A cool-looking VN, but that's all it is. Cool-looking. The artstyle, while unoriginal, is very polished. The background stock images all have this nice filter that fits the global aesthetic very well. All characters look really nice both in dialogues and sex scenes, especially Aira, who even has different outfits throughout the game, which is pretty rare for a VN. Unfortunately, she's the only one with different outfits. Kinda lame.
And... That's pretty much it for the positives. Everything else ranges from mediocre to just dissapointing and bad. The story is nothing you haven't seen somewhere else; its just Gantz with porn. If you have played the best VNs out there, you've seen everything Dead Days has to offer, but better. There is a plot, with things happening, but none of them mattering whatsoever.
The story conveys no real message or theme, just some brief and vague takes on the people's relation with social media and interactions between each other, but nothing tangible that would serve as a guiding line to the story. I don't know what people praised regarding the developers' previous games, but I certainly don't see it here.
The adult scenes are on par with the game; visually polished, unengaging in every other way. The gore and piss scenes that were advertised are very few and far between, and the scenes left are incredibly tame and uninspired, that wouldn't even get a boner from anyone beyond the "baby's first VN" phase.
The worst part is the excessively verbose dialogues that transpire in both the main story and the sex scenes, that kill any appeal these might have. It's on par for your typical Japanese VN in that regard, a lot of "tell, don't show" and rehearsing the same lines over and over again. Thankfully it's not as egregious as something like Fate for instance, but after the second sex scene I started skipping them due to how unengaging they were.
Next is the bad and the really bad. The MC, Teru, is boring and irritating to follow. His conflict with Mao is artificial and forced, and what little character development he gets feels hollow and unearned. I understand kids do some stupid things they eventually regret and can turn their backs in their friends over pointless things, but to keep a grudge for this long against his childhood friend for something so inconsequential is just idiotic, and given how long it takes for the story to reveal that plot point, it feels like a giant waste of time.
Realistically, Teru shouldn't have any romantic feelings for Mao after keeping her away for so long, and Mao would have stopped pursuing him many years ago. As it stands, she just comes off as wierdly obsessive and deeply stupid for not getting the memo. But hey, we needed to fill the quota of archetypal, souless characters to fill our game, so here's you dumbass, holier than thou childhood friend for you to bang! And you bang here, with no valid story justification. It just happens halfway through the game for an extremely stupid reason.
The other annoying thing about this artificial conflict is that the game dangles in front of our noses some sort of character arc for Teru, where he stops being a douchy asshole and goes back to being a good guy again; but the choices presented to us during the story that tend in that direction all lead to a bad ending.
For instance, there is a branch in the first half of the story where Tengan is pursued by a token foreign bimbo on a bike, and you can choose to either listen to Mao's advice and save him, or ignore him and go do the job you've been assigned to. If you go for the logical choice that might give you some sort of character development - helping him - you get a bad ending, so you must choose the one where Tery stays a giant ass to keep progressing. Why? I don't know.
It's not the only choice like that, I think 1 or 2 others are similar, with the rest being inconsequential beyond what sex scene you unlock. But what this implies is that Teru never learns from his mistakes, he doesn't grow throughout the story, until the very end where his development is rushed and forced. The game tries to make us sympathize with him, even though I felt more of a connection with Aira and Tengan, who are actually more likable and interesting despite the game constantly trying to make us think otherwise.
The last issue is... I don't know if I'm just dumb or if the story is really like that, but after Mao's death, the story abruptly ends, without any explanation. No plot point reaches any conclusion, no character besides Teru gets a satisfying arc, only the conflict between Teru and Mao is sort of resolved. As far as I know, I don't know what choices I have to make to reach the actual ending if there is one, so I gave up. The story is not interesting enough to make me sit through from the beginning again.
So that's it. It's kinda bad. Not horrendous, but not worth your time imo. I don't get the hype surrounding this one, given all of Clockup's other games look like that at first glance on their website.
And... That's pretty much it for the positives. Everything else ranges from mediocre to just dissapointing and bad. The story is nothing you haven't seen somewhere else; its just Gantz with porn. If you have played the best VNs out there, you've seen everything Dead Days has to offer, but better. There is a plot, with things happening, but none of them mattering whatsoever.
The story conveys no real message or theme, just some brief and vague takes on the people's relation with social media and interactions between each other, but nothing tangible that would serve as a guiding line to the story. I don't know what people praised regarding the developers' previous games, but I certainly don't see it here.
The adult scenes are on par with the game; visually polished, unengaging in every other way. The gore and piss scenes that were advertised are very few and far between, and the scenes left are incredibly tame and uninspired, that wouldn't even get a boner from anyone beyond the "baby's first VN" phase.
The worst part is the excessively verbose dialogues that transpire in both the main story and the sex scenes, that kill any appeal these might have. It's on par for your typical Japanese VN in that regard, a lot of "tell, don't show" and rehearsing the same lines over and over again. Thankfully it's not as egregious as something like Fate for instance, but after the second sex scene I started skipping them due to how unengaging they were.
Next is the bad and the really bad. The MC, Teru, is boring and irritating to follow. His conflict with Mao is artificial and forced, and what little character development he gets feels hollow and unearned. I understand kids do some stupid things they eventually regret and can turn their backs in their friends over pointless things, but to keep a grudge for this long against his childhood friend for something so inconsequential is just idiotic, and given how long it takes for the story to reveal that plot point, it feels like a giant waste of time.
Realistically, Teru shouldn't have any romantic feelings for Mao after keeping her away for so long, and Mao would have stopped pursuing him many years ago. As it stands, she just comes off as wierdly obsessive and deeply stupid for not getting the memo. But hey, we needed to fill the quota of archetypal, souless characters to fill our game, so here's you dumbass, holier than thou childhood friend for you to bang! And you bang here, with no valid story justification. It just happens halfway through the game for an extremely stupid reason.
The other annoying thing about this artificial conflict is that the game dangles in front of our noses some sort of character arc for Teru, where he stops being a douchy asshole and goes back to being a good guy again; but the choices presented to us during the story that tend in that direction all lead to a bad ending.
For instance, there is a branch in the first half of the story where Tengan is pursued by a token foreign bimbo on a bike, and you can choose to either listen to Mao's advice and save him, or ignore him and go do the job you've been assigned to. If you go for the logical choice that might give you some sort of character development - helping him - you get a bad ending, so you must choose the one where Tery stays a giant ass to keep progressing. Why? I don't know.
It's not the only choice like that, I think 1 or 2 others are similar, with the rest being inconsequential beyond what sex scene you unlock. But what this implies is that Teru never learns from his mistakes, he doesn't grow throughout the story, until the very end where his development is rushed and forced. The game tries to make us sympathize with him, even though I felt more of a connection with Aira and Tengan, who are actually more likable and interesting despite the game constantly trying to make us think otherwise.
The last issue is... I don't know if I'm just dumb or if the story is really like that, but after Mao's death, the story abruptly ends, without any explanation. No plot point reaches any conclusion, no character besides Teru gets a satisfying arc, only the conflict between Teru and Mao is sort of resolved. As far as I know, I don't know what choices I have to make to reach the actual ending if there is one, so I gave up. The story is not interesting enough to make me sit through from the beginning again.
So that's it. It's kinda bad. Not horrendous, but not worth your time imo. I don't get the hype surrounding this one, given all of Clockup's other games look like that at first glance on their website.