Lessons in Love is not going to live up to the hype if you've been around the block for a while.
It's supposed to be this "philosophical" game that asks us - people who play porn games - questions that the game developer and its fans think we never thought to ask ourselves, such as "damn is incest kinda fucked up?" or "damn is abusing our position of power to get some pussy fucked up?" or even - THE HORROR - "Is taking advantage emotionally vulnerable women to get some pussy fucked up?".
Unfortunately for the developer, these questions are fairly entry level if you've played over even 10 non-indie, japanese visual novels. One hour of euphoria has more fucked up content and makes me question how down I'm willing to go than the 40 hours I sunk into this.
The fourth wall breaks are random, don't come with any worthwhile long-term effects apart from one scene in the middle of the game, the sandbox is woefully slow and painfully boring as most sandboxes are, none of the characters feel decently fleshed out enough because there's just so fucking many, and the scenes that directly address the reader to say "hey are these things fucked up?" are short, quickly end, and don't really become a theme throughout the game, making it feel as if the game is scared of coming into these things too strongly.
The end result is just that: a game that fails to be philosophically or morally intriguing and interesting because it is scared to lean heavily into these things AND the themes are also fairly soft to begin with, while ALSO being a game that fails to be good to fap to because of the woeful sandbox and sheer amount of characters. Therefore, there is nothing to say about LiL other than it is painfully average.
However! LiL is a good intro into the denpa-style genre or these more self-reflective visual novels, of which we can include several known games ranging from Subahibi to Kimi to Kanojo to Kanojo to Koi. If you've never played this, holy shit, LiL must feel stellar.
But if you've been around the block and played any number of these types of VNs with fourthwall breaks or denpa/ethical questions, LiL is painfully, painfully average.
It's supposed to be this "philosophical" game that asks us - people who play porn games - questions that the game developer and its fans think we never thought to ask ourselves, such as "damn is incest kinda fucked up?" or "damn is abusing our position of power to get some pussy fucked up?" or even - THE HORROR - "Is taking advantage emotionally vulnerable women to get some pussy fucked up?".
Unfortunately for the developer, these questions are fairly entry level if you've played over even 10 non-indie, japanese visual novels. One hour of euphoria has more fucked up content and makes me question how down I'm willing to go than the 40 hours I sunk into this.
The fourth wall breaks are random, don't come with any worthwhile long-term effects apart from one scene in the middle of the game, the sandbox is woefully slow and painfully boring as most sandboxes are, none of the characters feel decently fleshed out enough because there's just so fucking many, and the scenes that directly address the reader to say "hey are these things fucked up?" are short, quickly end, and don't really become a theme throughout the game, making it feel as if the game is scared of coming into these things too strongly.
The end result is just that: a game that fails to be philosophically or morally intriguing and interesting because it is scared to lean heavily into these things AND the themes are also fairly soft to begin with, while ALSO being a game that fails to be good to fap to because of the woeful sandbox and sheer amount of characters. Therefore, there is nothing to say about LiL other than it is painfully average.
However! LiL is a good intro into the denpa-style genre or these more self-reflective visual novels, of which we can include several known games ranging from Subahibi to Kimi to Kanojo to Kanojo to Koi. If you've never played this, holy shit, LiL must feel stellar.
But if you've been around the block and played any number of these types of VNs with fourthwall breaks or denpa/ethical questions, LiL is painfully, painfully average.