I will make my best to let the fan outside of it and put some thoughs about someone which played the project more times than one hand could count.
For references of adult games, I generally return to Dreams of Desire because I have the opinion that that game was probably one of the best games that I ever played, and when I started the game it was already finished.
The choices for Dreams of Desire were subtle - some of them defied the common-sense of the games and there weren't any kind of specific tip between them - you just needed to make a choice like to put a spell on the mind of a certain character and you automatically was on her good path or the bad path, and I'm talking about early in-game build, like 2nd or 3rd update.
While could be frustrating for some, it potentially add some replay over it. On Freeloading Family wasn't like that. At first we had the Perversion and the Pacifism path, which was pretty cool to have some funny dialogues and renders, but we also had extra points, like Alice dating system, the Ass Points (which I honestly never get any scenes, but that's okay - not a big fan of anal anyway), and now we had the Overall dating system, which I think that since the Beach Holiday it's happening. Three systems, which eventually turned into one while the update rolled out.
I'm not here to discuss the technically of the systems, that's pretty personal, and I'm not here to say that how I could do better or something like that, that's disrespectful IMO, but looking from outside, but when we think on Freeloading Family, we basically can think on three big qualities - beautiful girls, humor and good vibes story with a little bit of drama .
I remember when I was playing Chrono Trigger at first - It was a game which I never wanted to end, but that could be naive for me to think, and we're talking about Squaresoft, a biggest studio with basically infinite resources on that time.
I think that, eventually, I started to think that maybe Freeloading Family would be basically the same, but as I said, that could be naive but since Val said on twitter on the past year that the game would be finished this year (yeah, I remember), I was preparing myself to this day - and eventually it came.
What I wasn't expecting is that the things would happen too fast - two days ago I was wondering if MC's Father and Alice's Mother would have a baby or something and how weird would be for Alice and MC to hide their relationship while the parents are on the house, and then yesterday I realized that the story that I loved was coming to an end .
I'm not sure if Val made that thing consciently, but Alice's reaction on the dinner was the reaction that most of the fanbase probably had during the gameplay, while I had the reaction of the MC during the talk of with the father - Disbelief, Sadness and eventually (I hope) acceptance.
I can understand that some people could think that the ending could be rushed, even I personally don't think on that - as I said yesterday, Sisterly Lust had 21 updates, and a small 1.0 that wrapped up the content .
On the practical size, it's easy to think that MC, Alice, Leah, Melody, Susan, Hailey, Karina and all the side characters aren't real people - they could have some references of the lives of FFC and Val, but they aren't real people - they never were, they never lived on the same world that we live. But it's hard to say that when we consider the engagement on the story that we had so far - only heartless people would think on that.
But hey - it's better than make the story repeat itself again and again, right? I mean, while I liked the beach holiday, it was the honeymoon update all over again in a some way or another. If the story would be progressing in the way that I originally thought it would be - the parents at home and Alice and MC trying to hide their relationship, it would be Hailey Arriving update all over again. If they ever return at the college, it would probably be the setting of the beginning of the game all over again - but without Susan, the main source of the conflict on the beginning of the game all over again too.
So, rationally speaking, it's okay to the game come to an end now, even we eagering for more Alice, Leah, Melody, Hailey and Karina content.
As some people said, The time isn't a Plane Circle, the Time is a River.
*Originally posted on FFHub's Discord.