The update felt quite a bit longer and less disjointed than the previous one; the pacing was better and I didn't quite get the 'that's it?' feeling like I did with the pirate server. The scenes are a big step up for me this time around, some of them begun to feel a little samey but this update had a breath of fresh air for the content. Personally the Penny scene takes the cake. The variants, plus finally giving the game the anal tag? Mwah. The animations seem to continue to improve in less dramatic but still impactful ways such as length; Dahlia and Alex threesome facial is a good example of what amounts to a cinematic continuous shot. It's good.
The cliffhangers in Eternum seem to be entering somewhat of a predictable pattern; there is a moment of calm where Orion thinks everything is going according to plan before the hammer drops. As a story development in of itself it's not bad; we are at the point where stakes are getting higher and it was only a matter of time before the matters would start accelerating. Considering the relative focus on relationships over plot in this update something like this was necessary to not make it feel like a filler episode. Nonetheless, it is becoming somewhat of an overused trope entering a cliché. Speaking of plot, I am honestly surprised that the big arrival in Hyril'ar has offered practically no new revelations to connect it to the greater narrative. Of course you can say that it was a building piece to introduce the setting, characters, and the situation they find themselves in. Despite that, Calypso's apparent importance belied some answers or hints.
What I really didn't like were the AI paintings during the suitor ceremony, but not for the reasons you would think of. Using it at all is a whole other can of worms that I do not want to get into even though it would've been much cooler for him to throw some money at an artist and go 'hey, can you draw three sketches in an hour each.'. My main gripe is as to how low effort they appear, especially considering their prominence in some of the shots; the Chang'd calling card and the board game in 0.9 were relatively minor in comparison. They look out of place and the awful smoker's wallpaper-yellow is reminiscent of a model poisoned by all those Ghibli pictures from a couple months back. In a time when you could easily run a model locally or use a site like CivitAI to achieve much better and tailored results it is particularly jarring. I don't know whether Cari was pressed for time or what.
Overall I think it had some stronger and weaker points, just like the previous update. All the same I look forward to the Meiyo server.
