tl;dr: visually impressive, but with a story that while not exactly shallow, still suffers under the weight of same-old tropes (“horse-hung, magnet dick” MC), lack of player-driven narrative (agency over LIs, but no significant story-impacting choices) and dull adult scenes.
* review based on v0.45b.
THE GOOD (visually impeccable, interesting story)
Visual Quality: one thing that cannot be criticised is the production quality of the game. It is visually stunning, with not only good quality character models, but very professional renders in terms of lighting and scene setup. It really brings the characters and scenes to life (facial expressions are realistic, and the eyes look good as well; the LIs sport a range of body types and proportions, accounting for all tastes, although there is a clear preference for the big-boob type).
The game has great cinematography – yes, at times the game feels akin to a motion picture. The transitions between chapters are beautifully done and very artistic. The camera work is also pulled off really well (zooming in and out, changing object focus, panning the camera to hide characters and create suspense etc.). Some prerendered short segment videos also play sometimes to bridge scenes or emphasise actions (although on some a colour/tone mismatch can be noted between the render and the video itself). Now, actual animations vary between OK/decent and good – which in relative terms is a positive thing, given most VNs that implement them usually do it very badly (however, as will be seen below, it does not mean adult scenes are necessarily good).
In all, it’s a true eye candy and a feast for the eyes.
Writing: both in form and in substance, I find the writing to go from near- to above-average in relation to the huge catalogue of VNs available (not a big praise, but at least the story most definitely could be worse). In form, the dialogues are not overly verbose (no huge walls of unnecessary text) and proper (English) grammar is correctly observed. In all, the text feels natural and well-written.
In terms of substance, I was also positively surprised by the story. At first I thought it’d be more of the same college life themed VNs, with a shallow, basic story serving as means of preying around campus. The start really lends to that feeling – but things soon change: you learn the MC has some past trauma, and due to that has developed a personality disorder. What starts as an innocent, sterilised, shallow story starts developing a layer of mystery and depth which to me made the game infinitely more interesting.
That, however, does not mean the story is perfect. Far from it, some significant problems end up holding it back, as will be seen below.
Audio: the game has background music tracks, but I found them to fit well and not cause much annoyance. The sound effects are also on point and add to the whole cinematographic feel, however I did notice the LACK of sound certain effects in some scenes where they were needed (e.g., slaps). In all, it could be worse and is decently implemented overall.
THE BAD (overused tropes, kinetic novel, dull H-scenes)
Story: while the story arc itself was not an utter disappointment, the use of the same-old tropes most are already familiar with hinder the VN from being more enjoyable. Fist of all, the MC is the typical “horse-hung” stallion: oversized dick, instantly attracts all the ladies around. The whole story takes around 8 or 9 ingame days. By then, MC has slept with all his housemates (all ladies) bar one, the house cleaner, finds himself somehow engaged in two relationships, can fuck around with one of his girlfriends' mother and college friend, can have a fling with the gym manager, not counting the women his alter persona sleeps with and the one he engages with as a side hustle. The only LI at first impervious to his charms soon succumb to it by the end of the first week.
That is to say, this game shares with many other VNs the chronic condition of being unexciting, if not outright boring – why? Because there is no challenge. All the girls to a greater or lesser extent drop at your feet, beg for your attention and dick. And to me, this instantly levels most LIs, turning them into one dimensional characters. Yeah, each of them have their own backstory, personality, issues, goals, but you as the player do not have to care a single bit about it and won’t be punished for it in your “amorous” pursuits. Usually they will seek you, and as long as you do not block their advances, you don’t really need to seek them, if that makes sense. You need to go out of your way to fail, with success basically guaranteed.
Another issue is the lack of meaningful choices. This can be clearly exemplified with the Mike (maintenance worker) scene. The game even adds a countdown to pressure you into making a choice, but whatever one you make, it hardly matters as story wise, the outcome is the same. And here, if you make a “wrong” choice (i.e., a path the developer does not want you to take), you’re met with a death screen – which to me is the epitome of lazy writing and truly hate when implemented in VNs. Alas, the author could, for example, have one of the other involved characters take out Mike if the player fails to deal with him, adding an interesting, albeit irrelevant change to the story.
So, while the story arc is interesting, the ways through which we navigate the story are not – there is no navigation, as the story is for all intents and purposes in auto-pilot mode. In the same vein, while the LIs themselves have beautiful models and somewhat interesting personalities, they seem mostly "decorative". At best they serve the purpose of moving the narrative further, but don't really add to the fun of the game. In that sense, the story lacks variation and flavour.
Adult Content: well, but what does it matter if LIs are dull or the story not really engaging? If the adult scenes are good, all is forgiven, right? Well, even if that was the case, fact is that H-content here is lacklustre. The scenes, while well-animated, are not engaging and oft times feel short or end abruptly. And here is the thing: a game does not need animated scenes to deliver great content. VNs are largely a textual medium – text! A good, engaging description of what is going on, what the characters involved are doing and thinking, the atmosphere, etc. That’s what immerses the player and stimulates the imagination. And that this game sorely lacks! I feel like the author traded this rich textual approach for the flashier (and more expensive/time-consuming, and harder to pull off) animation-heavy one, when in actuality they should be complementary to each other and not mutually exclusive, with the former being preferable to the latter (two games that pull off h-scenes extremely well without animations at all are “Project Myriam” and “Friends In Need”, for example).
Development Pace: the banner might say updates are released monthly, but if that’s true it doesn’t feel like it. With nearly 3 years of development time, the story feels like it barely progressed at all (like mentioned before, only ~9 ingame days passed, still on v0.45, so less than halfway through). At this pace we’ll be in the 2030’s before the story is ever wrapped. Now, I don’t usually consider development time as a rating factor. I understand there to be a correlation between visual quality and development time – the more effort put into making the game look and feel good, the longer it takes to develop and release it. But given how early-infancy the story feels and how much time has been spent just to get there, it really makes me sceptical as to the prospect of this project ever coming to a satisfactory conclusion.
Would I recommend this game? Even with all it’s flaws, I still found it worthwhile. It certainly won’t be worse than the average VNs found around here, and the “post-production” quality the author pulls off is truly praiseworthy. That said, it’s mostly all flash but no bite: a beautifully feathered peacock, but tasteless and mildly dry. It has a story arc that is interesting, but the lack of meaningful choices to mold it, and the lack of any real challenge when navigating your LI relationships make it somewhat monotonous and uninteresting (it is not shallow, but hollow). It may also disappoint given how little the the actual story has progressed in the last years of development.
