v 0.11.1b
Story 2/5
Characters 2/5
Writing 2/5
Graphics 3/5
Audio 2/5
UI 3/5
DropOut Saga is the Goo Goo Dolls of AVNs. A great start, with raw and unrefined inspiration, that after the prologue turns into a samey drizzle of words, easily replaceable by any other cardboard cutout Mary Sue.
The story revolves around a 7 foot tall mountain of pure Belgian Blue muscle penis, attached to an equally impressive man. This man has an angsty past in the mafia (but it turns out he's actually your run of the mill tortured hero white knight who always does the right thing), trying to get out of the mafia (who are somehow also the good guys in this crazy world), and has to perform a final service. What is that service? He has to smash hot puss. That's right, his forced job is to get installed as the headmaster of a prestigious school of rich and indubitably hot barely legal teens, smash that hot puss (which MC is the best in the world at), and gather enough dirt on the teens to extort and blackmail their influential parents (which MC is the best in the world at). Fortunately our hero is an absolute expert on running a school, and this turns out quite easy for him. Unfortunately, our mafia hero's enormous sense of justice and morality gets in the way, and life gets complicated as our hero can not help but do the right thing again and again no matter the cost to himself and to the ones he loves.
Story
The story starts off great. A grounded idea in a contained setting with plenty of hooks and possibilities. The world is reduced to home and the college our MC is the new head(receiving)master of. Pacing is fine, and the "sandbox" is quick enough and efficient enough. Small events taking place inside and outside the college move both the college story and the hero origin story forward.
But suddenly something changes. The college and sandbox as an entity disappears and the game turns into a more kinetic novel. No worries, the story still works even though our hero becomes slightly more cardboard-exposition type (you know the kind - a lifeless character that explains every action and details the path of his reasoning like a soul-less AI). Maybe the dev wanted to quickly finish the prologue? It's a shame, the beginning of the prologue, though showing clear signs of an inexperienced dev, was a great idea and the rough diamond was obvious. Then comes chapter 1 - and it's worse in every way. It feels mass produced and without any thought put into it. The story gets boring and now feels like a teenager's interpretation of House of Cards mixed with some absurd conspiracy Youtube channel about extreme masculinity, possibly including eating raw onions and spraying lead based paint on your scrotum every thursday. The MC loses his charm and personality - the cardboard exposition gets worse and the MC can now only jump between states of supreme Alpha dominance, master of conversation and politics, tortured hero guilt, and endless exposition cardboard cutout. The side characters join together to form a singularity of personality and can no longer be differentiated without the use of the name in the text box. There are also some things missed, like how an allegedly American city can be run by x number of gangs without the federal government intervening, how no one can leave without getting hunted down and killed even though the gangs have very limited power, how a citywide gang war didn't attract any attention, how one side of the city can live in peace and ignorance while the other side is basically an ongoing turf war, and so on.
The story progression is a sad scenario, as the first half of the prologue was inspired and showed enormous promise. I would rate the good part a 5, but that is not where the story is currently.
Characters
Unlike the story, the characters start of okay at best. The college characters are pretty good, but the first main LI (Sophia) immediately gives of the teenager wet dream vibes. An 18 (or possibly 21) year old surgeon with extensive combat experience, who after years of work in the field became a freelancer. Did I mention she's 18 (or 21)? Oh, and if you thought she was just a GP kind of physician you were wrong - she's had plenty of time to become a surgeon and after that to specialize in brain surgery after the war was over (which war is left to the imagination). And also she loves the MC and will do anything for him. She's also a classic goofball.
The next girl introduced gets blunt force trauma to the head, then gets a home-made brain surgery in our MC's bathroom using two rubber ducks and a twizzler in true MacGyver style (MC is the best surgeon in the world), and then gets her head shaken and smacked around a few times. Don't worry though, she's perfectly fine. Everyone knows none of that stuff is dangerous. She also falls in love with MC in all of 20 seconds, and has 0 personality. She just wants to hang around like a puppy and do anything and everything for MC.
Then chapter 1 happens, and characters become more uniform and one-dimensional. The previously shy girl in college becomes a master of politics and business, surpassing everyone except MC in guile and veiled conversation, resulting in one of those silly and immersion-breaking characters (much like the classic ninja-assassin-teen-girl).
The way all characters throw themselves at MC destroys a lot of the immersion as well. I suspect they would all fall in love with an AI chat bot if given the opportunity.
It's a bit weird how no one knows anything about MC, and how MC deflects all questions about his past, yet no one pushes for him to actually answer any questions. Everyone simply accepts that he is a deeply mysterious and unlikely character in that position, even though many of them talk about how important it is to figure others out in "the game of politics", or for safety. It's a personality paradox, and MC gets away with whatever he wants no matter how discordant that it is with the story or the setting.
MC also frequently has alone time to discuss matters with his schizophrenic "other side", where he talks like an emo and over-analyzes things in serious tones. In the beginning this works great (as it is relevant to the story and atmosphere for the time), but it eventually becomes something to skip over as it is the same
- "we have to take care of it"
- "I won't let you harm her she's innocent"
- "I'm the only one looking out for us while you risk our life for a girl"
- "I don't care I can't let any harm befall my girls because of me, not again"
series of responses again and again.
Oh, something that doesn't really matter but bothered me immensely: once MC starts saying "I have a lot on my plate right now", he keeps reiterating that phrase again and again.
A classical pitfall, MC is best at everything always and ever. He beats a 4 time world champion in swordfighting without even trying, his impromptu ad lib speech at the college is a true Churchill level inspiration to all students even though it's nothing but unrelated platitudes regarding an unrelated matter that wouldn't even get a conceded pass in communication 101. He always knows what to do and the only time he loses his shit is when any woman in the world is mistreated, at which point he has to white knight the shit out of any russian in the vicinity. His penis is so humongous it should be in the Guiness book of world records. He can take two shots through the lungs, flatline, and then be resuscitated some 30-50 minutes later and *still* be up and fistfighting angry russians the day after (MC is the best at fistfighting). No biggie. In short, the MC is a Mary Sue deus ex machina, and nothing will ever matter in this VN because our protagonist can skullfuck an M1A1 Abrams to death while reciting the entirety of Carl Orff's Carmina burana in the original Klingon (and he doesn't even speak Klingon, that's how fucking great he is).
Writing
The writing starts off with low quality grammar and high quality delivery, yet ends with medium quality grammar and low quality delivery. The initial writing is solid for displaying MC's wider, and as of yet not explained, personality, as well as the characteristics of the characters around him. As the story moves along, this style of writing is continously supplanted by more stilted AI-level exposition from all directions. I would add that as the allegedly "political" characters gets introduced, the writing also degrades into a weird attempt at some kind of overly serious James Bond style quipping. The attempted hidden meanings and subtexts aren't subtle or clever, nor does it make sense to use that style of communication if the characters also A) signal that they are doing the subtext thing and B) directly explain what they mean in the next render. (MC is the best in the world at this if you were wondering)
On a positive note, the use of facial expressions and different eye colors to signify emotions, sometimes during the text and sometimes separately, is a solid addition to the text. It allows the reader to add interpretation which is always a good thing, it reduces the text needed while still conveying more than enough information, and it makes the characters more human. It's also a lot more expressive and universal than the cheek flushing. Well done.
Graphics
While never great, graphics start at bad in the prologue and end up decent in chapter 1. The use of honey select here doesn't seem like a great choice, as every female character (and also MC) looks Japanese, while they are explained to be English, German, American, half Japanese, and so forth. The story also unfolds in an allegedly American city, which adds to the confusion. Graphics aren't the centerpiece of this VN though, and so it's not a significant flaw.
Audio
The music choices are fine, and more or less convey the atmosphere needed. Sounds are few, but also work as intended.
UI
UI in the first part of the prologue is a bit shaky, but that improves in the later half, and the UI elements in the later part of chapter 1 feel high quality (although they do not serve a purpose yet).
Summary
DropOut Saga is a tale of what could have been a truly great VN given time, but instead became a one-hit wonder, showing enormous potential that faded over time, into an average VN. If I could, I would rate the first part a 5 and everything after a 2. I truly hope the dev finds his roots for this story, as he has shown that he has the capacity to create something extraordinary.