Absolutely in agreement.I'm going to disagree, at least in principle. This is a porn game, but I don't think it's necessarily wrong to limit the porn options available based on what would be 'realistic' for a given person. Strong characterization is one of the bedrocks that can make an AVN so compelling, and some characters really are going to struggle with an idea like sharing a lover with someone else. Riding roughshod over that sort of objection may titillate, but it also flattens the distinction between characters. IMHO, that's too high a price to pay, at least as a general rule. As much as I'm down on the developers for the way they handled the end of the game, I'll defend their right to insist that some fantasies are beyond the scope of a given game.
HOWEVER...
If you want to go that route, you have to make it abundantly clear WHY those fantasies are impossible. We're talking about something that goes against who that person is at their core; you can't just live in narrow edge cases where asking for the impossible would work if you use the right wording. You need to make a clear, compelling case for why a character couldn't go along with something, and the case needs to appeal to a broad swath of players over a very wide set of circumstances. Try to get too cute with it and it's going to feel like an unreasonably convoluted secret path, or worse, like a bait and switch.
And that's where I think the devs screwed up here. I can easily buy that Jaye is just too possessive to share 'her' MC. I cannot buy she'd suddenly reverse course on that because the MC made a point of sulking about a girl he had to give up for Jaye; if that trick worked, Jaye/Tara would be an easy thing. Nor do I buy that an MC who DID decide to cut things off with Mallory to focus on Jaye would suddenly want to start things back up with Mallory at the 11th hour. He abandoned Mal (sexually) weeks ago, so he's clearly comfortable with that idea at a basic level. What makes him think things would work smoothly if he hits Ctrl-Z now? Why risk something - something that was so precious he gave up on Mallory for it in the first place - on such a longshot? And why would Jaye take the MC's acquiescence as a sign of his love for her rather than buyer's remorse?
The answer, obviously, is that they wouldn't - if this weren't a porn game. Maybe you could make this twist work if you spent several chapter setting it up and seeing the characters struggle with the changes. Maybe. But trying to cram it into a single scene in the chapter that had lots of other loose ends to tie up? No way. It not only feels fake, it damages the integrity of the characters involved. It's the worst of both worlds: the characters are flattened into bland tropes, but we still don't get the extra titillation that should go along with that. Everyone loses.
Plus, it really grinds my gears the way the game promises us that we should "play our conscience" in the intro, then slams us with a folding chair at the end for daring to think that the proper way to start a polyamorous relationship is with a heaping helping of honesty. Evidently our 'conscience' should be a finely tuned propensity for gaslighting and deception. Fake it 'til you make it, MC!
She doesn't want to share? Then why would she agree to it in the first place?! After Jaye and the MC hook up, it says that she is considering an open relationship. Okay, cool - it gives the impression that she's either going to say yes or no. When she accepts it, the player is given the impression that this path is valid and that there will be a way provided to make it work. It's bad writing for the sake of a 'gotcha'.
Apparently the MC had his head so far stuck his ass that there was no opportunity provided to fix this 'blatant foreshadowing' once you were locked into this path, and the means to do so were only provided by the developers after they released this episode and got the massive blowback.
It's only hard if you think that treating both girls equally means you love them both equally. But according to the developers, Jaye needs to love the MC 15-20% more than Mallory does for poly to be a thing. Even if you make it so Mallory is +90 and Jaye is +90...it's not good enough. No, you literally have to choose Jaye at every opportunity when there is an option to choose either her or Mallory - even for arbitrary things like who you look at when they are tanning topless.
It's 'hard' because its counterintuitive. Not because it makes sense.
I've got no problem with character driving things forward, because that is what makes the best stories. I don't mind that she's only into sharing in a specific situation where she is assured that she is the queen bee and that it has to be her idea. But if you're going to go by this idea that she will react to things in a realistic way, you need to provide opportunities for the player to react to her reaction.
This game is like an Olympic gymnast or diver that does an incredibly complex routine only to completely fuck up the landing/entry. It's still good, but it leaves a sour taste in the mouth because it could have been transcendent.
