Damn, the writing is so weird now (not that it was particularly great before).
Truthfully, the script was never really memorable, so I don't have a firm grasp on how the characters were portrayed before. But I'm pretty sure there was at least some nuance to how they behaved. Like they had some semblance of a human personality in there. This is like reddit comment section levels of dialogue.
I guess the new NTR on/off and like/dislike route locking gave the writer carte blanche to just lean into the route specific fetish 100%, but jeez... the script became one huge parody.
The MC seems to be self-aware that this universe is not normal. That the people are behaving with no logical basis. That Marcus has NTR god powers. It's essentially breaking the 4th wall by constantly having the MC monologue about the unfairness of NTR tropes.
And the girls. Wow, they all just turned into giant bitches seemingly overnight. Sunny was getting there before this update I guess, but Tracy...? And Sophie was actually quite nice to the MC before this update. But without any inciting incident, she treats him like dirt all of a sudden.
Anyways, I actually think route locking was a wise choice. It was clear that the development was going through hell. The code was a mess with so many superfluous variables that never gets called. The characters and routes could be a bit inconsistent due to the free pathing, and there seemed to be a lack of direction for side girls maybe because the devs couldn't really figure out what type of content an individual player might want based on the available choices.
Although it has its own negatives, route locking lets them create content for each individual route with more focus and direction. That's fine. I just think the writer could calm down a bit and take just a slightly more grounded approach to the characters.
That's just my 2 cents, folks.
