Spoilers….
Despite some glaring flaws Leap of Faith has been one of the better VN’s I’ve played in a good while. The story is very good (for the most part) and the characters are all well done (for the most part).
The writing is also well done, except for a few grammar errors peppered throughout which could have been corrected with a proofread.
MC – It was refreshing to have an MC who isn’t a thirsty simp simply looking to crush puss everywhere he goes. MC starts off in a fairly dark place after a few bad years and starts to live life again after his best friend finally gets him to get back out there. The MC is smart, witty, funny. Although I never really did like his hair.
Lexi - Lexi is best girl. Lexi is by far the best-looking girl in the game with Stephanie being a close second. After meeting all the LIs, and despite the game clearly being centered on CeCe, Lexi was always going to be my first choice. I have yet to see a game (I may just not have come across it yet) where you meet an insanely popular pop star and start dating her. It would be interesting to have a story about both the joys of the relationship, and the struggles of maintaining it on both sides. How the MC meets Lexi is perfect for the concept, it would just be nice to have an entire game centered on it.
There are a few things I wish the dev would have done differently with Lexi. First is when you’re on her yacht and the MC catches her making out with Holly the MC should have been much more upset at the situation than he was. He was just like…meh. Granted you are given the option of how to react, but either way is just so milk toast and disappointing. This could just be my own personal issues I have with cheating seeping in, but at that point the MC just felt like a doormat to me.
Second, there are a few things I find extremely unattractive in women…smoking, farting and shitting. There is a point in the relationship with Lexi where she and the MC are in a limo and the dev is running the trope where they keep trying to kiss but something always interferes. They go in for their third try and suddenly Lexi farts really loudly. I’m sure the dev thought this was funny, but it was just off putting to me. Then at the very end of the game and her story the MC wants to go to the bathroom to brush his teeth Lexi is initially fine with it, but then suddenly tries to warn MC off. At first when MC walks into the bathroom I thought he was going to find a positive pregnancy test that Lexi accidentally left out, but no…she took a fat shit and the toilet won’t flush and it’s stinking up the bathroom. Really?! What a terrible way to end an LIs story.
CeCe – CeCe hit close to home for me. My brother suffers from severe depression and has attempted suicide twice. While I liked CeCe as a character, I didn’t gravitate towards her as an LI because of her issues. I have to deal with this stuff in real life, I don’t need more of it in my games. I know that probably sounds bad. It’s just the way I feel. I did return later to play her route and it wasn’t anything special. Imagine CeCe as the only LI and nothing changes except the developing relationship with her. There were a few nice little moments, but nothing I haven’t already seen before.
This part might get me a lot of hate but I’m going to mention it anyway. Apparently, CeCe is based on the real-life daughter of the dev who committed suicide. While I don’t want to throw shade at the dev if it’s true, and I would know how it feels after last year losing a very close friend of over twenty years to suicide, I’ve seen people speculate that it may have been just a ruse to keep the dev’s Patreon going. Because, as someone pointed out, if you’re a dev and you lost your daughter to suicide the last thing on your mind would be to create an adult visual novel based on her and make her a romanceable LI in it. While I feel for the dev if his story is true, this is a bit…odd to me.
Kira & Robin – The bi-sexual lesbian couple. Robin was the worst looking girl in the game to me, and Kira looked better after she dropped the piercing, dark makeup and went back to her blonde hair. You have the option to enter a throuple with them. This route was okay with a nice little ending.
Holly – Lexi’s playful friend. I liked Holly. From what I’ve read the only way you can romance her is suggesting a throuple to Lexi after catching them kissing. Even then the only way you have sex with her is by cheating on Lexi with her. I never experienced this path myself. I accidentally spoiled this path beforehand and given my dim view of cheating I never bothered to pursue it. Which is a shame. Holly was a good character and should have been her own LI.
Linda – The old high school crush whom the MC reconnects with. Nothing special about Linda. Typical “reconnect with old high school crush” romance path.
Stephanie – The ghosting ex-girlfriend that spawned all the MC’s woes. Her backstory is kind of ridiculous. She was an agent for Homeland who was assigned to keep an eye on the MC after his father gifted him $200,000 from Afghanistan. In the process she fell in love with the MC but was forced to abandon him after Homeland determined he wasn’t a threat. That being said her romance route is actually pretty good. She has the best lewd scenes in the game followed by Lexi.
Lexi and Stephanie were my favorite routes.
There are several elements in the game which go nowhere leading to the game’s ending feeling rushed, and I’ll get to why shortly. The MC is contacted by his father who he has never met and decides to meet him. This is a single encounter conversation that leads to nothing. At the same time, you find out you have a half-sister. This also leads to nothing. If you romance Lexi there is a short scene right after having sex with her the first time of a man standing outside looking in with binoculars. This leads to nothing. After having returned and played all the girl’s routes there is a sex scene for whichever girl you choose at Lexi’s mansion and after every scene there is that same man watching with binoculars. Again, this never goes anywhere. There are other instances, but these are the ones that immediately spring to mind.
As to why none of this goes anywhere, the dev had licensed music in Leap of Faith. Upon the release of episode 7 the dev put the game up on Steam. Shortly afterwards the licenser updated their terms banning the use of their music in porn games and Steam pulled Leap of Faith from the store. The dev then spent the next few months reworking the music in the game. From what I understand the dev was originally going to develop Leap of Faith for quite a bit longer, but my guess is the thing with the licensing spooked him so he rushed to end the game with episode 8. Which is a shame. As good as this game is it could have been that much better if the relationships were all developed even further.
There is no harem route, and you are locked into an LI fairly early on.
There are a couple of fourth wall breaks done for comedy that didn’t work with it. Mainly because I don’t like fourth wall breaks in VNs since they break the immersion for me.
I could have also done without the pseudo-lecture about how “love is love”. Like we’re not constantly beaten over the head with this shit in real life every fucking day.
I’ve gone through and played all the different girls’ routes and I by far had the most fun with Lexi. Mainly because of the relationship dynamic with her. Stephanie was a close second. It was nice seeing them reconnect and continue with each other.
I’ve written this review over the course of a few days. I wrote the initial bulk of it after my first playthrough with Lexi and made revisions as I played through the other girls. After I was finished, I found myself still thinking about the characters and starting to miss them. It made me realize I liked Leap of Faith more than I initially thought. That is a compliment to the dev for making such good characters. I’m still only giving the game 4 stars because of the issues I’ve stated, but now it’s a hard 4 stars instead of the mid 4 I had in my mind.
I would highly recommend this game. Unfortunately, the journey is much better than the ending, but it’s a journey worth taking, nonetheless.