Netwise I don't have a problem with the format and actually prefer it to a compilation of smut stories. Well. More so in TiTS. Like I said, they could have kept TiTS going forever at the pre JS conversion pace and I'd have been happy.
There's a bunch of small, generally slept on features in CoC1 and TiTS that help with mental space when setting up the scene or playing the character that would be absent in a pure novelized format. For the sake of brevity, let's say that the immersion would be lost if you just read about two things happening to two character's you're detatched to.
Which in hindsight is virtually what happens with CoC2 anyways.
Hmm...
This is an interesting topic I want to revisit again later.
To be fair game is a sandbox. I don't think people are here for the main story it's just a vehicle to move the player around to do things. I think you could rush the demon queen pretty fast in CoC1 too but that was obviously unfinished
a compilation of smut stories is the lowest form you can enjoy a fenco game. using the game as a menu to click though the parts you enjoy is very mean criticism for any game dev trying to construct a world(i am not implying thats what theyre trying), unfortunately i dont see care taken to avoid this. the game takes every oppurtunity to slingshot sex at you with very little build up.(i still want the rpg to rp so bad). it's up to an npc's writing to fix this design or lack thereof, bc the world doesnt have it. the "small, slept on fearures" i cant name them, but i do find coc1 and early tits to draw me into the soup of it all, far more visceral, than coc2. flags that matter(the ones that did matter offered a lot) and not just appearance but perks in tits have so much more text. coc1 on your own, micromanaging your corruption level was cinema. adding a camp companion so that you might just have an easier survival, cinema(best context for companions to date). the upgraded damage you dealt with an item you found, the scaling, it was all cinema. at points, coc2 will skimp on "small, slept on features" entirely shifting the burden of detail onto the npc, to craft enviornment.
mostly this a quest issue, sometimes theres a wall of descriptive text(often enviormental setting) above an ensuing scene, breaking up scene pacing. you get this description 100% of the time sorry, we werent checking for flags. descriptions end up not feeling special, bc whats happening isnt special, its completely scripted. theres no modulatity/moddability, then theres no drama, its all strictly for the bedroom. mostly a quest issue... i feel like the vehicle is showing me its instruction manual, whenever pace slows and i have to read a quest text wall, contextualizing why x is right fucking there in my strike zone holy fuck im gonna miss them omg omg. instead of how sexual tension might be taking shape, and what this means for the task at hand/moving/navigating forward, should we act on it??(we act on it(except when we dont oho)). instead the vehicle could be drifting around that corner(technically would be opposite of cutting corners) bc i made x my bitch that one time its canon now, add the flag, that was a fated event(make it feel exactly like that). its less immersive and kindof an oversight with how ambitious the coc2 plot is. to not make the story as cinematic, divergent, and sexy(via "small, slept on features").. oh? sexy, only in the bedroom? sorry savin of course how foolish my mistake. there is no sexual tension in the main quest, and most side quests. forget about kas, shes the ~romanceable big bad. its literally imposible for her to not be contentious/ not fulfill the trope of forbidden love. these stories arent very sexy creatively, or otherwise. the world isnt sexy. theres no drama. tollus/kasyrra betrayal for power/korminos, is dramatic,, very sexy mr. tollus. and tollus is not sexy to me sorry. regardless, no corrupted km? very unsexy, mr tollus. forget writers for a moment. savin as a director makes early fenoxo look like martin scorcesee. he gave his games more immersion and tone w/o using text wall quests. there isnt any romance for this world, the devs pour all the romance into individual npc's and savin explains their involvment via context.docx, the characters eat all the romance while the world starves. unrelated but it felt relevant to put here, i remember looking at the north east path leading away from central hawkthorne and thinking lol who the fuck designed this bullshit.
its so easy for me to see the game as a vehicle for your favorite parts of the compilation, bc the vehicle is so uncompelling. i feel like the devs need to solve parser soup. i think the writers would then have so much more freedom, but also would need to write alot more. which is why time and energy cant go towards bloat, characters who are inconsequential + other things. imagine we were invested enough in the story to speculate what comes next, instead of wondering when it'll be over. imagine if they also invested outside the bedroom(less island characters here for a quick succ), to get things like "small, slept on features" delivered in spades for the SEQUEL. maybe the flags/parsers/whatever the fuck, sort you into multiple renditions of the same plotline ? yeah its more to write, more to plan in the SEQUEL. maybe flags/perks/items/completed events/all modifiers change more game descriptions into frequent, tone setting, storytelling, pace complimenting player character specific NARRATIVE. that isnt LOADED to a SINGLE aspect of the gAmE(~romanceable npc's). lets give it up for act 3 please do a flip