*hands out pitchforks and torches so you can storm my castle after this opinion*
This was a rough update in my opinion. I find myself really disappointed. Hyrilar stuff was like hammering my head into a wall. With appreciation, the whole trial and quiz thing is absolutely insane to expect most anyone to get right without a walkthrough. These updates are a year apart. Am I seriously supposed to remember the names of NPC elves for years in a row? This game is really long now and since you need specific answers you can't just CTRL through the text if you have to go back and replay for the mental refresher. Such a slog.
The contest of Champions was not much better. Odd decisions and odd random mechanics jumping in. The arrow shooting minigame was very fiddley, as most mini-games like this tend to be running in a Renpy engine.
Even the sex scenes. We're what, five years into the game now and instead of sex with Calypso we got... Her maid? A new NPC this update? That was a real letdown.
Penny in a solo scene was also disappointing. It wasn't half as good as Motor Madness in intensity and the bg songs which have been consistently excellent were not at their usual standard. This is pure opinion but it also should have been a threesome scene with one of the other girls. Dal gets featured multiple updates in a row, same with Alex. Giving them ANOTHER scene together while Penny likely won't get a duo scene for 2 more real life years is... Well, it's not a decision I'd have made. It feels more like for this update she had a box that needed to be checked off because we hadn't had a scene with her for nearly 2 years.
For the first time in Eternum I was underwhelmed with an update.
Counterpoint for the Quiz, while the game is made updates are once a year, but the intended way to play is in one go. Arguably the most optimal way is to start from the beginning for each update, so you get refresh on everything. Last update we had the Annie chibi recap and this one we had Chang's notes. It's nice way to get refresh if you are playing only the updates, but if you start from beginning it's a bit much for recap. ... This games is also made with the intend that players that want to see everything will use the walkthrough for each choice anyway. Honestly, part me hopes that once the game is fully released the dev will add option of it in the game.
You not liking the elf stuff, well that's fair i suppose. It's not everyone's cup of tea, i personally liked the subtle hints that Calypso was going to be betrayed, even if i didn't expect it to happen in the way it did. On the other hand, quite a bit of it felt as filler content. Introducing so many new character 2/3 or even 3/4 into the game (depending on the length of the remaining updates), can be a bit much. ... The maid thing was foreshadowed, so everyone expected it to happen to be honest.
The sex scenes, i liked first three but not the Luna one. The Calypso, even with bullshit excuse her magic being limited by sex, felt in character with the whole taboo theme of her relationship with Orion due to her culture. The Penny one, felt a bit forced, in a sense that it was quickly while three other girls were in the house. I liked it as a whole, especially Nancy's look at Orion later at the table, and again it's on theme with Penny liking it both rough and risky (even if not as risky as Motor Madness but that's the best scene in the whole game). The threesome was great in my opinion, best scene the whole update, not only for the content of the scene itself, but the whole foreplay before it. Luna scene sucked in my opinion. The date was great, heck they could have pulled the scene in the train, and the scene itself had some great animations, but i just hate that it happened in abounded and possibly haunted house. It's on character for Luna to like places like that, it's also in character that she is a bit weird. It's just something that i dislike on personal level, enough to bring the scene way down for me.