English: 9/10
User Interface: 5/10
User Experience: 7/10
Art: 9/10
Dialogue: 6/10
Story: 3/10
Opinion: 3/10
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Avg: 6.0/10 [3/5]
This is another "game" I've avoided even playing since I first saw it pop up on this site. From everything I've seen and read in reviews, I guarantee it is just lowest common denominator porn game nothings with a focus on looking good and nothing more. I'll call it now, before starting, a boring 'everyman' MC has a bunch of contrived interactions with the same 12 DAZ models you see all the time and the solution to all their issues end up being his penis. That's boring. Can't wait. And I know I'll probably get flak with things like "You're just jealous they make money." or "You want to tear down something good." To the prior: No. I'm sad that the same thing that happens to real gaming, people saying a game is good because 'iT hAvE gUd gRaFiK" when the story and gameplay are terrible or boring. And to the latter, if it was good I couldn't tear it down, could I? Long-winded rant about the terrible state of consumerism aside, I'm still gonna go through this and say what I think. Immediately, I'm worried it will be a perpetual patreon milker that will never go away, but here's hoping the story has an end. The hilarious truth is this is just another "Corporate Espionage/Mafia" story with the added MC has amnesia trope AND MC goes to college. So... Originality is baked into this, I'm sure.
Basically, you play as MC. He just moved to a new town to go to college, start a new job. Oh! And investigate his shady father's death/disappearance after he got amnesia from a lightning strike. And so the dev knows, Lichtenberg markings only last a few days, sorry to spoil it for you. It'd be cool if they stayed, but don't. Anywho, right away, you meet the lonely and very obviously sexually frustrated landlady. That for ONCE, is actually a landlady. Even if here in the states we call everyone, regardless of gender, landlord. Or soul sucking rent gouger. Either way, MC meets her, he somehow lands the luckiest deal of all time where he lives for free and works less than part time while going to college. Fresh off amnesia. Glad he remembers academics. Then you meet the LI's. Chloe the voyeuristic bookworm, Julia the virgin gamer weeb, Alyssa the dancer/fitness chick, Sue the abrasive "...goth" one, Emily the exhibitionist, and Susan the aunt type that is also his boss. When meeting them or something less than exciting happening, it's chock full of weird dutch angles zooming right up their ass crack. God forbid you get bored looking at cleavage so deep it meets their pelvis.You also meet Dylan. A kid pretending to be Russian... For some reason? He's tired of talking to girls and wants to get MC laid... For some reason? I don't understand why he exists. I guess he's there to be attracted to the DAZ models that would be considered conventionally unattractive. You know, so MC can have all the supermodels to himself. You get your idle pleasantries and stupid introductions out of the way. Every interaction happening in a bubble and feeling like they were written by different people. Seriously. Lily has the typical older woman porn VN writing. Alyssa seems almost personable outside of the daydreaming about her tits. Then Julia has this LOLRANDOM gamer 420 whacky vibe. If it were written well, it'd be a rollercoaster.
MC continues his wet blanket self along, meeting people, yadda yadda. Then Sue picks him up because she has to pick something up for Susan, but Susan is there. There is no universe in the infinite multiverse that THAT ever makes sense. "Hey go to my second home to pick up my suitcase, I'll be there, but you do it." Did anyone read this before putting it together? Yes, I know hundreds of people read and proofread for them, probably paid them to do it too. But did anyone take in the information and evaluate it to say "Hm. That's less than smart." No. And Sue, the lookout, goes off to sunbathe topless? They also reveal that Susan is Sue's aunt by marriage even though they look like mother and daughter and sound and act the same. Their names are even similar. But, you know, don't think too much, just keep rubbin' one out. Then Lily calls MC pretending to want him to work on the sink and gets shocked when MC gets his turbo virgin boner when her dress suddenly becomes transparent. She deliberately called him drunk and naked. Sure, you weren't setting that up. And she goes to change out of wet clothes, but MC's shrivelled up tiktok brain couldn't sit and wait longer than 30 seconds so he pretty much barges into this woman room while she supposedly changing. Followed by the tired ass anime trope of slipping on her and something embarrassing happening. Then they both go through olympic level mental gymnastics to say they're desperately horny for each other. So sex happens, the husband that LITERALLY JUST CALLED TO SAY HE'LL BE OUT OF TOWN FOR ANOTHER WEEK COMES HOME? Wow.
Every situation is pretty much that. MC exists as some nice guy, the girl gives no signal that she likes him, then you get an option for sex/kissing. Alyssa? He helps her clean, they talk about missing dads, they kiss. Julia? They play games, watch a movie, she's never heard of sex before and gets horny. Sue? They get locked in a room, that would lock from the inside? She gets cold, puts her hands on his crotch, and gaslights him to yell at her because that does it for her, sex happens. And they reset a circuit breaker to reset something that is turned off? That's ALSO not how that works. Ending with a cryptic line from Susan. Leading into her heart of gold for charlie? Then more sex with two random girls that locked up Dylan. Then you meet up with Chloe and Alyssa, MC's first thought is Alyssa wouldn't want him to be friends with a girl because they tentatively got together. Never mind the five girls he's been intimate with since saying he wouldn't hurt her. But he also sees it as a threesome opportunity. Cool. Eventually tries to confront Lily about his dad, but the comically evil bad guy (that turns into a red herring due to critique, I'm sure)shows up, suddenly owns the building MC lives in and kicks him out unlawfully. He is worried about it for maybe 10 seconds, you finally see the alyssa sex scene, then you make the first actual choice in the game. "Where to stay." But it just gives you a talking scene with the character of your choice and one updoot toward them. When you FINALLY get to the college part of this college story, Gabby, a new girl, is immediately smitten with MC and have sex with her. There's no real effort happening. Go to place, see girl, talk about plot and leave, or help her and then sex happens. That is every interaction.
Finally, you get to the climax of the season, the "twist" is revealed. The second season opens up, tells the answer to everything. As a surprise to NO ONE, everything you thought happened, happened. There is no reason for the story to go on other than the sex drama. But drama can't exist in stories like these, unless it's between MC and his father. This isn't going to go anywhere interesting. No one will do anything. All the women will suddenly be cuckqueans to facilitate MC for the next infinitum (which Chloe kicks off). It all builds up to MC finally having sex with Susan, I'm sure. And this will be milked forever. My two cents would be: Just make adult animations, at least we don't have to click 40 times in between poses.
Really, this is the first time a game is actually proofread with decent grammar and it still gave me a headache. I think I saw two lines that had weird grammar mistakes and while I'm thankful for it, that doesn't mean the story's any good. The UI/UX is sort of customized, new images and a font or two, but it's still just default renpy with a twist. The art is good. I really don't give a care that "Animations are in 'GLORIOUS' 60fps." Nobody needs that. All of season one, the animations still looked like they we floating in jello. It's all so slow. They speed up a little in s2, but it still looks like it's in slow motion. The dialogue is fine, and inoffensive. Very safe. Very "I'm not too weak, but not too alpha, not too nerdy, but not too Fonzie." See what I mean? And the story is the same "Dad did something when I was a kid, now I have to figure out what." you see everywhere. So like I said, boring. Over-developed, bloated, lowest common denominator nothingness. If this does it for you, by all means, I'm jealous. But if they actually wrote a good story, could you imagine? The visuals are top notch. I just wish they'd hire a writer instead of buy another 4090 to pump out slow motion 4K60 sex scenes.