VN - Others - Completed - Dream/strung - Blossoming Love [Ch. 1] [ABC]

  1. 4.00 star(s)

    Beggarman

    In short - the game is a fairly story-heavy VN with some basic choices and some occasionally weird writing in places, but it does seem to get the DiD-theme pretty well and has a lot of exciting potential to expand upon; However, I do feel it's a little short and light on the smut so far. And if it's not clear - the blonde in the header image is a man, and features in a decent number of scenes.

    In long - This is one of the tougher games I've found myself rating, because I'm actually feeling torn in two directions: One, in the game's favour, is that there's such a dearth of DiD (Damsel-in-Distress) content - Let alone good DiD content - that I tend look well on games that contain any. On the other hand, I'm not really into Traps/Femboys/etc as subs, to the point that I almost didn't post a review, because... y'know, who gives a shit about someone saying "not my kink 0/10"? However, after some more playing, I got over myself feel like the two factors balance each other out, and there does seem to be a bit of variation in the content so far.

    The story is essentially as in the overview, although to give a little more detail: The main character is a young, rebellious minor noblewoman who has a tendency to end up getting kidnapped, but also finds they have a bit of a dominant streak. Their buddy is a superhumanly strong, highly effeminite crossdressing dude who's into DiD-type stuff - getting kidnapped, bound up, doing subby stuff, that sort of thing. After escaping a kidnapping situation together, they end up fleeing to the city where Million (the blonde femboy) lives. The story cuts out on the first chapter just as they're starting to explore these roles with each other. I'm not totally clear if "Chapter 1" means this is just a first installment of an early access game (it's not listed as EA on Steam) or if other games are intended to be released as standalone chapters for a similar price. If the latter, then I do think the game is a little pricey compared to other works, but not terribly so.

    The writing is a little bit weird in places, if I'm being blunt. The writing during sex scenes, I generally like; The writer actually does care about descriptions and isn't just rushing to get through the CG's, which is a fault I find with a lot of other games. That said, some of the conversations come off a bit abnormal. I'm not sure if there's a language or culture barrier here or not; It doesn't come off as engrish, and I do like that characters tend to avoid playing overly coy or beating around the bush, but some of the conversations seem a bit stilted, or people say stuff in weird ways. It's not awful by far, and I do like what they're trying to do, but personally I'd take another pass at some of them and do a little bit of rewording.

    Artistically, I'd say it's a little simplistic, but pretty good. The pictures in the first post are fairly representative. Million generally comes off as cute but more confident, while Rose/Dove (the player character) comes off as more overtly sexy and at times dominant, but also a little lost and new to things. The game does seem to be setting things up as Million being the main "damsel", but so far the scenes are fairly split between one or both of them being in trouble or in a subby situation, and while I don't expect that to stay perfectly the same, I would hope it stays close to that ratio.

    Mechanically, it's basically a straight VN. You make a few choices which sometimes lead to bad ends, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of variation in the story so far. There is some slightly open-world-ish bits at the end, which aren't really fleshed out at the moment, but do seem to indicate the game may be branching out a bit after this first chapter. There's some extra scenes once you hit the end of the main story; Mostly plain story, but also an extra sex scene which is also story-relevant. Plain CG's can be checked out from a gallery in the main menu, while actual scenes with writing can be replayed from a location in said open world at the end of the game.

    Overall, I'm finding this a tough one to rate. Were this a x/10 rating, I think it'd be an easy 7. I feel like it does have a good grasp on the DiD theme, and the art and writing aren't bad. The story is pretty unique and not too contrived and there's some good hooks for future content, despite some growing pains in the writing. I certainly found it fun to play through. Proper scene replays are also a very good feature that too many games lack. However, I do feel like the length and lack of scenes does hold it back a little, for now. I'm provisionally giving it a 4/5 depending on how further releases go. I think if Chapter 2 is a standalone with a similar price and content level, I may bump it down to a 3/5 on release of that. Further releases under this could easily bump this up to a 5/5 for me though.