Ah, Couples. A sequel 1000 years in the making.
I'm about an hour of playthrough into this and it very much feels like a modern reboot of
A Knight's Tale (from here, referenced as
AKT), a previous
kinetic novel by Neverlucky. Yes, I will call it that. No, your choices absolutely, positively
do not matter and
will never matter. Stories from Neverlucky give you the illusion of choice by occasionally presenting options for flavor, but will then take your choice under advisement and either vary the next scene
very slightly or the LI your character is speaking with, usually the SO--in
AKT this was the wife, Cathy, while in
Couples this is the girlfriend, Claire--will convince you to avoid either choice after the fact and go with her previously unmentioned option and will immediately return to
the one path.
Here's an obvious proof from v0.19, but spoiler warning--if you haven't played v0.19, just know that the choice mentioned within changes nothing of the next event it
supposedly influences:
A partner swap depends on who wins the last poker hand in v0.19. You get a choice to call or fold the hand. In either case, Amy wins; the only difference is whether she beats you (call) or if she beats Claire and Katie (fold). Since Katie last spent time with MC during a swap, Amy is doing so this time. As usual, choice subverted.
If there is one thing I've learned about Neverlucky's stories, it is that the stories will be about normalizing the polycule. Write a story of polyamory so mundane, it'll feel like the most common thing imaginable. The polycule is the most interesting aspect of the story, but it's eased into slowly enough that it feels like the most natural thing in the world. If you don't mind the repetition required to make that seem the case--and there will be a
lot of repetition in how the story is paced--then this is the game for you.
I'll start it off at 4 stars, just like I did with Neverlucky's previous entry. I may end up leaving it there or I may knock off the odd star depending on how old it gets repeating the same thing for hours of content.
For reference, AKT took me 3 weeks to go through, and I knocked off a star for how long it took. Knowing Neverlucky, I fully expect this to be how it goes, but we'll see.
Update: I went ahead and lowered my review to 3 stars.
The longer I play through this AVN, the more I wonder where it's headed. This normally wouldn't concern me, but that's usually because the story is exciting and each new installment leaves me wanting to know what happens in the next version. This is a concern in stories where there is no conflict resolution.
A good yarn requires ups and downs, some sort of conflict and a necessarily resolution--for good or ill--to that conflict. A resolution doesn't necessarily have to be the end of a story (for some, it's only the end to a part or episode; maybe the jumping off point for a sequel), but an ending story absolutely requires some sort of resolution, otherwise it feels like an unfinished tale. With
AKT, we more or less knew what that was early on (
AKT spoiler:
an eventual recall of a regicidal son and the coronation of a newly elected king), but here we are left not knowing what is in either the short or long distance. We just don't know. Hell, we're not
for sure if Neverlucky knows.
Now, I could be speaking out of turn as I'm not a patron--so I'm decidedly
not his target audience--but does anyone in his community know if it's ever come up? I'd love to know if future ending ideas have at least been brainstormed and/or storyboarded. I'm sure I speak for more than myself in hoping that even if it's not in visual range, there is an ending planned just beyond the horizon. After all, no one intends to
truly write the never-ending story. I like the general theme of "slice of life" stories, but until we have an idea what the purpose is, this is really just a normie swinger sim on rails. I'll keep playing until it ends... but for my part, it's mostly
sunk cost fallacy: in for a penny...
PS:
*Slurp*