VN - Ren'Py - Crimson High [v0.40.0] [Vertigo]

Crimson High [v0.40.0] - Minor Spoilers

This was the most fun that I've had reading a VN in recent years. I couldn't believe how many girls won me over, or how much I wanted to learn about the world.

I've been on a bit of an emotional high since finishing the latest update last night. I've been reflecting on why this title in particular - with its heroines having uncanny faces and the MC being a clichéd harem magnet - has made me so invested in the world and its characters.

Compliments to the author for weaving rich lore through meaningful dialogue rather than boring us with exposition. The detective is a great device for the reader to learn more about the mythical world and its inhabitants. The detective's own growth throughout the story provides even more organic opportunities for learning.

The women are phenomenal, and I never expected to love so many of them when they were first introduced. Are most of the relationships deliberately pointed towards success for the MC? Sure, but that doesn't mean that the women don't have believable dialogues and personalities. I guarantee that at least a few girls will remind you of people who you know. The relationship dynamics for some of them felt very familiar to me.

There are some issues with a bloated cast and how the MC spends his time with the different girls, but not enough to seriously dampen the experience. Little bonuses like the various secrets that the girls hide more than make up for the bloat. Spending time with each character usually feels meaningful.

I could go on to list positives in more detail, but I highly recommend that you read this for yourself and unravel the world's mysteries with as few spoilers as possible.

My only gripe with the title that led to me removing a star from my rating was the author's obvious hate for Christianity. Not to read too far into personal issues, but I would assume that the he had his own conflicts with the faith growing up. The resulting disdain manifests in the MC suddenly becoming preachy in certain scenes, and a gross perversion of specific customs and beliefs. It's ironic that the author included a trigger warning for certain sensitive subjects, but painted the church as the worst thing to happen to mankind.

Anyway, differences in beliefs aside, it's still a phenomenal game that I will continue to play.

Honestly such a blast with this one. Pushes the power trip/harem fantasy but with a fun story and the occasional reminder that game MCs aren't always invulnerable. Looking forward to future updates and really hope this one finishes out!

This is one of very few games where I'm more interested in the gameplay/story than the sexy scenes.

The story is interesting and very satisfying (at least up through the end of chapter one, where I'm at now). The characters are all very lovable, each in their own way, so they feel unique and special.

What jokes/memes there are in the game are silly and easily brushed past (if you want). The game stands on it's own merits, without trying to cash in on your love for some meme or other franchise.

The gameplay is very straightforward. There's only a few sandbox parts so far. Most of the gameplay is a linear story with a few choices here and there that affect how different characters feel about you. But, the story has enough hooks and complexity that you really want to see what happens next. to everybody.

Version 0.37.1

TL;DR
Good harem game. Good Story. Weak MC.

I will try to keep it spoiler free.

The Good:
This game is rather wholesome and the story is interesting. A huge plus is that the story doesn't drag out certain plot points into infinity. In fact it finishes certain plot points before they become stale which is an issue I often have in other games.
There is decent variety in girls which have all unique characters. Most of them also got their own background Story which you slowly learn.

The Bad:
The MC.
I just read a few of the other reviews and was surprised that nearly nobody mentions this but... this MC is so DENSE that he could likely suck in a black hole.
How is he a detective? How does he just immediately go around tell people INVOLVED in his case information about it? How is his recurring theme that he learns/obtains information that he MUST keep a secret and the next thing he does is go around talking about said information/secret? He even does that to people he first meets.
One such example would be:
A girls introduces herself as a reporter in act 1 and MC just asks if she is also part of a certain secret group which he just learned must UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES be known/made public.
He ain't no detective, he is defective.

Conclusion:
After finishing the current version I definitely would play future updates. Even after my rant about the MC I must admit that he is still not the densest among MCs in similar games.
Will rate it 4 Starts. The MC is somewhat bearable after a while and everything else is good.

Crimson High is a cosy supernatural harem builder with Koikatsu graphics. It is perhaps best to think of it as a substantial romantic manga series in the form of a visual novel. Or you can think of it as a cosy kinetic harem version of Katawa Shoujo (Cripple Girls). It is unfinished, but it is already very long and is being extended at a good pace.

The setting is a Japanese city in a world in which vampires and other mythological creatures - 'myths' - live secretly among the human population. When a girl is murdered in a vampire-led high school for human and myth girls, for some reason a male human detective with no knowledge of the existence of myths gets the case. Within a week he is deeply involved in myth society and has started building a harem of cute and sometimes extremely quirky girls. It later turns out there is an important in-universe reason for this.

The number of love interests is enormous. The world appears to consist practically exclusively of females, who seem to be destined to join the harem almost without exception. I don't know how it is for Japanese speakers (for whom some of the names likely carry meaning), but it seems that most players sooner or later get confused. I certainly had a few situations in which I couldn't remember how the protagonist had got to know a girl when he met her again after a few in-game days filled with unrelated action. No big deal. It was after finishing an earlier version and continuing half a year later with the latest material that it got too bad. I am going to re-read from the start and make notes for future reference.

There is a surprising number of organizations involved in what seems to be ultimately a battle about the survival of myths. It appears that the protagonist will be at the center of this fight, and that he will need his harem to win. One of the evil organizations is a pretty clever parody of Christianity.

Overall, the writing is outstanding and almost flawless. No weird grammar or orthography errors, no writing about topics the author does not fully understand. (Also no weird avoidance of topics.) It appears that the author has a plan for the entire plot and is executing it expertly, installment by installment. However, if I am not mistaken there are currently two continuity errors (the identity of a sender of anonymous messages is revealed twice, and differently, and a dialog with some revelations takes place twice in different settings).

Played at version 0.3777.1

There's a lot to like here. I guess the main theme is gonna have to be variety. The sheer number of love interests is kinda staggering.

Pros
-Each Character feels unique
-Humor is good, and doesn't intrude on the story
-Interactions are wholesome and has led to me audibly chuckling a few times
-The models are pretty good for the medium
-So many girls.
-A+ Effort, the game feels loved, and made by someone who's putting in the effort.
-Great worldbuilding with interesting lore

Cons
-So many girls. Like...seriously? You know that it's gonna be a bitch and a half to focus on so many characters for future updates right?
-Falls into the trope many harem games do where literally any female in the game wants to jump the protags dick.
-As of this version of the game, the morality of the good guys and the bad is too clean cut/ black-white.

I've enjoyed pretty much every moment of playing this game, and I would urge others who have a slight interest into giving it a try. There's a wealth of content currently in the game, and the content that it there is excellent.

The reason this is a 4/5 and not a 5/5 is because I've got some personal gripes which probably doesn't reflect the general audience.

While I like each of the love interests and flings currently in the game, I feel someone inundated by them. The main character is in schedule hell simply finding time throughout the week to appease the characters he's managed to woo. I don't necessarily dislike having this many characters interested in the main character, but I do feel like you lose a little affection (or characters feel a little less special) when you're drowning in a sea of them.
The fact that they basically threw themselves at the main character basically at first sight also kinda hit's a nerve that makes the experience a little hollow. I get that it's a harem game, but I'd appreciate a little more wind-up before having them throw themselves at me.

As for the good guys vs bad guys thing; it's just kinda sorta too black and white at the moment. Maybe things will change in future updates, but the simple church=bad narrative with the idiotic henchmen routine isn't really new or compelling.

Anyways, I hope this review isn't disheartening, there's a lot to love about this game. Nothing wrote here should be a deal breaker, and I feel like there's a lot of game yet to be created. I will definitely be waiting for updates.

p.s. I didn't expect to like Suzu as much as I did. Very adorable. Looking forward to more Kagome content and dreading Kana's reaction to....everything. Also looking forward to vampiric superpowers, that's gonna be neat.

I am totally digging Crimson High. Love monster girls ( myths in this situation) combined in a school setting is right up my alley. A LOT of different girls each with their own personalities and looks. The story is pretty intriguing as well. I'm curious to see where everything goes. Miko was who caught my eye at first, ,but she has been surpassed by Suzu and Okami. The only slight complaint i may have is that there are A lot of characters and keeping names and faces can be confusing to me sometimes. Others from that i like what i've been reading and looking forward to where everything goes.

Pros:
Wholesome cuteness
Unique looking models
Dynamic and varied characters
Enormous cast (I love them all)

Cons:
Enormous cast (Sometimes there's long waits for characters to get screentime) (honestly not really a con but I can't think of anything else)

TLDR: So much cuteness should be illegal. One of my top 3 games.

Story: Unique, interesting and full of mystery.. very enjoyable and well done. Even more so now that the focus is shifting more towards the MC and his interactions with the LIs.

Writing: Well done and very readable. It does make use of internal dialog a considerable amount but it's well done so it works.

LIs: Lots of variety and cuteness. Still sad that they aged up one of the characters so much but I understand why it was done..

HScenes: As the warning says they are few and far between (at this point) but the ones that exist are enjoyable.

It's happened, CH is another one KK AAAVN. Just fecking great. And it's big. Took me over a week (almost two weeks) to read available content (this Sunday 0.37 going public), tho, i'm a slow reader. At the beginning, game pretending to be a detective with a "find the items" and "free roam" mechanics. Took me two attempts to brake through the first few days (probably, two first days). It is not. And i'm glad about it.
The closest i can describe, CH is a family adventure comedy game. With a bits of a mistery and very bit of a triller traits in it. Playing with a facial expressions are the author's strong side, i can compare it only with Chasing Sunsets. Good, it's a different engines, so i shouldn't name the winner, otherwise i would struggle here.
Talking about the kinks, they are pretty vanilla. And it's a definitely heavy loaded with HHH awesomeness.
If you want to give it a shot, remember to play at least through 4 first days, becouse first two days doesn't show you correct expression of what comes next.
review based on 0.36.1 version.
(HHH stays for Head pats Hand holdings Hugs; KK stays for Koikatsu; and AAAVN stays for top-tier aVN)

Very cute girls, wholesome story, good vibes(no fucked up shit ), quite long and still going, light on porn at the start but i didn't care tbh. Build up of the characters is great to highlight their personalitys etc so they grow on you which most did. updates seem to be regular, its an all timer i think.

I'll give Crimson High by Vertigo a solid 4/5
I'll split the review in following topic:

• Settings
• Plot
• Characters
• MC
• Quality of Renders/Ambient

The overall setting of CH is good. I like the world-building around it and premises it sets. Some details to get a bit freaky or some misplaced (e.g. the watch) but otherwise I really dig it. It's kind of bland to have it set up in Japan and I would have very much liked an european setting as most of the myths mentioned and portraited are from european folklore. I wouldn't mind if it were set up with more asian 'myths' to make a greater immersion for the story happening in Japan (think of snow-woman, onis, kitsunes and so on...).

The setting has a rating of 5/5

The overarching plot so far is quite fetching and I find it intriguing. Although the it ist quite cumbersome how some points are conveyed in a roundabout way but I will comment on this on more in the writing. There are definitely some anime/manga tropes I find quite amusing but also sometimes exhausting specifically how they are set up in the story. I think one or two story revisions on some points and how they would be conveyed could make the plot in general more enjoyable and highlight the strengths further. I'm excited how the story unfolds.

Side-stories are mixed in quality. Some stories are beautifully phrased and presented for the players in what gives the character a nice depth and background setting (Anzou setting and Aki/ Yukari as well as Okami's encounter with the other guy was hilarous as fuck AWOOCHIE) while other side-stories are a bit weird to read through (Hibiki). Although the side-story content is again interesting to read I find myself exhausted reading them because how the MC handles those situation - more in the MC section. The pacing of the story begins somewhat relaxed but speeds up considerable later on. While a lot is done from one day to another I feel again MCs monologues to not reflect the pacing what I would assume would appropriate. Here I would propose to either scale down the pacing to have either max. three plot lines going forward while holding out or slowing down other plot lines. Although the aim to have what would feel like a Game of Thronesesque story development with many plot lines pacing dynamically is noble, I think it is not achieved here and hinders the readability and understanding in general.

The plot section has a rating of 4/5

The characters so far have a wide range of nicely developed in terms of personality, story and writing. I respect the author for the amount of work being put in but I feel sometimes confused for the sheer amounts of characters introduced at once. It is a bit hard to keep track of every person's development and hints dropped in dialogues. Maybe the pacing can be here adjusted to make it easier for the player to read through and process the information.
Again there are many character tropes to be found and filled in a somewhat cute way. Albeit all characters are above 18 I find it somewhat weird for some characters to feel like too childish (looking at Jun here). She might be overly sheltered but she is completely oblivious in comparison to Ori in terms of general education and especially in sexual eduction (taking into account her upbringing in Europe).

The characters have a rating of 4.5/5

The MC. Honestly I am devestated in how the MC is writtin and what his decision making is. He's a child who grew up without a mother and was tought that his mother was murdered. So he pursues a career in the police in order to strife to solve his mother's murder case - so far a strong motivation and reasonable character. He is a detective on his first case and starts of strong in his initial dialogues and and how he approaches the case - again strong character writing. But as soon as the first major developments happen he becomes unable to use any ability to use rational thinking or analytical approach to solve issues when he is not acting as a detective for WAP it seems. Why can't he take any knowledge he receives as a piece of information and start re-evaluating previous information. I sincerely believe the author was in this respect lazy on his research about police/detective work and how solving crimes is done.
Having a hypotheses (as mentioned by the MC in the beginning and evaluating every piece of evidence against the hypotheses) and reviewing it constantly is fundamental.
Why is he constantly dropping any possibilities of investigating hints. One good example is the observation of Hibikis necklace and the missed opportunity to ask Stryx 20 lines later while he writes her anyway. Resigning on himself before opportunities presented clashes with he follows up on other leads.
His pacing is shifting faster and harder than professional dirt rally race drives do in muddy terrain. It is what feels like just plain lazy writing.

Even with taking the benefit of doubt here are often lines where I can totally not understand where those come from. Reading about emotional weights suddenly lifted which were never mentioned is not immersive. Those kind of mistakes can be avoided if they are hinted by missing a person or just completely replacing with leaps of euphoria instead. I tried hard to find immersive perspective for the MC but I just can't find it. Sometimes the immersion just cracks with how the MC interacts. While in the flow of a conversation it is pleasant to follow, the decision are at times immersion-breaking.
What's irritating as well is the MC switching between bashful virgin at the tender age of 14 and confident man being a working adult. Sometimes asking for a kiss can be conveyed with simple body language, sometimes circlejerking is not the way someone with sexual and romantic experience - although not much(?) - behaves. If the inconsistencies are adressed properly the quality increase would be tremendous.

The MC has a rating of 2/5 3.5/5

The quality of the renders are superb. I love the anime look and and colouring of those. Fashion is a thing and characters have different outfits matching their personality. Facial and body expression generally depict the mood of the scene on point and I often enjoy just one of those renders and take a closer look how small details are depicted in the background.
Edit: With further development of the story the MC starts to get more consistent in thoughts and actions. I love how the developer improves on this point

Quality of Renders/Ambient have a rating of 5/5


To sum it up: Crimson High is a solid piece of art. If the author adresses the pacing and foremost the writing of MC I dare say this is one of the top-shelf games here on f95 regarding VNs with the respective tags.

At first, I thought the story would be very interesting, because it starts with a mystery.

I was highly disappointed when said mystery is unravelled in like 3 hours of game time (if you except the lenghts dialogue has, see later).
Yes the "worldbuilding" is complete.

But complete doesn't really mean original, innovative, or interesting.

It's a generic modern (but not scifi nor cyberpunk) world where myths (vampires and such) exist and tries to live. Think the tv series "True blood" for something with a lot of identitical themes.
Vampires here just use the "all is false information in the stories" trope to avoid what is their weakness, and what would kill their involvment in any realistic setting: they do not have the classical weaknesses of the sun, still water, garlic, church, doors, etc.
Just in fact, vampires are "sucking blood" but only if they want, not that they need it (which is ... unininteresting at best, boring and destroying any point of having "vampire" theme at worst).
Other races exist but are not yet so important than the vampire.

Vampires live in "clans" but since vampires are just "made" not "born" (unless MC which may well be the first male vampire (which should not exist but justifies his "MC"-powers to resist and survive everything which should have killed him after 1 hour of story) or something like that according my own understanding of what I played) this raises the question of : where do first generation vampire come from?

And MC is a detective. You would expect him to analyze, ask and understand?

Well forget it. MC has little interest in asking questions. Most characters who KNOW things will say sentences like "Oh mr detective, I know everything, but I have an appointement, let's speak later [as in "when the creator of this VN has completed his idea" or "if I were to speak now, as would be the case in any real setting, the story would be over now... and only the romance would live on"].
Problem is, except that "mystery" (and I uses quote marks because I don't feel like it is a really ininteresting mystery, since it's cliché to use a "virgin of any knowledge MC" in such a setting) , there is only one other thing in this.

What other thing?

Girls who fall in love with MC at first glance.

I'm not sure for every girl yet (because there are numerous) but I would dare to say that by the end of the story, I see only a handful not to be included in the harem.

And yes, it means : 100 times the same bodies/(empty) personalities/boobs&ass sizes. Yes some girls are tall (which is not unusual) then you have mini girls (like 1m30) because "why not" I guess.

If girls were less numerous, they could be interesting.
Helas, when you have 25+ girls with names and contact with MC, expect nothing.
And... well there is nothing.
Time on screen is divided between girls.

Girls form "groups"/"clusters". I expect clusters to meet each other, until the big "harem" formation.

Oh and for a "sex is slow" story? I feel like it's a lie. The first sex scene appears in 30m of gameplay, and there are already: kisses, fingering, blowjobs, even sex (!) with "random girl I just met" and "friend/colleague".

Also let's speak about music and writing:
- music. Generic and not really conveying scenes themes. What a mood killer.
- writing: long texts, long monologues, the author wants you to know that MC is checking boobs, then speaking, then turning his head; etc. If the dialogue was interesting or profound? it's not. It's 10 years old view of a story. Characters have nothing interesting to say, which is not a problem in fact: most persons in their life speak of not life-changing topics every day. What they bought, what they played,what they read... but here characters only speak about one of those things: MC, the "myths" races, sex.
It's quickly boring because they are repeating the same things in loops.

Ah and about the harem? you know, a harem story is usually good because each girl has a role/place and maybe when girls need to adjust to each others, and there is tension and maybe even fear that one girl would not accept the harem or something like that.
Here? every girl is okay with MC in the usual and cliché "I love you so i don't care if you love every girl you meet too" way. BOOOORING and UNINTERESTING.

So if I were you, I would play anything else. There are better harem stories; there are better character driven stories; there are better settings and mysteries.

The only thing I liked is the fact that there is no bugs that i'm aware of. That is quite good. Helas, it's a basis for a work, not enough for the work.

I was originally put off by the art style and didn’t think much of the game, so it just sat in my downloads for a while. At one point I was bored and had nothing to do so I thought I would give it a shot. I'm glad I did, because this is arguably the most in depth and immersive game I’ve tried on here yet. From the mysteries, to the twists and turns, to the comedy, to the “little bits of chocolate in the trail mix”, they’re all done well.

An NSFW game that makes you more interested in the story than the sex scenes, which is a good trait to have for this genre because it doesn’t feel like you have to weed through tons of BS just to get to the good stuff. Alternatively, you are so invested in the story that sometimes, even the sex scenes feel like they get in the way and you just want to get back to the story. That’s not even a criticism, sex scenes are the whole reason we’re here in the first place. That’s just how good the story is.

That said I feel like many lines are wasted on exchanging numbers and all this stuff at the hotel about the brochure and registering for the hiding device. That should all just go without saying.

The MC does end up with sort of a harem. Except the harem doesn’t feel forced, but more just part of the myth culture, none of the characters really get jealous (well, except maybe kana, but it’s fun seeing her flustered) but rather encourage you. It’s not a world full of only girls, yet still there are multiple solid reasons why our protagonist is the lucky guy and not just because he’s the protagonist of an NSFW game.

One nitpick I had was the school outfit change and hairstyle changes. For example, Suzu's defining hairstyle that she kept while she was living in a school, suddenly becomes too hard to keep now that she has a home. All the faces look the same, hair/makeup/eye color are the only way to visually differentiate characters, when you go around changing these things, they become completely different characters.

The game, however, is a must try, although I don't recommend playing this game just cause you’re horny, there are multiple aspects to this game and sex is just one of them. Start it off when you got post nut clarity or something and enjoy the ride, once you get invested in the story, things will just happen organically.

God this is a tough one to rate. For a long, story-focused game, I found it very engaging and myself wanting to know more of the story. On the other hand, it has got some serious flaws that I'll be discussing in this review. Ultimately I've decided to give it a four out of five since something compelled me to stick with the very verbose story despite said flaws (and recently give it a replay to catch up on new content). Most games are worse and not worth the effort to discuss, so consider my nitpicking in that context.

Art - Not the game's strong suit. the faces and mouths look kinda weird and the LI bodytypes are all very similar. For a game about a hidden world of mythical beings and vampires everything sure is EXTREMELY sunny and bright all the time, even evening scenes. Where the dev does do a very good job is in the expression work during conversations. Expressions and body language are used well to layer subtext and meaning into the conversations, which is great for a game where the majority of the content is conversation. The game has scenes with action but its very stiff and comical-looking, even when its meant to be serious. The game makes great use of sound effects for mostly comedic effect, but in more serious moments they don’t quite work as the cartoonish effects chosen undercuts the tone of the scene.

Worldbuilding and Story - In a fantasy story like this the worldbuilding is a major draw for the reader. A MC who knows nothing of a fantasy world getting drawn into it and being a vehicle for the reader to learn about it as well is a tried and tested formula and it also works here. The world of Crimson High has plenty of depth to enjoy. On the other hand, some things feel poorly thought out. Rules of the world are established in one scene and broken for a plot contrivance in the next. In a world built on secrecy it seems like the game has two settings. Characters (including the MC) are spilling their guts with their most dangerous and personal secrets because they’ve “got a good feeling” or they’re teasing the MC by withholding critical and relevant information because the story isn’t ready to reveal it yet. Sometimes events happen without context and are only explained afterward which is fine, but this happens so much that the pattern gets stale. Ultimately going down the rabbit hole is a good experience and updates continue to deliver even after the original "mystery" is solved. The worldbuilding absolutely suffers from a lack of strong antagonists. The antagonists that do exist get very little screentime and don't feel very present in the story. The one's we do get to meet are quickly defeated.

Writing & Dialogue – this is a tough one. On one hand one of the game’s great strengths is that the MC’s relationships with each potential LI feel completely unique, which is quite an accomplishment. On the other hand the writing feels like aimless stream of conscious with serious pacing issues, unable to differentiate between the important parts of a scene, overly concerned with maintaining a moment-to-moment continuity of every waking second of the MC’s day. An absolutely unfathomable amount of lines are spent describing super mundane shit. So many *hundreds* of lines devoted to swapping phone numbers, or describing past events to characters that aren’t really related to them, adding nothing, dozens of lines about reminding each girl to install the hotel app on their phones. The result is that a month of development time will result in an update covering about 2 hours of one day, with no actual major events happening, just different conversations bringing various characters up to speed on recent events, with *MOST* of those interactions being utterly inconsequential to the story. Its like the dev is afraid to leave ANYTHING out, and even when transitional stuff between scenes is breezed over, the most mundane interactions are still described in many lines of text. The reason this "dialogue filler" is so frustrating is that clearly there's a lot of interesting story to be had here. Still the banter and flirting are good and its often quite enjoyable to read, with generally good comedic timing and jokes that land.

Love Interests and H-Scenes – They're here and they’re serviceable, but not incredible. The main thing they have going for them is ample character development to give the scenes some narrative context, which makes them a lot hotter than they otherwise would be from a purely technical/visual perspective. A few of the optional Lis fall kind of flat however because they’re not set up with the care that the rest of the cast is. There’s definitely a sense that some of the scenes are just shoved in there so the game has some H-content. Thankfully these are skippable. For the main characters the dev seems to be taking the time to develop the respective romances so when stuff does happen it feels weighty and earned which is a good thing. The main characters are really well developed and have their own believable motivations. The dev is also doing a lot to justify the harem in the narrative, which is great. Sadly the game suffers from serious side-girl cancer. We’re talking absolute extreme bloat in a way that detracts from the story, kills the pacing, etc. Even these side characters seem well thought out however, which is refreshing.

This is a frustrating game that will never be as good as you want it to be but I would encourage people to try it and see if it clicks. There's plenty of good stuff here and its definitely above-average as far as a narrative-focused fantasy avn goes, with ultimatley very strong characters.

I almost passed this up when I was looking for some more in-depth harem stories due to the art style, probably my own fault for having several similar art style type games in a row prior to this but to anyone giving this a look don't judge it just by the screenshots.

Once I really started talking to more people and seeing all the little interactions and their different personalities shining through (especially resident cutie patootie whose facial reactions are just the best) and I basically entirely forgot about my previous hangups about the art style being a little too rounded and plasticy looking and was totally immersed.

I've also been looking for more content that really dives into how people feel in these harems/poly relationships and while there is a bit of hand-waiving here and there I am very happy with how everyone responds to the slowly building family they are fostering. It also helps that I feel like each character is pretty well fleshed out and when they are interacting with each other and not just me they definitely have a lot of life to them. I ended up bingeing this all the way to the current end point. Very much looking forward to the completion of this, I would happily throw more than AAA price at this once fully completed.

If I had any gripe at all, and this is really nitpicking, almost microscopically, I kinda wish the notification for the Hamter was closer to the subtitles or something, since that is where my eyes generally are focused for a huge portion of the game, the little popup on the left sometimes I miss when I am too invested in the story and whichever one of my girls is having a conversation with me. But like I said, microscopic considering how enjoyable everything else is.

Awesome story, deep plot, the girls are precious. I can't believe I actually played this for 6 hours straight and it still feels so short. I really don't have a clue what the MC is supposed to be, a demi god? male vampire? It's confusing. I like the harem, but Suzu is the best girl for me.

Overview: detective story in a high school.
Reality: case solved in the first hour, proceed to generic bland harem, but this time the girls are "monsters".
The MC, a supposed detective, has no wit, intelligence or character, 99% of the time a passive strung along, but in reality, he's super special awesome child of god or something (full details not yet available as of this review), which is the only way to explain why the nether region of every girl he meets turn into a waterfall near this bar of soap of an MC. It's really hard to think of a less original and more derivative premise and MC.
The girls are a plenty, and they all have the same body type and one face to share, no matter the age. Extremely poor usage of koikatsu. And "a plenty" means way too many with the majority being completely forgettable as a character and have about 10 lines of dialogue. If you manage to fancy one, there won't be much content anyway, because the plot is spread so thin it barely advances . And if you happen to forget who someone is (you will), gonna have to replay again because there is nothing to remind you who this randomly dropped in character you've seen for half a minute is.
Vast majority of dialogues are just repetitions or time wasters. Here's a simplified example of a couple of events:
MC: can you tell me about X?
A: Not yet
MC: OK, can you explain about Y?
A: Soon
MC:wow, how about Z?
A: come back tomorrow.
Tomorrow comes, and nothing is explained once again.
The few sex scenes that are there lack sexuality and feel like they are there to tick off a checkbox of "has sex"

In short: Good premise wasted immediately for a generic bad harem with too many characters, lame sex and barely progressing plot.

Well that was disapointing to say the least, i feel scammed by the other review.

Everything is obvious af, feels like a big part of the worst cliche that anime can create have been poured into this vn

When i was reading the resume about detective i kinda hoped that there was some sort of good mystery but yeah 20 minute into it and everything was more or less figured out and i am not a f detective so how come the mc is that dumb, like you just wanted that to tire out the story ? or is this really his character coz its not always the case... Feels like really lazy writing for me and on this note i'm gonna lazy write this review (im fair).

For some "positives": the chara-design of the girls is good, a little wanky some time but good overall and it was funny when i was not frustrated by the bad written mc.

(v 0.34.1)

Really great VN. Well-written, compelling characters; excellent framing, posing, and FX; and cute character designs. The story is interesting and engaging, and the worldbuilding/lore is consistent and well-crafted. Looking forward to more!