless around his stepsister?) but then she's just used as a vehicle to give us a gratuitous lesbian scene.
... the MC is a privileged little dickhead. He's hopelessly in love with his stepsister, so he responds by... gallivanting off on his parent's dime for five whole years? What about getting an education? What about making a man of himself? What about not being a financial burden to his parents who still pay for his air travel and cell phone? And then he comes back five years later, armed with his measly high school diploma, and is in contention to inherit a billion dollar biotech company? Because all it takes is AP biology and some nepotism, I guess...
... Oh, did we mention they're explicitly stepsiblings? There's no law anywhere forbidding a relationship between non-blood related stepsiblings (it's merely atypical). There's all this over the top handwringing about something that's completely unnecessary.
... the Mr. Miyagi scenes with David are just weird. So this random gruff looking fellow saves the MC from getting seduced and kidnapped (obviously a common thing that happens to all men in Latin America), so our MC just... pals around him for the next few years in a totally "not gay" way? He conveniently happens to be some special forces guy who teaches him manly skills so the MC can be more of an anime protagonist. Then when he outlives his usefulness to the story, he gets killed of in the most hilariously over the top Mission Impossible scene.
... with the overwhelming, obsessive relationship between MC and Jaye, it's hard to see where Mallory fits. Ostensibly, she seems positioned as a primary love interest. But it's hard to envision her fit in the story or what an ending with her would look like. Given Jaye's predominance in the story, she's almost relegated to the same collection of secondary interests like Tara, Fiona, Linda, and Emily—all of whom seem a little TOO eager to jump MC's bones; thirsty seems to be their only character trait.
... Mallory just randomly turns up in MC and his sister's boat/attorney's office for... reasons.
... the storytelling is done via frustration. I personally hate the "making everybody act mysterious and shady so they can avoid telling the MC anything important so the reader can be surprised later" brand of storytelling. And this game is rife with it.
... there's a half-baked b-plot about Polygene and "Prizer" that promises some kind of corporate intrigue and maybe a proper antagonist, but it's so detached from the bulk of storytelling attention thus far that it's hard to care about it.
... it's hard to envision how this game could possibly even end. If Jaye and MC end up admitting their feelings for each other and end up together, it would feel like they wasted five years of their life when all of their issues could have been resolved simply by talking to each other like semi-reasonable adults. If MC and Mallory end up together, it'll always come with this hanging cloud of MC's obsession with his sister and her being the backup option.
— but ultimately, the game simply fails to credibly transport you into a new world, or occupies a character that's relatable or believable. You're apparently this idealized sex god who—only via his own self-centered dickishness—holds himself back, trying to woo (or rather getting wooed by) a bunch of "quirky" girls whose characters largely begin and end with their looks. It's nothing we haven't seen before, only with pretty renders.
The story falls short since it never settles into the pocket. It's like an idyllic house at the start of a horror thriller. It might seem fine at first glance, but it doesn't feel right. Angles are a little askew, proportions a little bit off. The authors try to create this beautiful sunset paradise, but miss the mark and crash land in the uncanny valley.
Chasing Sunsets is a story with beautiful bones, a great outer shell, but a very hollow emotional center. The authors don't give us enough reason to like or get invested in the characters' journeys (really, any of them, so far). None of them are particularly witty, or admirable, or interesting. We're left with a bunch of beautiful, but vapid and empty, facades.
