Based on the (as yet) unfinished v0.5.5.
My usual disclaimers when writing reviews on here are that A. I am here for the "plot" not the plot and B. I generally dislike visual novels. So take both of those into consideration for my review when thinking about this game.
Pros
- Visuals - The characters and renders in this are top tier. Including, and it feels weird to say it, the protagonist. After so many honey select games and ones which don't really feature a decent looking protag it's pretty cool to be able to actually play as a character that the dev clearly spent more than 2 seconds creating (even if he's blatantly in his mid-twenties and not 18). Of course, the girls themselves are hot as hell as hell, with some of them being absolute stand-outs (oh man, the red-headed neighbour...) plus some nice variation between them all too. The animations seem fairly decent too, if nothing to write home about.
- Sex - I've said it before, but I want my erotic games to have a lot of sexy stuff in them, and this hits it out the park. There's plenty of sexual content and it's all really very hot. Honestly, I will admit, I wish there was a little more, but frankly I don't think anyone can really complain about the quality and quantity of sexual content here.
Mehs
- Pacing - Around halfway through the current version the game slips into a long flashback sequence. After having spent a couple of hours just starting to get to know all of the main characters, it was super jarring to suddenly be thrown into this long flashback. In the end it does seem fairly pertinent to the story and the characters, plus it was actually enjoyable in itself so I can't complain too much, but at least at first it seemed like an odd and sudden lurch in the direction of the story.
- Kinks - A very personal complaint here which may or may not really affect others, but while I did enjoy the sexual content, I have to also say that thus far it has been SUPER tame. Not that this is inherently bad, after all even I am in the mood for vanilla now and then, but just as a point of personal preference I'd love to see more varied and rougher kinks introduced.
- "Where to finish" - A bit of an odd issue here, verging on even being a negative, again related to the sexy stuff. Essentially, while the sex scenes themselves seem relatively well fleshed-out, they almost always seem to end with a fade to black sort of thing. Now, I dunno if you've ever seen that meme about guys only watching a few bits of porn videos, and then skip to the cumshot, but there's an element of truth to it. "Seeing"/playing the cumshot in erotica is one of the hotter moments for me (and I suspect I am not alone in this) because it's sort of the apex of the whole scene, so the way it's done here makes many of the sexy scenes feel very anti-climatic. Which is a bit disappointing.
- Dialogue - I'm not sure if English is Nyx's (the dev) first language, but occasionally the writing does come across as just ever-so-slightly awkward and stilted. It's not bad by any means, and it all makes sense of course... However, there was a lot of dialogue which sounded just verging on that edge of robotic:
"Hello MC, it is lovely outside today. How are you today?"
"Hello blonde girl. Yes, it is sunny outside today, I feel great. Ha ha. Humour deployed."
Cons
- Melodrama - This consistently feels like one of my biggest gripes with the games on this site, and once again it feels so pertinent here. Particularly as the plot develops further there seems to regularly be so much unnecessary drama going on with over the top responses. Nobody just sits ands talks it out... Although, I will admit, maybe without this kind of soap-y stuff it would just be boring...
- Erynn is a good girl - So, this was a really weird inconsistency I just didn't get whatsoever... Right at the very start of the game you are told, via quick flashbacks, that the protag used to have a huge crush on blondie Erynn, but eventually they drifted apart and Erynn even eventually took part in bullying him, to the point where he grew to despise her. However, when you get back into town this is immediately forgotten. Erynn has apparently missed you for the last 5 years and thought about you every day and you of course missed her a lot as well. It left me feeling like I'd missed a whole scene where they make-up for past differences and with her apologising rather than him continuing to hold a grudge over the past bullying. It also feels like something of a mixed trick as it could have been actually very fun to come back into town and end up seducing the girl who used to bully you/make fun of you (because that's not a common fantasy at all...). Just... Just weird...
I am very torn between giving Intertwined 3 or 4 stars. On one hand, I have to admit, I actually enjoyed playing it, I enjoyed the sexy stuff and the setting and characters. In the end though I feel like it was juuuust forgettable and generic enough that it rests closer to 3 than it does 4.
Even though I am whinging a lot, I think from a moment to moment basis, most of it didn't really affect how much I actually enjoyed the game. It's only now when I reflect on it that I really think "man, did I enjoy that as much as I thought I did?"
This is with the exception of the Erynn segments, because I swear that just confused me so completely...
On the other hand, I can't really see myself raving about it too much. Visuals are all well and good, but not the most important for me thing in terms of erotic VNs and beyond that, the game doesn't feel super special. It's a crowd-pleaser but also not exceptional, if I were to describe it in a word it would be: solid.
The writing is fine, stilted and awkward sometimes, but it doesn't take you out of the experience. The setting is mundane and uninspired, but its presented nicely.
Character's internal monologues are edging a tiny bit towards insipid territory as all the girls respond in the exact same way to you: "oh gosh, why am I thinking like this about him. Why does he turn me on so much? Oh my goodness. I've never felt this way before. What's wrong with me?" But, again, it's not so over-the-top so as to completely remove you from the experience and actively detract from it (unlike SOME GAMES I could mention).
All in all, it just works and is just a decent experience.