I feel like the end has been in sight for a while, as much as I really hate to say it. For me at least, the game has been on a slow downhill progression for about a year. The way I see it:
Chapter 1: Very solid start to a VN. Dev is clearly gaining his footing, a bit boring at times, and it can feel monotonous to lay the groundwork for a story with so many characters. But wow, this is well written and some scenes (first beach event, bluejay, etc) just blew me away.
Chapter 2: Absolute fucking masterpiece. Every update better than the last, when I did not think it was possible. I was completely invested in the story, couldn't wait to find out what happens next. The Christmas event where Noriko gives Akira the box of memories, the flashback, Nikki confesses in the lobby, Maya shares a heartfelt moment on the roof -- what an incredible update. That gets followed up by Maya's birthday festival update. And then followed up with Ami visiting her parent's graves for the second time. And THEN ends with a cliffhanger where Maya was missing for the reset. This was the game at its absolute peak.
Chapter 3: Started out super fucking strong, with the reset where Ayane joins the fray and Maya almost gets reset. And some events are still incredible -- some of the game's best events are in chapter 3 (Maya's firefly almost-kiss scene, the Noriko date competition, Nikki's childhood tour and Akira remembering his name). But as chapter 3 went on, updates became inconsistent. For every incredible update or scene, there was another that was 80% nonsense spiritual rambling, or damaged my opinion of a character I actually cared about.
Chapter 4: What the fuck is even going on anymore? It swings between boring and monotonous to absolute nonsense, with characters being assassinated left and right. I open up each new update and think, "wow, which character will be ruined forever today." I cared so much about almost every single one of the girls at the end of chapter 2. Now, there are maybe a handful of them left that I would care if they died. It still has its moments. Both the Io and the Rin date competition from this last update were examples of that. But nothing so far in chapter 4 has blown me away like older scenes used to. And even when events are well written and meaningful, they just don't hit as hard because I don't care about the characters anymore. Like, in the future when Sana has a really sweet and meaningful scene, it will be forever tainted by how fucking horrible of a person she was this update. And the general quality of writing just feels like it's gradually been going downhill. Sel's subscribestar has been slowing dying. It's at 9.3k now. That's down from 9.8k in December, or 11k at its peak. And that's after an update just released, when his subscriber count is usually highest. He is pissing off (sometimes probably intentionally) the people who care the most about his game and not doing enough to keep the people who remain invested. I saw a bunch of people quit after he started getting more blatant with the NTR (if you want to call it that). Sel has previously predicted that many people will quit when wizard content becomes cannon. He has years left to finish this story, and I am genuinely concerned that he isn't going to make it there. Or worse, that I'll just stop caring about the game entirely before it happens.
