Reviewed version:
0.7
- Mechanics/gameplay: basic click-through VN with a few extra renders, most often automatically unlocked while progressing. Nothing too surprising. I can't recall a single error in the two versions I read.
- Sound: few sound effects but no music. Feels a bit too silent at times.
- Graphics: pretty pleasing. Too disproportionate facial design on the main girl. Cartoonishly big eyes and lips on a too small face, especially in some renders. Everyone else looks great, the environments too.
Most basic UI though.
- Language: no Engrish. Near if not native English comprehension and the kind of vocabulary you can expect from that, fulfilling its function just fine. I just don't know if the chosen idioms scream SoCal at me.
- Story: this is where it gets complex.
* The
good: the surrogate dad moments with the main girl. Mostly wholesome main narrative. Slight but suppressed sexual tensions.
You can notice the characters go through arcs.
* The
confusing: there's an underlying motive that MC knows more than the player about his own background (except for the dialogs that take place from an omniscient third-person perspective, hence we know the thoughts of all characters) and he keeps hinting at it while refusing to tell the player everything. Even some secondary characters know what it's about. I hope when the revelation comes it's going to be worth it. The background info that's kept from the player makes MC's emotional investment in and patience with this job mysterious in a good sense but also incomprehensible and a little annoying, because some of the female characters' hatred and behavior towards him just because he's male is intolerable.
* And now... a small
critique: a number of things just feel uncomfortable.
First of all, the
universe created for this VN is a fictionalized version of
Hollywood where
every man is a pig and women are naive and silly but innocent. It's obviously inspired by the
Weinstein case and the result is what happens when you turn MeToo into a VN. I don't get how some of these women even get themselves into these situations and then act surprised (for instance, the situations where they wear (virtually) nothing and pretty consciously provoke wardrobe malfunctions and irregularities, engage in far too gratuitous flirtation, get nudes into people's hands and consider sleeping with people for certain benefits...). It's a very sexist (*) universe considering the stereotypes. These characters also are textbook examples of the
self-fulfilling prophecy.
(*) I don't use that word lightly but descriptively and aptly after reading the characters' views and the events and patterns that underpin them. At least two of the main female characters hold deep grudges and fears against men (
to the point that I question how sincere romance without drama or false abuse charges would be even possible) and apart from MC as an outsider and a cop you see twice briefly (without knowing what he's up to) no one does anything to discredit those grudges and fears. Even worse is most of the adult content in this VN actually consists of
sexual assaults.
The
MC is a case of the somewhat overused
semi-divine protag trope who fixes all problems, who's the knight in shining armor who only has patience with people when it's women abusing him, and who puts his whole masculinity in the service of women who toy with or abuse him. I'd have canceled the job if I were in MC's shoes. Moments where a woman joked about
falsely charging MC with a
sexual assault that didn't happen is just another side theme that feels really unhinged and is indicative of this VN's general tone.
Still MC fills the roles of bodyguard, psychotherapist, surrogate dad, fitness coach, physiotherapist, boyfriend to one character and I suspect replacement spouse soon. There's only so much of this you can add (to a character presented as semi-divine, most virtuous and most able in a world of nepotistic sexual predators who lack all social skills) before it becomes too much and the story loses its credibility and immersive value after such a long build-up. His only weakness is his potential emotional involvement, but is that really a weakness and not a narrative instrument to latch all this "awesomeness" onto?
Something that really boggles my mind and feels artificial are the moments where the narrative is only held up by the same constantly returning,
circular motive: the
women are too
stubborn, keep secrets, distrust MC (often exactly because he's a
man - can't trust a man because men bad, but they can't hire a woman?!), despite hiring him as the "best" in his field to do his job and as a consequence he can't do his job well. Even when they're actually afraid
people will die if they don't come clean, they're still being stubborn and secretive and more than two weeks have passed in this universe without them revealing all relevant info to MC.
They're going around in circles about this so much I can't bear it. Again: self-fulfilling prophecies all around.
Most of these women are also of the "
woe me" variety, "look at how hard my life is", but we're talking about the
1%, people who could stop working right there and then and they would swim in cash like Scrooge McDuck for the rest of their lives. Quite a few times, realizing this, I thought to myself: cry me a fricking river.
What I didn't quite get is that the
main girl's mother still works and functions well as a top model (her age isn't even the main problem) and people can't stop talking about how great and humble she is; she lets herself be touched by certain men when wearing outfits that don't cover anything that needs to be covered and she keeps a straight face, but for some reason she
selectively turns into a psychotic mess and takes out her stubborn
sexism almost exclusively on MC even though MC is the one who least deserves it. I didn't connect with the reasoning behind this narrative choice at all. Another character's explanation of this to MC basically is: "You know nothing, [Jon Snow]."
Also, I assume the goal is to like, sympathize with and even fall in love with this character, which is just impossible.
The
main girl is 18-19 but acts (and to be honest, is treated) like she's 12 and hasn't had her big talk about the birds and the bees yet. Slightly creepy considering she's fancying MC.
So naive, fragile and ignorant as well I simply don't see her surviving in that fictional universe if she even does as much as go outside (her own mom doesn't even believe that, that's the premise of the story); and I don't know how she did before MC arrived. Parenting failure to say the least.
On romantic/adult content: there's
no middle ground at all between female characters throwing themselves at MC just because they're
loose and crazy (and even then all that happens is a kiss, but I steered clear of that weird one) and people struggling so much with their own sexuality and
frigidity there's no teasing at all. I can empathize with people who get sick of it and feel like "sLoW bUrN" doesn't describe what's going on. I still hope there's going to be plenty of romantic content (not just unromantic sexual assaults or "accidents") later on if it's going to be a long story and it's probably going to happen after a pretty long bonding process. Something I don't hold against the VN in that case - yet.
Also considering the fictionalized Hollywood and Weinstein inspired setting,
most of the current adult but non-romantic content always without MC consists of sexual abuse, as stated earlier.
TL;DR: it's a daddy and white knight sim with sexual assault as adult content (yes, huge contrasts) and lots of hate and abuse flung at MC just for being a man. The dev took narrative risks, but the characters are so unlikable, the story motives and themes so unnecessarily obscene and misandric, soap opera like and grating, that the VN's overarching plot falls flat on its face. In short, a most overrated end result wherein the story motives and characters' behavior take away from the good visuals and wholesome surrogate dad moments.
