The following review is based off my personal experience with playing this Game/Visual Novel... I try to be as brutally honest and detailed as I can, and these are my own opinions and thoughts, from one or more play throughs... The version this review is based on is v0.1.2 Demo...
You can tell the developers of this VN/Game are trying to add some production value to it, but I had several issues that I'll mention below... It's hard to tell but I get a possible Incest vibe from this Chapter 1 Demo...
The visuals are where I'll probably be the most critical... Some of the characters, especially during the introduction prior to Chapter 1, are a mixed bag of horrible looking to o.k. especially the grandmother on the street and the pizza joint owner... Other characters such as the male protagonist and his sister have very weird color choices for their eyes, which makes them look a bit strange, more so with the protagonist... There are many light angles and shadows that look off in some images with the characters now and then as well... The sisters face looks really bizarre now and then, as though it was a Doll's face rather then a person, and that happens now and then with some other characters during some other scenes as well... Even facial expressions sometimes feel off with many characters...
The developers added some production value through blinking eyes now and then, as well as movement when driving the car... So there was some attempt to be different then most VN/Games out there... But many times there were character model poses that seemed a bit off, and with all the other visual issues I ran into, it added a feeling of fakeness to many scenes... There was even a moment when the protagonist took one of the women on a date... Where she was sitting in the front right seat of the car on the way to the date, but then she was sitting on the front left seat of the car on the way from the date... And she wasn't the one driving... So one minute it is an American style vehicle and the next it was a European style vehicle? Definitely a lack of attention to detail... Even the one animated erotic scene felt very animatronic and slow moving...
Another issue was that the fade screens sometimes took for absolute ever to fade out and back in... As to the backdrops, some I've seen many times before and others looked unique... Eventually after the introduction and part way into Chapter 1, it switches from a Visual Novel style to a navigation adventure game style... The navigation mechanics themselves were good, but when interacting with some of the clickable items, there would be hesitations sometimes... But overall the adventure style clickable stuff worked alright... The cellphone UI was alright, but not as intuitive as it could have been... The actual steps required during the navigation game play was very linear, requiring steps to be done in a very specific order... But there was also the addition of collectibles that may or may not actually effect game play, such as collecting pictures and money...
The script definitely needs work as it is mostly made up of varying levels of broken English as well as some spelling/grammar errors... The story telling itself sometimes was alright, and sometimes seemed artificial... Same with the dialogue... I could tell what the writer was trying to portray, but sometimes it was a bit forced... The plot revolves around a male protagonist who was adopted and raised by a gay male couple, along with an adopted sister... One of his fathers was killed, maybe assassinated, during a robbery while running for the office of State Governor... Which in turn turns his family all upside down... The protagonist gets fired from his job, but later gets accepted into college with a scholarship...
From there all sorts of stereotyped story telling and characters come into play... From the sister who has an abusive boyfriend that threatens the protagonist... To the drunk father who sometimes lives on the street... To the highly christian love interest, that ends up being controlled by her overzealous father, breaking all ties... And the list goes on... You get a few minor stereotyped and over the top characters initially, but based off what the developers show you at the end of this Demo, it only seems things will become much more over the top and stereotyped...
The use of the adventure style navigation is o.k. but I'm not sure it really adds much entertainment value to the mostly Visual Novel story telling approach...
All that being said, I can tell the developers are trying to make a more story driven visual novel/game... But the story elements used, the odd visuals, and use of some rather stereotyped/over the top characters really hurts their attempts... I can only hope that the developers fix all these issues and maybe rethink a few things...
Overall, I liked some aspects of the story, once it got past the whole pizza job stuff, but the text really needs a lot of work... The visuals also need some work, even though some characters were mostly alright, many others just looked odd with both their faces, shadowing, and posing... The current content is mostly story based, and has a slightly meaningful plot... It just doesn't feel naturally flowing all of the time... Obviously this is a Demo that only includes the Intro along with the first chapter, so they have lots of time for improving things... I only hope they do that, as I do think they are trying, which in and of it self shows some little bit of promise... Will I be revisiting this one? Maybe, but only time will tell, if it can fix many of it's issues first... Perhaps some time down the road I might check in to see how things are progressing... Have to wait and see...
You can tell the developers of this VN/Game are trying to add some production value to it, but I had several issues that I'll mention below... It's hard to tell but I get a possible Incest vibe from this Chapter 1 Demo...
The visuals are where I'll probably be the most critical... Some of the characters, especially during the introduction prior to Chapter 1, are a mixed bag of horrible looking to o.k. especially the grandmother on the street and the pizza joint owner... Other characters such as the male protagonist and his sister have very weird color choices for their eyes, which makes them look a bit strange, more so with the protagonist... There are many light angles and shadows that look off in some images with the characters now and then as well... The sisters face looks really bizarre now and then, as though it was a Doll's face rather then a person, and that happens now and then with some other characters during some other scenes as well... Even facial expressions sometimes feel off with many characters...
The developers added some production value through blinking eyes now and then, as well as movement when driving the car... So there was some attempt to be different then most VN/Games out there... But many times there were character model poses that seemed a bit off, and with all the other visual issues I ran into, it added a feeling of fakeness to many scenes... There was even a moment when the protagonist took one of the women on a date... Where she was sitting in the front right seat of the car on the way to the date, but then she was sitting on the front left seat of the car on the way from the date... And she wasn't the one driving... So one minute it is an American style vehicle and the next it was a European style vehicle? Definitely a lack of attention to detail... Even the one animated erotic scene felt very animatronic and slow moving...
Another issue was that the fade screens sometimes took for absolute ever to fade out and back in... As to the backdrops, some I've seen many times before and others looked unique... Eventually after the introduction and part way into Chapter 1, it switches from a Visual Novel style to a navigation adventure game style... The navigation mechanics themselves were good, but when interacting with some of the clickable items, there would be hesitations sometimes... But overall the adventure style clickable stuff worked alright... The cellphone UI was alright, but not as intuitive as it could have been... The actual steps required during the navigation game play was very linear, requiring steps to be done in a very specific order... But there was also the addition of collectibles that may or may not actually effect game play, such as collecting pictures and money...
The script definitely needs work as it is mostly made up of varying levels of broken English as well as some spelling/grammar errors... The story telling itself sometimes was alright, and sometimes seemed artificial... Same with the dialogue... I could tell what the writer was trying to portray, but sometimes it was a bit forced... The plot revolves around a male protagonist who was adopted and raised by a gay male couple, along with an adopted sister... One of his fathers was killed, maybe assassinated, during a robbery while running for the office of State Governor... Which in turn turns his family all upside down... The protagonist gets fired from his job, but later gets accepted into college with a scholarship...
From there all sorts of stereotyped story telling and characters come into play... From the sister who has an abusive boyfriend that threatens the protagonist... To the drunk father who sometimes lives on the street... To the highly christian love interest, that ends up being controlled by her overzealous father, breaking all ties... And the list goes on... You get a few minor stereotyped and over the top characters initially, but based off what the developers show you at the end of this Demo, it only seems things will become much more over the top and stereotyped...
The use of the adventure style navigation is o.k. but I'm not sure it really adds much entertainment value to the mostly Visual Novel story telling approach...
All that being said, I can tell the developers are trying to make a more story driven visual novel/game... But the story elements used, the odd visuals, and use of some rather stereotyped/over the top characters really hurts their attempts... I can only hope that the developers fix all these issues and maybe rethink a few things...
Overall, I liked some aspects of the story, once it got past the whole pizza job stuff, but the text really needs a lot of work... The visuals also need some work, even though some characters were mostly alright, many others just looked odd with both their faces, shadowing, and posing... The current content is mostly story based, and has a slightly meaningful plot... It just doesn't feel naturally flowing all of the time... Obviously this is a Demo that only includes the Intro along with the first chapter, so they have lots of time for improving things... I only hope they do that, as I do think they are trying, which in and of it self shows some little bit of promise... Will I be revisiting this one? Maybe, but only time will tell, if it can fix many of it's issues first... Perhaps some time down the road I might check in to see how things are progressing... Have to wait and see...