"Endgame" is the keyword in Alexis's case imo and the scene at the concert is the key. No other character has got to show as much personality as her so far. She's the only character that got to finish the "getting to know her" arc and is already moving on to the next arc involving Iris.
Maybe her progress was a little too fast and easy, but pretty much all relationships in this game are easy. In terms of forgiving her: I think this didn't actually happen, yet and it will only come up after the PC and Alexis rescue Erynn together.
Nikki and Cara seem like pure fan service to me. There's just not much to say about these two other than Nikki is fit and Cara is ... young(?). It's like a choice between big boobs and small boobs to keep the players interested, while they're busy with Andres' arc. I mean, talk about fast and easy relationship progression. These two basically throw themselves at the player.
And after finishing their story they come back as a compensation for when you accidentally ended the Alexis or Layla path. Nikki is suddenly as meek as Cara and there's just no way to tell them apart, because they're actually just a palette swap in most scenes.
Elena is the only character besides Erynn and Alexis that is allowed to have a life outside of school and dating the PC. I don't understand why Nyx didn't cash in on all this potential, yet, other than this one scene, where we got to know Elena's siblings.
Compare Elena to Layla and it's difficult to see how Layla is supposed to tell a story. The PC and her are basically bonding over her tits, which on the one hand is nice, because she's got the best in the game, but on the other hand is a little boring. Now that the relationship drama between her and Alexis is over, her selling point is supposed to be that she's a virgin, I guess.
Adding to your post, I honestly would rather the game just railroad the player towards some Alexis content (without ability to even choose), instead of letting us choose and yet by us doing so, amputating the story content from Erynn-Alexis dynamic.
Intertwined tells an interesting story but I don't count it as a good choice-driven game due to (almost) non-existent alternative dialogues and or scenes if we decide to cut Alexis.
At least at the game's current form.
I understand the opinion is too hasty to be levied to a game still relatively early in development but I can't help but feel unsatisfied with my blind playthrough that cuts Alexis off.
Even with walkthrough, as a player I actually would never go for Alexis in a canon playthrough.
But on Intertwined, the player "have to" go through Alexis route to get more of the "main" story of the game and so, I just feel that I would rather the dev just railroad me instead.
A good comparison would be Leap of Faith. The "main" story is about Cece regardless of which route the player choose. You get the meat of Cece story even without choosing Cece route. Erynn's "meat" is hidden behind Alexis route, the same way Elena's "meat" is hidden behind Layla's route.
Elena's route being hidden is fine, but Erynn story not being told in full in general playthrough is not something I prefer.
The addition of Valeria is completely fine by me. However, waiting for Nikki and Cara to be more relevant to the overall story however, is where the game lost me in the "excitement of looking forward to more chapters" a bit.
Because the game is still being develop. As in I feel like it would take a real long time for the game to have a payoff (as in real world development time) because everything is related to one another. Pay offs per chapter released are not as clean and waiting is not as exciting.
Of all the VNs I played, I like the Elena character really highly but, I also know it would take a really long time before this game would be satisfying to play because everything is related.
While I think the game is good, I think playing it chapter per chapter doesn't give me the the "excitement of looking forward to more content" the way I get from other games like "BaDIK" or "Above the Clouds". Consuming Intertwined in byte-sized pieces is not as satisfying for some reason I can't concisely explain.
I just feel like Intertwined main crux being the story all related to one another makes the game better experienced at it's completion instead because then you get to see the whole picture.
