100%100% (and I really mean 100%) agree: if the game is finished or almost finished - it is not a problem to go through the relationship building and etc, but if you don't know if the game will be finished (initial stages) - it is a bit hard to justify spending hours and hours (and then half a year later trying to remember what happened before)
And you are absolutely right about some 'side girls'. For me personally, it is very anoying that MC has to have sex with some 'aunt/grandma/below average girl' instead of the beatiful girls that are parading themselves half-naked in front of MC.
I never really liked this 'you can look, but cannot touch' thing.
i consider japanese vns to be a slowburn cuz it takes more than 20+ hours to get to specific routes. It isn't a slow burn if the games ended up being abandoned 4 chapters into development and 2 years into it
that's just a waste of our time