Review for Ep. 1 Slim
This is like one of the most stereotypical porn games I've ever played I think. It's a college based fuckfest and truthfully just not really for me at the end of the day. Kind of a more opinionated review honestly, but I think people who value writing a lot will find some resonance with this.
What gets me really into AVNs is both the writing and characters. You can throw a bunch of hot sex scenes at me, but at the end of the day if I'm not invested it just doesn't hit. That is my problem with Elmwood University. In essence, I find it very bland.
The university student setting is nothing new to anyone in the world of lewd games, but at least this game tries to start it off with a little twist. The game begins with us being awoken by an attractive woman. Apparently we somehow made it into her house and passed out in her bed, but of course we have amnesia with no idea how we got here. It's a good thing this lady randomly has a good feeling about the near naked stranger passed out in her home though, as her and her friend decide they are going to allow us to attend the 'feminist party" downstairs because we must be a good guy. This is where the game then kind of throws you into it.
Biggest issue is again the writing. You almost always have to have some suspension of belief with these games, but here I'm mostly thinking "man people do not talk to each other like this." It's not egregiously awful for sure, but it's flat maybe is the word. The MC, in the bit I played, is a complete prop. Seriously he does not have a personality whatsoever. You're often given dialogue choices that are A) Respond nicely/normally, B) Respond in the most neutral way possible, or C) Be a complete degen weirdo. When you're not choosing what to say the MC typically talks like he's simple-minded.
The girls actually aren't nearly as bad, but because the MC is so incredibly bland he just has no good dialogue/banter that plays into them. Now keep in mind this is a porn game right, so every single girl must unnaturally be all over you for doing absolutely nothing. Within the span of about five minutes, I watched the MC be repeatedly dragged into the bathroom by three different women to give him a blowjob after the simplest conversations played out before hand with them.
To segway from that, lewd scenes suffer from the same problem. Are the girls attractive? Sure. Are the animations good? Yeah not bad actually. Is there a lot of sex happening? Definitely seems like it. But none of them felt intimate. You get put into a sex scene and the game says "here is a bunch of animations to cycle through just click the cum option when you want to stop." Almost no dialogue, no real build up, nothing. It feels too systematic.
It's not like the game is horrible in quality or anything either. And I actually think that talent tree thing might be interesting, but I didn't play enough to really explore it. Everything looks and plays fine, but there's no real substance to it for me. If you like more mindless games focused on sex I'd see why you'd be into his, but Elmwood University didn't capture me in the time I spent playing it.