Others - Goodbye Eternity [v0.9.1] [RNGeusEX]

Starting with my personal take, the game does have its merits. However, you might be wondering why the two-star rating. Well, let me share my perspective as a player:

The game kicks off in a somewhat cliché manner, but that's fine. Many great works begin with clichés and eventually turn out to be impressive, right? So, let's delve further.
The introduction of the female characters brings a mix of personalities; the tomboy (Asami), the dominant/submissive (Noriko), the classic romantic (Yasuka), the Yandere (Sakuya), and, in the future, the abuse victim (Chiaki).
What leaves me a bit disappointed? They have beauty and interesting personalities you can follow them, and feel, how can I say, a little fond of them? I think that's the word.
You have Macumba who, by far, is one of the best characters with dialogue that makes you laugh, and even gives hope to the player sometimes. There's dickhead Kimochi, who is a typical Otaku figure, but not as hateful to catch.
However, the story suddenly takes an irritating turn. The protagonist made it clear at the beginning that we would probably have to deal with drug trafficking, and prostitution, among other things, BUT THAT WAS IN THE FUTURE. Hasn't even a month passed since we woke up? Out of nowhere, Noriko is already involved with Akira, Yasuka is thinking about becoming a prostitute, and Asami wants to give up herself to be what Minato will "probably" want. Like, what? The protagonist in this new version literally said "I am mentally the oldest among us" (Him and the girls including Yasuka)
But tell me, does he seem mentally like a 40+-year-old guy? Damn, what do you mean!? Our choices do not match our age in reality. This is the biggest problem, and it's what makes the game difficult to play. On the one hand, it's great to see the story developing and everything, but man... Not being able to refuse Akira's command to release him!? Serious!? I AM FORCED to release the psychopath, and you know what's worse? Moments after that, Akira ALMOST RAPED our girlfriend in front of our eyes! Are you serious, man? Then we met him a few times later after that, why the fuck didn't we kill him!?
WE ARE FORCED TO ACCEPT YANDERE, okay, that's how it is, great! But she’s going to help us now, right!? You fuckin' take an iron bar, give the MC some balls, and kill this son of a bitch, ask Yandere to help conceal the tracks, damn it! But no, you can't... The protagonist can almost die a thousand times, he can have his girl almost raped by a maniac, but kill the maniac? Oh no, he has to be the cute protagonist, rainbows and shit.

Yes, I loved the game at the beginning, I hoped that we, as a protagonist who back a mistaken life, would be more knowledgeable, mature, and decisive. I saw someone commenting here about thinking the game is about a "teenage boy who just discovered alpha male trope existence", my friend, it would be much, much better if it were about that...

If you want to make a game that has trafficking, prostitution, serious problems to solve, and above all; A game where the protagonist is 40+ years old, plan his moves competently. There's no way a butterfly can survive in a swamp. And that's how I feel when I play this game these days.
I really hope things change, but help, no, I guess it won't... The game ended (0.8.1) with the fat bastard going to kidnap Asami, and we will probably have another miracle happening to prevent rape or a concrete rape scene. Am I excited to play? ARE YOU EXCITED TO PLAY IT? But earning 2k$ per month, I don't think my quitting makes any difference to the developer.

This game is really good. Not only the graphic part is very-very well done, but also the story is interesting.
I liked the way the characters are drawn, especially how their outer appearance pretty much matches their inner appearance.
The sex scenes are superbly done, you can see physical details that in other games you can only dream of.
Congratulations to the developer, he is very talented.

great game the art is fantastic one of the best I've seen on this website, the story is a bit unintuitive but the music and art more than make up for it. Personally a huge fan on the music and the ambience it creates.

The graphics are incredible, maybe one of the best I've ever seen for this unique style in novels but story's gotta be one of the worst one's I've ever seen as well, for real. The graphics aren't enough to redeem this horrible story.

I thought this was a story about a guy getting a second chance at life but then there's a psycho yandere girl that threatens to kill his loved ones if MC doesn't stay with her, ties him up and rapes him constantly and in the end MC likes her. What the fuck?

There's a (one of many, really) psycho guy steals her diary and MC's girlfriend, after knowing the yandere girl kidnapped and raped him, TELLS HIM TO HELP HER AND HE DOES. Like seriously, what-the-fuck? Why would I want to help her? Why don't I have a choice in the matter? I "rejected" her every step of the way, got kidnapped, raped and told to help her anyway. OK, the psycho guy is a piece of shit scum of the earth and I would've liked to kill him, but the girl isn't much better and the other girls want to include her as well. This is where I stopped and I'm actually surprised I powered through this much.

The player doesn't really have much say in what happens besides probably acting submissive or dominant towards another girl that treats MC like shit from the beginning but starts caring about him eventually after getting blackmailed by him. I got a warning at some point that the psycho girl was going to do stuff based on my actions and hurt the ones MC cared about but to tell the truth, I didn't get to choose much. I rejected the girlfriend but still ended up with her and got with the older red-haired woman without getting to choose anything either and those are the ones she threatened MC with. Like, how does that make sense? Choices didn't seem to matter at all when it comes to story progression.

Once again, the art is really wonderful and it could've been great if it actually had a decent story to tell with but as it stands, it's just wasted potential. After the first few minutes, the fact that MC went back in time stopped mattering for the story as a whole. There are a few mentions at it but it's really nothing of importance. The regressions adds practically nothing to the story.

God, the animations on this one are awesome. There's some sense of choice with the choosing parts. The BDSM elements are amazing. Cast is quite nice and differentiated for now. The game does features those annoying quests that I don't like but everything else is beyond good.

I really like this game a lot. Sandbox games seem to be loved or hated with very little in-between, but I think this one would go a long way towards convincing the haters that the genre has a lot to offer.

Great visuals and sound, really pretty animation, and characters/story that really pushes things to an overall great experience. Would love to see more gameplay features implemented in the future (something I think sandbox games sometimes lack), but all-in-all I'm very interested in seeing what this game offers us down the road. Kudos to the dev for a great game.

The art is great, there's rarely any game with such style of drawing that is so distinguishable. But that's about the only salvageable point of this game that saved it from being 1/5 stars.

The story itself is horrendous, it's like a badly written powerplay fantasy of a teenage boy who just discovered alpha male trope existence. I can vaguely see an interesting plot that the dev is trying to tell, but the execution is just down right cringy and hard to swallow.

There is no world building. Characters have no personality. The introduction to each of them, including (and especially) the MC, is short, lifeless and even confusing at times. Details are hastily thrusted in to quickly get to the "main plot" like a jigsaw puzzle with all the pieces not fitting together.

The MC acts high and mighty at times during interaction with girls to show off "cool guy vibe", but occasionally makes stupid and oblivious decisions for plot convenience. He just absent-mindedly ignores the consequences of his own actions on people around him until the story calls for them to appear. His knowledge on the future of everyone seems to be a major drive of the plot, but it rarely shows anywhere, and when it does the MC just gives a few lines of thoughts about it and moves on. Noriko being exploited and later found in a canal, dragging Yasuka down the path of depression, Asami's disappearance causing Macumba to be jailed wrongfully... he never showed to be compassionate or thoughtful about changing them, just simply lived on and passively waited for things to happen. Sure, he does try to solve problems, but his determination is pathetic, the solutions are half-assed, there is no real effort in him trying to turn his future around, in a way he is steadily walking the path to becoming his old self.

The later complain can be explained in two ways:

1) The other NPCs are tasteless and have no real charm, really just a horde of mobs to revere the player. Everyone makes logically questionable choices and constantly acts out of character just for our guy to intervene and act cool for a moment. Noriko and Asami's personality twists are the peak examples of that - nonsensical and are only there to prove how the MC can change people's lives (even so the interactions leading up to those moments are questionable at best).

2) Or, the main story is being rushed for the author to finally get to the triumphant conclusion that's been on the back of their mind since the start. Characters might later have their own storylines that better explain their life decisions, but for now the progression is beelining straight to the end, ignoring any development for both the MC and the people around him. There is barely any "sandbox" element in here, the progression is so tightly packed there is usually nothing to do other than the one or two interactions the story allowed at any given time. The dev can simply skip the free roam map to teleport the player straight to their next event and there would be no impact whatsoever.


TD,DR: GE is a nice visual novel with distinct art style, should give you a pleasant time to play if you're hungry for some instant-noodle inseki fantasy. Otherwise, don't put too much expectations on it but that's about it. I really am trying to stomach through the rest of the current build to see if there's any improvement, but the more I read the more I despite the MC's pathetic attitude to everything in life. This is not even on the inseki category any longer. Maybe this kind of story will vibe with you, but it really falls all over the place for me.

UPDATE: Due to a recent conversation with my friend, I've decided to replay the game (v0.7.9) from a different viewpoint. We have come to a conclusion that this game is of wasted potential. The developer has an interesting idea in mind and great art to boot, but no actual story to tell. At the time of this review, the game feels like a bunch of separated "cool events" that the dev came up randomly under the loose idea of "time isekai", stitched together into a mismatching and confusing collage. There are almost no coherent transitions, the setting just shifts unpredictably toward the "next major event" with no development or adequate characters / plot building - which slightly justifies how the MC reacts to the world, everything happens too fast and radical for a spineless weeb like him to reasonably process. Overall still 2/5.

Extremely overrated game, this game started to disappoint me straight away, firstly it lacked a decent introduction about the MC in his past life, it simply starts with him in his new life

The world, MC repeating his life (No logic and I didn't like the plot), already knowing everyone, and ruining future events. because like, all the clues you get about the MC's past are through key moments that you meet the characters, like Asami, the girl who disappeared by accident or Macumba who was accused without being able to prove his innocence.

Every male character in the game, except Macumba, is a complete piece of shit. the developer obviously takes great care to adhere to Japanese culture, but it's almost never this aggressive and obnoxious. It's also not explained why they are this way, which makes the whole experience even more hollow.

Other things that bothered me, you help Sakuya against Akira for the second time, and the mc uses his past life wisdom and wets akira's schemes, Sakuya screws akira, then she labels the mc for being the same type of man as akira . Seriously, are you going to help and just fuck off? The worst part of all this is that you later find out that she wants to be a porn star... man, I thought she would be a waifu but I was already cut off at the root, doing Sakuya's sidequest became annoying for me after that.

Azumi; Well, right away I'll let you know that I'm not a fan of tomboy girls, much less of brunettes, I was already planning to ignore all of your content but that's impossible since MC now has to play cupid to help her get with Minato, oh what the fuck! the first interaction with a girl, and for me to help her get with another guy? I wanted to ignore her right there. but the game despite giving you a choice, you have no choice, and are forced to help her! Anyway, whether you like it or not, you help her, and tell her the truth about Minato, then she reacts strongly and tells you to go pasture! Then she shows up at her house and asks if you would agree to be the fake boyfriend to make Minato jealous, but I refused right away and ended up making an annoying friend.

Lack of female character and lack of lewd scene, in the game there are five girls, excluding Noriko, Sakuya and Asumi, leaving only Yasuka and Minato's sister for me, but I'm leaning towards Yasuka, there really aren't many girl options in a game that is to be harem?!

Four hours of play and I haven't seen a perverted scene, which makes the game boring.

I conclude that the game is average, just overrated for now! has great graphics and great art but that's not much to combat the flaws I mentioned. Also, I experience a lot of lag in the game's UI when navigating between locations!

Ah, yes! Macumba is the best brojo in the game!

Pros:
-anime art style is nice
-Japanese culture is used beautifully in the backgrounds and story
-Animations are the best part of the game, they are quite diverse and professionally made
-Girls' bodies and personalities are quite diverse. Stubborn sister, tomboy friend etc.
- User interface is very nice and original

Cons:
-There is very little teasing in the sex scenes,
we suddenly move on to sex without much teasing and pre-action.
.
- Choices have little impact on the game. Main harem route and abandoned ntr route seems to be only visible routes.

Content:I cant hardly find any better game on content than this one, no matter you like pure love or NTR, you could both enjoy the content.

Image: drawding is perfect!

Especially there is clothese system and fancy gallery system!

The game is the best of all, fully fascinated with the scenes, unpredictable plot, animation and its beautiful drawing, without a doubt this is the best game I've played of all time, thank you very much. All females are cuties, I love them, I hope they updated it soon.

This story is what you get with a failed Isekai. The protagonist is an utter failure at the second chance and has no spine despite the fact he has his second chance. Also the plot with him getting "blackmailed" make it hard to suspend disbelief because if that's all it takes the blackmail the MC, then he deserves it. The only saving grace of this game are the fantastic models for most of the girls.

The game literally fascinated with the scenes, unpredictable plot, animation and its beautiful drawing, without a doubt this is the best game I've played lately, thank you very much. P.s Asami is such a cutie I love her. I hope for their long relationship

I find myself pausing every 5 lines just to appreciate how beautiful the backgrounds and characters were. This was truly an eye-opener experience!

This game is the work of gods!

I would definitely purchase the game if possible!!!

There is a great core of a game in there, particularly style wise:
- great art
- characters all look pretty unique, looks and body wise
- animations are hot

However, the story feels anime edgelord or whatever you would call this. Many predictable bits of story, over the top tropes, and quite weak story telling. This is compensated by the female characters still being somehow likeable underneath their tropes.

Good :
• Clean Interface, nice art.
• Beautiful characters and all.
• MC with good personality.
• Good enough story to read.

Bad :
• The world, MC replaying his life (No logic and i didn't like the plot) , already knowing everyone, and spoiling the future events.
• The game lacking the sex buildup and teasing, resulting many cold scenes, and that's very important point for.

Good game but don't expect the best.

I don't comment much but you see when I trully enchanted by a game I can't keep quiet about it.
Nice artwork, animations kinda slow I suppose its technical. I don't even need to tell you about sound effects so great. Total 9/10 Quality work.
Thank you for your time devs trully, you made good game.

I want to rate this game higher, but I really can't bring myself to do that...

Pros:
+ The art is god-tier; one character is very different from the other, not just a simple reskin of clothes and hair like some other adult VN games
+ Minigames are nice, the game is not very grindy at all; I enjoy the hunt for money in random places
+ Dev is based for posting this in the Zone themselves
+ Some interesting characters; though others are decent-at-best

Cons:
- The story: it does a poor job of rewriting some delinquent and unfortunate MC's world when the players haven't even met the MC's original personality in the first place. We know of their sad past with some characters from spoons-of-info that come out of nowhere and into convenient scenarios, like: "introducing X, oh yea btw the MC met X from a drug den since X had to make ends meet. MC just remembered that, but now that we know, let's change the future" or smth. It's full of plot convenience and a very repetitive style just for the sake of implementing incredibly dark and sad backgrounds/alternate timelines for the characters. Normally, suspension-of-disbelief would be the go-to since it's a hentai game ffs, but for a narrative that is supposed to be taken seriously...it just doesn't work.

Overall, I think that 3 or 3.5 would be good for this game. The interesting side characters (like the trainer and the nerd) and the art are dragged down by subpar writing. If you're playing it for the art, then I would absolutely recommend playing it. I feel that the game's plot has been given love and time by whoever wrote it (which is a huge plus in general creative writing, not just in adult VNs), but the trope-heavy anime cliches just aren't doing it for me.

It's honestly really good. Basically everything about it is. My only gripe is that I feel like recent updates haven't included very much content. I played it at version 0.5 for the first time, and came back after probably a year(?), now we are at 0.7 and I feel like very little was added. Also Noriko's path is still not there? I feel like she should be one of the first ones that had been implemented considering her involvement with just about everything.

Yet, non-the-less, the game is quite good. Among the best. It makes you want a tomboy girlfriend xD. So much can be added/done with this game, it's crazy.

What I'm primarily afraid of, is that v1.0 is drawing near, and with the amount of content added between 0.5-0.7, it makes me worried for how much content will be in the final version of the game, or if it will fall short. The way the game is now, it feels like it could have a huge amount of content, and right now it feels like maybe 20%-30% is ingame. But if the game is finished development at v1.0, then it will likely feel as if it drastically fell short of it's potential. So here is hoping this is one of those games that go past v1.0, and it doesn't represent the games completion. (unless of course they add a boat load of content between 0.7 and 1.0. Who knows.)

PS: Their Patreon page indicates " Mini-games - 70+ locations to visit - 70+ characters" as planned features. So far, from what I played, which I think was everything, there is zero minigames, and maybe 20 characters in total? (most of which currently have little-to-no routes available, and instead are just apart of the currently implemented ones) and like 10-15ish locations?(Unless their talking about each room in a house being a location) So I'm gonna assume v1.0 doesn't represent the games completion. Instead, I think it just represents how many routes are in the game currently. So 0.7 meaning 7 routes available, 1.0 is 10 routes. If I'm correct in assuming it's been 2yrs in development, then that means each route takes 3months on average to develop. If we assume a third(23) of the 70+ planned characters will have routes available, and the assumption they will have at-least 2 routes per character (as they wouldn't be called routes if there wasn't more then one option), then that means there would be a total of 46 routes equaling a total of 138 months of development time. Meaning at their current rate it will take them almost 12 years to develop the game. So I guess I'll see ya guys in a decade to play the rest of the game. oof lol. (not to mention if your a patreon for that entire time, thats like $1000 USD. I may have to take a few breaks from my pledge xD) ((PPS: This is all speculation, hopefully the game is out way sooner then that, and the quality is consistent as the game is really good, a lot better then most games))

Version played : v0.7

This is a pretty high quality novel, when it comes to writing, visuals, even audio (there's some light sfx here and there even).

The reason It's not 5/5 is twofold : It's been about 2 years in development and it seems like there's much more to come, so it will probably take quite a while. And the second one is that, at least so far, sandbox elements feel superfluous at best and pointlessly grindy at worst - not once did I actually need any of the grindable stats, it was all unavoidable plot progression.

But it is a really high-quality product and I definitely recommend it.