I am writing this review to convey to myself and others why I will nopt play this game. So it will be a biased pov.
The reason I started playing AVNs is primarily because unlike porn which have been primarly meet and fuck or its counter part JAVNs that tries to do a bit of storytelling. AVNs gives good amount iof space to individuals and sex. It is the delicate balance betwween he two that makes this style of adult copntent fascinating. In addition of that there is a little to no exploitation of real individual is a bonus to me.
Having said that like every individual i Have prefrences, there are some stories I like, some I don't because of my conditioning and hence my biases. This story even with its good renders falls in thecategory of astories which I Iavoid. Not because there is nothing worth in it, but precisely because there are somethings that I consider off limit to me.
One of the things that I hate is when Humans are dehumanized, I am not saying people can't have desire or corruption uin game doesn't fascinate me, because that is just human failing to thweir own frailities, even in games constining rape doesn't disturb me, because it is the reality we live in, this happens and if AVNs task is to show storytelling even taboo need to be explored and more often than not the game comes out better for it, Like in Pale Carnations, where none of the women characters are dehumanized, they are individuaslsd first and foremost asll three are fighting their own demons craeted by society and even the MC refuses to be shutdown by those oppression even when he is part of it, and through that hellscpae they support each other and things do cahnge. That is why I consider Pale carnations as one of the best stroy ever told in this genre.
Darker is not that, here all humans especially FMC's husband is demon in human clothing that doesn't see his wife anything other than a piece of meat for his satiation. there is no escapism inherent in this game, Similarly what i see in this FMCs is a women who is not out to explore her sexuality but rather a women traversing a dangerous path because of hollowness of love in her life because of toxic relationship that see onlyt her body as the only worthy thing about her, hence her sexual exposure is more of a rebellion to make her husband care as that is the only value he sees in her.
The third character is a broken child who uses this toxic relationship and his puberty riddled brain and tries to break this independent spirited women to his whims not to prove a point, but to break this independence and thinking faculty, i.e, turn this women into a piece of meat.
SO this game is not really about corruption which in my simple language is about change of moral values, where by the end of the game the value systems of those being corrupted is changed to a new individual, the individual remains but they are now a changed person sometime for betterf in my pov or btter but always better for individual in their head , This game is not about that, This is about the death odf the character/personality of the indivual. It is about the death of human by repeated dehumanization, Which is evident from all the males surrounding the FMCs, even the fucking pizza guy. This is a emotional gore
And since gore is a genre I can't get behind I voluntarily choose to avoid this game. Imagine it like this Imagine an game about slavery where a slave like that of samuel jackson character in Django has a wife and when his master asks for that wife getting raped repeatedly the chjarcetr says yes and the women goes willingly with the slave master because to all the parties involved she is a piece of meat, and the women who had a bit of agency, her humanity is getting destroyed piece by piece through a sequence of sex parties amd fancy luxuries resort she gets to live in to give her the illusion that this dehuminazation process is worth it. Thsi is what this game feels like.
A sadistic game , out \there to kill women , her individuality. W/o anyt light of rebellion or change , ther is no spark in any of the women here they are seen as cattle and what they are getting is nutritious feed for the slaughter. And I am not into such perverse form of sadiusm so . While techncally tis game is one othe bestdeveloping game here, with great eye for female proportion dress and and even decent writing that clearly telegrapgh you what this game about unlike those writers whose dialgue doesn't match the intenet of the game which creates schadenfraude when game goes off track. This developer knows what he wants and for that I respect it.
There are some issue i game about its limited/ barren backround setting. Comically stiff sex scene that uses static , But again I am not expctting that out of verey AVN and sicce it is a new game in DAz I expect the same from a new developer, infcat the eye the game developer have for characetr models and how he frames the scenes I would say he just needs a bot of help before designing breathtaking scenes, Moreover as I telegraph the inteion of these scenes is not to establish intimacyt but a detached voyerism which is axhieves greatly buy a wide angle shots and regualr voyeristic look at the FMC when changing , bathing or getting a piuza. Hence in this way this game achives it stated objective.
Overall: As you may have gussed this game is not for me, hence it would be unfair to give it a rating but as you might have seen I have given it a rating and that is purely because even as a critic I can see this game does what it sets out to do perfectly. It might not be my cup of tea but I can clearly see how it would be a favourite game for some, who likes thses types of stories.
Hence my rating
is 4.05 /5 for all its technical and storytelling brilllaince as a regualr player of AVNS
and a solid N-A/5 for my subjective perspective, as this is not a game a deem to judge on enjoyment level, and since ther is no enjoyment to be had, why I am playing it in the first place.
P.S: This rating only applies for first couple of cvhs not overall game. Why I didn't play the full game before its review shd be obvious to you all by now.
