Seems I will be the first one that's not in love with this VN.
I have to say, this VN, is VERY heavy on text, ie. dialogues and whatnot.
And that's fine for some VN's. IF the story is actually really intriguing.
That's the problem here. This VN, let's just say I struggled to stay awake.
To be blunt, it's rather boring.
And no, it is not because the EXTREMELY few lewd scenes.
Which you really should know before playing this VN, it's SO FAR, definitely not about the lewd stuff. I couldn't tell you even what the story is about, because I lost interest after the millionth line of dialogue and monologues.
Only thing that saves this game from a lower rating, is the renders. The quality of the renders are really good. The ladies are almost all very attractive.
In fact, I can't remember a single female that wasn't attractive. Well there's this old lady, so probably her lol.
Animations are well made as well. Early on I felt there was an over-use of them, and you can't even click them away. You have to either yawn your way thru them, or go into settings and 'skip unread text'. Most animations, or at least thats the impression I got, are not even needed. A camera swooping around a girl. Wow. Adds like...absolutely nothing that 2 still renders couldn've have done.
I forgot what exactly one of the reviews mentioned, but it was something about "sex scenes". As in plural, as if there's LOTS of them. There isn't.
For the amount of renders, and 'game time', it's REALLY stingy on the lewd stuff.
Again, this is NOT why I rate it this low. I dont mind a good story, and/or slow-burns now and then. But this is neither. Story aint good. You're not really working your way up the ladder with any particular girl.
Sure you get to know some of them more and more, even the ones the MC knew prior to the game's 'story'.
And as mentioned, they're more or less all pretty dang attractive.
But I have to be sober when I write reviews, which a lot of people seem to fail at doing. Handing out 5 stars to left and right.
I normally dont review anything after a 0.2, but rather a few more updates.
But this review score is SO incredibly misleading.
Sure, I enjoyed Dotty's previous game too. But that doesnt automatically make THIS a "masterpiece". Nor am I someone that puts higher than realistic score just because I like the dev, or know him. Nor am I an alt-account (no, I do not mean Dotty does, I really don't, seriously, some devs actually do that, but I actually trust Dotty)
Is this a 1-star VN? No, but it's FAR From a friggin FIVE star VN.
Imagine, you have VN's like Summer's Gone, Artemis, etc, and then you have THIS. Is this even on the same level as those two examples? (note: I hate mentioning other VN's in a review, but I had to give this example)
No, not by a mile.
Yet, this one, prior to my review, has HIGHER rating than those games.
Speaking of SG, it's in my top 3, and anyone that have played that one, knows it's extremely stingy with lewd scenes - so again, this VN is not getting this rating due to lack of lewd scenes.
But I also think this VN could've scored higher from me, IF it actually had more 'fun stuff' so to speak. Because all that reading, that was far from interesting or captivating, just bored me. If there was at least a few more lewd scenes, then I would've stayed awake at least.
The MC isn't interesting, not one bit. Actually, he's simply boring.
I dont compare games when I rate them, but compare this to Dotty's previous VN, this one isn't even close to being as interesting. Was CC amazing? No, but it always made me want MORE, it literally made me long for the next update, it made me happy when there was a new update.
This one just fails at that. It fails at so many things.
But, IHKY does look much nicer though.
I'm sorry Dotty, sorry for this review score - I enjoyed your previous game. But this one, SO FAR, is just... not fun nor interesting. Sorry.
I meant to give this a 2-star, but I'm gonna give it 3 stars. I feel it IS mediocre, and thats what 3 stars is for me. 5 is a masterpiece, and there's less than 10 masterpieces on the entire F95, IMHO.
It's a very loose 3-star though, it could easily go up or down when I possibly edit this score after a few more updates.
I WILL update this review score after a couple of more updates, IF I can be arsed to give this VN another chance. Either way, this score I feel is honest and accurate for what we have , as of 0.2/chapter 2.
This is FAR from a 5/5 VN. But it could easily become one I think, eventually.
After all we're only in chapter 2, so we're still 'early' on - I guess?
Again, I honestly struggle with giving this VN this rating, mainly because I did enjoy the previous work from Dotty. But again, previous work has zero importance of the rating of the current work.
I do suggest and recommend people try this one out, mainly because I DO believe in Dotty - but be prepared for a wall of text for many, many minutes. But also several pretty girls and stunning renders.