I had pretty high hopes when I started this game and really thought it might turn out to be awesome, looking at the high ratings, a beautiful and strong MC who's also a detective on top of that, and a type of story that I always enjoy if done right. All great starting points that immediately got me interested.
But right now I'm not even sure if I'll be able to make it through the current content without my head exploding... What the hell is going on with the incessant narration in this game? It feels like 90% of my experience so far has been me reading the words of a narrator and only 10% has been actual dialogue.
Most of the time it doesn't even make sense because I can see what's happening, you don't need to tell me someone is holding a pen or sitting behind a desk when I can literally see them doing it. I don't need to know what Diana's pen smells like, I don't need you to spend an entire paragraph describing how she's leaning against a wall with a cigarette in hand thinking about the meaning of life and I don't need you to tell me in great detail how someone is about to tell me their story (and what they're about to tell me) when 1 click later he starts to actually tell it himself anyway.
We're not playing Dungeons and Dragons and you're not the Dungeon Master.. It's supposed to be a VN, so why does it feel like I'm reading from a Dungeon Master's notebook..?
It's not necessary to constantly describe every tiny detail of how Diana's feeling through narration when you could just have her think about it and convey the exact same message in a single line of text combined with facial expressions. There is also no need to constantly drown us in an endless ocean of words when what you're describing is obvious enough that any of us could fill in those blanks on our own without even having to think about it.
Honestly, I can barely even focus on the actual story with how much word-vomit is being thrown my way. It would be one thing if it actually served a purpose, but THIS --> "Under the intoxicating spell of Diana's seduction, it took less than a minute for Jerry to confess. He revealed his true identity and the fact that someone had paid him to buy the building under his name. Like a river bursting its banks, the words flowed freely from his lips." Immediately followed by THIS --> "My real name is Jerry Alvarez. Someone... someone offered me a lot of money to do this. I don't know why or who they are. They said it was easy money, and I was desperate." Does not serve ANY kind of purpose and the game is littered with fluff like that.
It gives me the feeling that whoever wrote this thinks we're all a bunch of dumbasses who need every bit of information chewed up and spat in our faces in the most wordy way possible, otherwise we just wouldn't understand what they're trying to tell or show us. It's obnoxious, pretentious, insulting and it completely ruins the flow of the game.
This is a VN, not a book. Which means you don't always have to tell us what you could just show us, and you definitely don't need to tell us what you're already showing us. If you do feel the need to tell the player something, at least make sure it serves a purpose other than showing off your writing prowess.
Not every scene requires the narration to pop off about how 'the world feels a certain way in this light, at this time of day while being enveloped by the warmth of the morning sun, making it seem as if the moon is experiencing an existential crisis before finding the courage to appear again come nightfall, following the whispers of a broken promise' (not an actual piece of text from the game, merely an example)... Just take a step back and breathe every once in a while. Let the player actually see and experience it through your characters' actions, instead of just spoonfeeding it to them by way of narration.
By the way, I don't really understand why every single scene needs it's own title.. Every time the game transitions to a new scene, I get a black screen with a title and I fail to see the point of it. It just makes everything feel disconnected, as if I'm playing 30 second long episodes at a rapidfire pace. Not as big of an issue as everything else I've mentioned, but it still serves no purpose other than to add even more fluff to the game.
If you managed to read through all of that without falling asleep, I'm very proud of you. If not, no hard feelings, I know it's a lot. Maybe it's an unpopular opinion (wouldn't surprise me, looking at the game's rating) but I can't imagine I'm the only one who feels this way..
