English: 10
User Interface: 8
User Experience: 6
Art: 9
Dialogue: 4
Story: 7
Opinion: 5
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Avg: 7.0/10
I think I started a review of this the last time I played it, but for whatever reason gave up on it. And if I remember right there's an ENTIRE MIDDLE SECTION that just does not matter. (I'm starting this before playing again.) Where MC just lives at a ski lodge and has an affair with the wife, and/or daughter, because... They had a couple conversations? And it provides context for MC getting nudes intermittently. MC is a barely atypical Gary-Stu where his only quality is quippy-ness and "I traveled a lot." And none of the LI's are at all interesting beyond some backstories that are better than most of the garbage on this site. They all kinda act special needs (never mind the ACTUAL autistic girl later on) And another issue is the start. Listening to MC go on about the false troubles he's had up until this point, pretending there's even a chance that there's some negative ending to an AVN is laughable at best. And all the dialogue spouted here by MC is a bunch of fluffy cliches you hear everywhere, trying to sound profound. Which, if you've watched anything in the last 10 years, since writing has all gotten kinds of samey, you know exactly what I mean. Either way, I do want to say, this is better than most of the shovelware on this site.
Like I said, this starts with MC telling his story for no discernable reason... Going into a flashback about how his mom met his step-dad. And you get to watch a cringey, barebones, rom-com play out. Sarah, MC's mom, mentally notes to not bother with a marketing asshat that thinks he's charming, then falls in love immediately... Cool. And it goes on forever. All to try to paint a backstory to garner empathy toward MC and Jaye's tense relationship. Tense, mind you, only because they're step-siblings that became attracted to each other and pushed each other away to fight the stirring in their loins. Truly, the next Romeo n Juliet. Snark aside, I will double down and say the intro is weak. And all for it to take a turn to YET ANOTHER CORPORATE ESPIONAGE STORY. I can't tell you how bored I am of "I'm so rich, and OTHER big business wants to stop it now that parents are dead." The theme is dead, beat another horse, will ya? Back to the narration by MC, he's telling all of this to the dad's best friend, THAT WAS THERE FOR 80% OF IT. He knew all this. Why tell him? With ham-fisted references and fourth wall breaks too, it's grating.
And it kinda devolves from there, less rom-com, more trashy soap opera with the cloning and stuff. Between the time MC finally makes up with Jaye and the end of content, NOTHING important, story-wise, happens outside of the VERY END. You learn Mallory is the clone of MC's mother, there's a miracle drug that was created, Jaye's ex is working to steal company secrets, and MC "trains" to take over the company, and Jaye is ACTUALLY MC's half-sister. Everything else reads like a casual encounters or missed connections ad on craigslist. "What I really wanted to say, was written in my cheesy diary." I will say the writing is, at times, personable. But so much just ends up as references meant to be relatable or worse, jokes. References will never be funny and always feel cheap, especially when every other line is some nod to a movie, book, or show. And The characters lose a lot of quality once any sex is involved. Suddenly they're these innocent pure maidens that have never even heard the word penis before. It all meanders and skips a bunch of time saying "So much happened, and BOY you shoulda been there, but we didn't write that so you get a half assed journal entry about things that happened and you still won't learn about anything until later."
For me, this just barely hits the 4 stars (3.5 rounded up) And It's almost refreshing after the slew of shovelware, boring, broken English, zero effort, nonsensical garbage "games" I've gone through on this siteas of late. The English, in this case the spelling, grammar, wording etc. Is good, I don't even remember spelling mistakes and the dialogue never felt robotic. The UI is very much custom, but somehow it felt clunky. It would freeze up and more than a few of the buttons somehow didn't interact with the mouse correctly? It's odd, but the UX suffered for it, the game full on crashed for me for an unknown reason as I didn't even get a traceback. (During the scene with Rikki at the lake if it helps) Anyway, the art is great, the faces never look dead and the expressions actually express. Imagine that. But most of the animations are noticeably lower quality than the CGs so the quality change is almost jarring. I hate the dialogue. "Reference, reference, cliche, reference. Emotional moment. Reference, cliched writing. Story information. Reference." That is hands down the weakest part of this. The story is kinda interesting. It's not ground-breaking and incest literally does nothing for me, but I'm interested in seeing how it plays out if nothing else.