Ya know, I didn't put this in my review, but trying to get into the game, this is bugging me a lot, so I'm gonna put it here to get it off my chest.
I don't like the MC's relationship with his friend. At all.
I've been "friendzoned" in real life. Fuck, she bluntly told me so, when the friendship ended. She kept me around, knowing I was into her, as a friend, on the back burner, while actively sabotaging potential relationships I could have had. She did it because, as she eventually told me, if she fucked up too badly, she knew she would have the choice to fall back to me.
And then, after 12 years of "friendship," she finally got knocked up, decided he was the one, and called me to lunch (which she walked out on when she was done, for me to pay for), telling me all of this, and that yeah, we were real friends too, but I was mainly backup, and she felt it was fucked to have me around at all anymore, if she thought she found something permenant.
So, I'm not a fan of guys bitching about friendzoning, but I've heard it from the horses fucking mouth that, yes, it is real.
What does that have to do with this game?
The MC and his friend have, what seems to me, an even worse relationship.
The idea of being so close to someone, that they are your absolute best friend you are almost inseparable from, and you have a mutual attraction so you also fuck, but romance is out of the picture, is sort of hell.
Especially when the game seems to want to show the plot that they do have romantic feelings and are trying to... deny them or ignore them or something?
If you're that close anyways, and willing to fuck anyways, why deny a romantic interest?
As a guy, I can tell you that one of the more soul destroying things to feel, is being in love with someone who is willing to fuck you, but rebuffs you at every turn if you want anything more. Especially when she is willing to look for romance elsewhere. It isn't like she's written as a chick who isn't interested in a relationship and just wants casual fun. It establishes that she was willing to, short term at least, cut contact with you to appease a guy she was dating who was serious about her.
And after breaking up with him, she's back to you like nothing happened? Flashing her pussy on the couch and teasing you?
Something that is no man's fantasy ever?
To sit there and watch the girl he loves fuck guy after guy... to put him on the back burner, even cut contact, only to come back to you... until the next guy comes along, because she won't admit to herself she has feelings for you.... until the day she finally does.
That just doesn't do it for me. Not in fiction. And having experienced similar in real life, playing a game where that is treated as a slow-burn towards romance plotline actually puts a hard pit in my stomach that makes me feel nauseous, and just leaves me to absolutely despise her character.
I've spent more time laying back and "fantasizing" about how I would tell her I was sick of being teased, used as a cheap thrill but never respected, and abandoned for whatever guy she was dating, and that I wanted her out of my life.
I mean, her character model is gorgeous and she comes across, otherwise, as a decent person, but that aspect of her and the game put me off really fucking hard.
Well thought out, and well written games are few and far between. Games that try to incorporate some reality into the story telling are few and far between. Games that want to push what feels like a real, honest emotional connection between the characters, and build a believable romance that you can lose yourself in... they don't appeal to many people who just want a porn game, and are insanely hard to write, so they are insanely few and far between.
But that is this game's mission. And as I said in my review, on paper, this should be exactly what I want.
But the minute we got changed that the MC's dad's friend's place, and she comes in and shows off the swimsuit and then pulls down my trunks to blow me or whatever.... I just quit the game.
What do I want in this game, to make the relationship between him and her more real, and the possibility of romance to feel more rewarding?
I'd like, right after the shower scene, when she is sitting on your couch and putting her cunt on full display for you, the MC to lose his cool a little and ask her "what are we? Because if we're friends and nothing more, you need to close your legs and cover up. I don't want to be your outlet until your next relationship. And if you want to be more than friends but you don't want any serious relationship with me, you need to get out, because I'm not sure I can stand being your friend, your fuck buddy, but not being good enough for you to really consider me. We're either friends, only... or willing to consider a real relationship like adults, or we're nothing to each other. I can't keep doing this."
ok, look. I don't expect my dream game to be made, or someone's existing game to be changed to suit what I crave. But normally, if a game strikes me the wrong way, I just close it and delete it. No "emotional investment," and no playing it longer to give it a better shot.
I restarted and played this through 2 or 3 times, up to the changing room scene, because I wanted to give this game a chance that I usually don't give games that hit me wrong, and because I did get mildly emotionally invested in the character...
but sometimes emotional investment in a story is a bad thing, because in trying to get into the story and the characters, I ended up getting worked up by the situation.
This just... fuck, I donno.
This quarantine shit is driving everyone nuts, I sleep like shit and I live alone and haven't gotten into any TV or shit to binge, so I really haven't had much of an outlet. So I've been trying more games and hoping for better stories to get lost in. Maybe in other situations, I'd have just written the game off and moved on, but right now I have nothing else to do... I get fixated, and when I get upset, I guess I just need to vent it out. Sure it's petty, and I'm babbling and typing way too much, but in my mindset right now, this game hit an almost FLAWLESS intersection of everything I wanted a game to be right now, and everything you could incorporate into a story to get an unpleasant, visceral reaction from me. And I didn't want to say this stuff in the review because I don't want to drive people away from the game, but at least in my frame of mind right now, and trying so hard to actually get emotionally invested in a story, the things that upset me hit like a slow-moving freight train.
I donno.
edit: fuck. I wrote a lot more than I thought I did.