Another story-first AVN, with an action fantasy take.
Like other popular AVNs, the story telling in this is great. The start is slow, because it jumps right in. Your choices, as the main character, matter, and will change the way the story plays out.
Character interactions generally aren't exclusive. You can opt into certain paths, or not, and you shouldn't be locking too much out. The depth of characters starts off shallow, with the MC and the characters themselves building up their own stories and pasts. The core lore has a nice little mechanic to explain away part of the knowledge deficit, and as the story progresses, Berkili4 slowly winds back the curtain, allowing for a fairly reasonable character depth expansion.
There are characters with worryingly little depth. Some of that is due to them not being explored (as of Chapter 10), and some of that is due to the characters not being particularly deep. Others, still somewhat shallow, are likely designed that way to allow you to make game-altering choices without locking you into certain aspects.
Like all good stories, this AVN lets you pick your poison on what you think about characters. You're likely to be wrong at least part of the time, with certain assumptions and actions shifting your perspective.
I don't want to spoil the story, but the only real problem you're likely to face is a fear of spiders. The game doesn't really focus too much on them, and due to the static nature, and art style, unless the fear is extreme, you should be okay.
There are also some failure states ('game over'), but every failure state I've deliberately provoked has resulted in the game winding me back to the choice set that triggered the failure. This is good design, as it allows the player not to stress about saving every minute. This doesn't mean that you can't cause character information lockouts, as there is a branching design.
I'm unclear on whether or not the 'harem' path will be all of the available scenes, as I'm not one to revisit H-scenes. But based on my choices in the games, there's no lock-out selection of opting into a character path, which makes it an accessible title, as well as a good story.
Replaying the game is a real possibility, as the story is interesting. I'm yet to attempt a full replay, but my feeling is that there are parts I could easily skip (up to choices), allowing me to pick and choose. This isn't a comment on depth or lack thereof, but accessibility. The game is largely memorable, and the lore is deep enough, but shallow enough, to have meaning, without being overwhelming and problematic.
At the current state of play (waiting for Chapter 11 to release), I'm struggling to think of any particular downsides.
There will be some who don't like the art style, but it's standard fare. The careful use and design of action sequences more than excuses any issues AVN fans are likely to have with certain other choices. (There are only so many hours in the day for rendering.)
There will be some who dislike the audio/sound options, and while I'm not the biggest fan of it, I didn't find it detracted from the game. My only minor gripe here is one which is common across Ren'Py, which is that the audio effects can play out longer than it takes me to read a few lines, leading to them feeling out of sync; but it's a me problem, and it's very rare in this AVN/game.
I can't really speak as to how much choices matter, other than knowing there are dialogue changes. I like the limited level of freedom, as it allows the story not to feel 'broken', while keeping the main character's core group (harem + others) cohesive.
