Some people bashing the ones that felt the update was short/underwhelming are not making a great case for the game.
I get and agree that some folks really are coomer addled self-indulgent folks that are complaining about their favorite LI or kinks (namely sharing) not being featured this time around. For me personally, the less sharing there is, the better. But that's beside the point.
This update felt underwhelming because I did not feel like it made any significant progress in any of the directions the game started with. It felt like "multiple prologs" based on locations, with no actual meaningful developments or resolutions to any of them. Namely Kira's Town, the Palace, the decayed in Cairo, our own household and the Asani bit.
All that was presented was nice, pretty and interesting, but there was nothing for me to really sink my teeth into. It'd have been much better to focus on one or two of those things.
The household probably needed to be priority number one with the official introduction of Fairy and the joining of Kateryna (as well as a follow-up on Shani being back). That kind of thing really doesn't move the plot forward though, so priority number two should've been ONE of these four: the Palace, the Raiders, the Mutants or the Decayed. Probably going with the decayed as priority 2 would've been the best choice in here as I don't see (and don't want to see really) much sexy-time when dealing with them, leaving things "free" to be focused on the story moving forward.
The progress we got on all the different fronts was simply not nearly enough to let me satisfied. There was character development with the Queen and an introduction to a problem she is having with some people around her. But nothing as to the development of this problem, nevermind it's resolution.
Kira's town... what was the point of going there? I mean, really? No repeatable scenes since the place gets locked down after 2 visits and NOTHING happens. The only thing that "technically" happens is that folks in there now call you boss. Aaaand... that's it. Look I really, REALLY like Asha and Kira, but what we got here was just... nothing.
The Decayed part was nice. It felt like things were moving along and progressing. Things were getting interesting... and 5 minutes later, it's over. What? That's it? Might as well have put that part in the next update and make it 3x longer.
Asani was kinda nice but came out of the blue. It was a literal "I'll just go visit her, cause why not?". And that's fine, really, but I think that these inconsequential one-offs really should be implemented in an update where you'll have a lot of content focused on the story with small amounts of sex. Because that's basically what that scene is there for - sex.
No development with the mutants at all. And I'm glad that's the case this time because if the content with them was just to go to their base, say hi and then come back, I'd be pissed.
Now see, maybe I'm being unreasonable with my expectations. But the truth is that Desert Stalker was "in the zone" (pun intended) for so long that my expectations rose high. I always expect things from the DS team to be fucking great. Not meh, not lukewarm, not even good, I expected something awesome. The only other game that makes me have these kinds of expectations is Eternum.
And now, unfortunately, it's also the only one. Still hoping for great things from this game into the future though.
