Leap of Faith is a
really good game. 2020 has been a surprisingly good year for high-quality, story driven games, with many new developers entering the space (thanks COVID?). For a first time developer especially, Leap of Faith is exceptionally good. I'm surprised it hasn't gotten more attention, and it took me so long to find it as it's right up my alley. I can only assume it's a matter of time.
Drifty is creating a compelling narrative with interesting characters. It has meaningful choices. It has a good and consistent tone, it's serious when it needs to, and humorous when it needs to. It has beautiful renders. It has a great and thematically appropriate soundtrack. It has fluid and fun animation sequences. Perhaps above all, it has a very high level of polish. It's hard to describe completely but everything from the UI to the game mechanics just screams high quality. It is so high that you can easily compare Leap of Faith to current greats of adult VNs like Being a DIK and City of Broken Dreamers and not feel bad in the slightest - Leap of Faith matches up or even surpasses them in certain cases. Everyone who is interested in story-driven adult VNs should play this game.
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I now want to talk about my issue with Leap of Faith. I prefaced this with the overwhelming praise because the game deserves it, even if I do have problems with it. My criticism is because I want the game to be the best it can possibly be.
Minor spoilers ahead.
My primary criticism is to do with Episode 4, and more specifically what I see as the game pigeonholing, or forcing major decisions on the player far too early. The start of Episode 4 asks you to pick one of the love interests. This decision will affect who you go on a "date" with at the end of Episode, and from all indications, who will be your primary (if not exclusive) love interest in the game going forward. This is far too early for the story. I realize I am not the first to raise this issue, and Drifty has mentioned it already (8 chapters), but I wanted to give my opinion on it. The choice of love interest should have really been at the
end of chapter 4, not the start (at a minimum, anyway). Both the player, and James as a character aren't really at a position to make such a choice. You barely know anything about much of the girls, or at least anything other than the superficial. Chapter 4 should have been getting to know each of the love interests,
then deciding.
The clear casualty of this issue is Stephanie. When we have to decide at the start of Chapter 4, we have yet to have single real conversation with her, nor have we heard her reason for leaving. There's also a disconnect between the player and James, who the player is meant to inhabit. James may or may not be in love with Stephanie based on his emotions, but the player doesn't really have anything to go on other than a couple of flashback scenes. The result is incredibly gamey. Most people probably won't pick Steph initially, then they get to the conversation with her and hear her out, then they have reload back to the decision to pick her if they like her, completely breaking immersion. Alternatively, players may pick Steph on a whim, then hear her out, decide her reason is shit, then reload to pick someone else. In other words, the player is making a decision that really requires knowledge they only obtain after that decision.
While the issue with Stephanie is the most obvious, the same issue affects all the love interests to some extent (with the possible exception of Lexi). You only find out more about them during Chapter 4 after the decision, or worse, only on their specific path. The relationship and history between Linda and James is unclear, particularly how they broke up and James began dating Stephanie instead. Robin and Kira come across only as a sexually open/promiscuous couple who just want a threesome. Only after you pick their route to you learn about their desire to settle down and have a family (a possible point of tension?). Cece's condition (and the cause thereof) isn't really explained or meaningfully expanded upon, even if you do pick her path. Lexi seems to be the only one who seems to be more or less what she initially appears to be, but her path has issues too. Unless you specifically pick her path, she barely chases after you, bizarre given it's the primary reason she invited you and your friends. On her path, she states she's been throwing herself at you, which doesn't seem the case at all. Lexi also seems incredibly unfazed by all the other competing love interests.
Chapter 4 should have allowed you to go on all the "dates" with all the love interests (even if it means skimping or moving the sex scenes currently within the dates) and get to know them much better,
then you decide which one to pursue, then you can get a sex scene. While moving the decision to the end of Chapter 4 isn't perfect and there are still some underlying issues, I think it's far better than how it's currently set out. I still think there needs to be more time/chapters, especially to develop some interpersonal conflict, competition and jealousy between the love interests (and James), but okay for Drifty's planned eight chapter length budget.
While it's not as a big deal, I also find the forced choices and passage of time also annoying. Yeah I know devs have to limit choices and can't explore every combination of choices, it does at times feel really artificial. At the start of Chapter 4, there's no real reason James can't do more than one of the options. There's no real reason James can't text Steph (it takes like 5 minutes)
then go visit Lexi. Robin's and Kira's conversation seems like in only takes ten minutes. The only two that seem like they take any substantial length of time is Cece and Lexi's choices (but James always has time to visit Linda after?).
The passage of time during Chapter 4's "party" section also confused me. It's one of those cases where I can't tell if I'm just an inattentive idiot, or it was poorly communicated to the player. Initially I thought the whole party sequence takes place over one night/two days - Lexi's song showing a flashforward. This is probably because I was first on Lexi's path where they say they would have a date tomorrow, so I took it at its word that the date was the next day? Then I though maybe the party sequence takes place over a few days (no more than a week). Now I see here on this thread people saying the time skip is a few weeks, which is why Cece has a tan? I'm really not sure what the passage of time is meant to be. If it is meant to be more than a few days, than it raises the issue of why James fails to spend more time having deeper and meaningful conversations with people other than his chosen love interest (and Linda I guess). Also don't Chris and Kira have jobs to go to? Like at Chapter 4 end summary screen, it says about Kira and Robin "In fact, you've dismissed both of them completely. They are completely ok with being just your friend". So over possible weeks we're at Lexi's, we don't get a single other opportunity to talk to them about being a couple/throuple, other than the very first night? Even with both of them being pretty into it? Like why not?!?
The weird, inconsistent passage of time really confuses the narrative. I'm left feeling like Chapter 4 is incomplete, even though it's meant to be finished and is by far the largest and most extensive of the chapters.
Most of the other issues I have with Chapter 4 have already been well articulated by
ename144 in
this good post.
Anyway enough from me. I've been really critical but I have to reiterate even with my complaining, this game is
really fucking good.
