Thanks for this. I kind of got the impressions that's the case from some of the comments and reviews for that game, so I think I know what it might refer to.
The cringe part is mostly about the MC that I found utterly uninteresting and just the initial vibe I got from the characters.
Which is obviously not very fair to judge so early into such a long game. I vaguely remember not immediately hitting it off with LiL either, though the game kinda also looked worse back then (old heads in here still remember the character sprites).
And as I said, I didn't mind the style. I liked it in Tropicali good enough and I'm not insanely picky. So I'll most likely just give it another go.
I won't let myself get spoiled though, but thanks for the suggestion!
I'm pretty sure every game on F95 is marketed off as wank material

This one was no exception really, it was initially just seen as a rage bait VN harem parody, that essentially played like a typical harem but subverted your expectations.
I'd imagine that the average/typical initial experience of most of the thread dwellers on here was something like:
"Oh this game seems good, let's see what this is all about. Damn, the characters are cute, the writing is pretty decent too. Oh fuck, shit's going down already, neat. *unzips pants* *FUCKED UP THINGS HAPPENING* *pants getting aggressively zipped up* NOPE.EXE"
And then you just eventually stay for the story and kind of just theorize what's actually happening.
It essentially turned from a "Anime isekai parody harem horror" game into a "Sherlock Holmes if it was set in a weird alternative universe and Sherlock was a depressed piece of shit with childhood trauma and strong Ephebophilia" game.