If I could post a review without a rating, I would. Personally, I think it's solid enough, but it's not just YMMV, your mileage will vary somewhere between the two extremes. Ignore stars and just listen to my points and others'.
Pros:
- The art style is gorgeous! Like, this game is just so pretty.
- If you want easily-accessible porn with hentai dialogue, it's like two clicks away at all times. I personally don't care for the hentai vibe, but I really only pay attention to the tone and some key words of Japanese VAs anyway, so it's really easy for me to tune all that out and focus on the pretty pictures. Even the porn looks so pretty.
- It was really easy for me to get attached to the fox girl (Vivi in English; I think they Westernized the name).
- You can spend all day patting her head. Always a big plus in foxgirl/catgirl/cute girl games.
- The story, in my opinion, is the biggest draw to this game. It's kind of out there, but at least it makes me more sympathetic for our poor fox girl, which is about all it really needs to do.
Cons:
- The biggest con of all is the unavoidable... well, dubious consent, at best. The game starts off with you taking Vivi home, comforting her, and then... *cough* "Comforting" her. You can stop now, but MC still starts to finger her regardless, which you don't need Sonic to tell you that that's no good. I see it as more dubious consent, because her protestations ring rather hollow and seem more performative in light of how quickly she warms up to allowing you to be sexual with her, but there's no denying that she's saying no the whole time and isn't in a position to fight you off (she's heavily wounded).
- The trainer gameplay is one of the weaker ones I've ever seen. It's a serviceable tool for the story, but you're mostly biding your time between story scenes.
- Subpoint: The "good" ending basically requires constant spamming of the dialogue button.
- Though far less of a negative than in its initial release, the translation isn't perfect. It is more or less coherent now, though. I have no idea how faithful it is to the original Japanese text or to the voice acting, but at least it isn't a constant distraction.
Overall, though it received some much-needed polish, this game leaves a bit to be desired. The lack of consent in the text, regardless of any speculation about cultural context or kinks or whatever, will rub some people the wrong way. Even the softened version will only ease people who were on the fence before. The trainer aspect could also use some more focus, as it could definitely be more satisfying and more of a feature. As it is, it's just kind of a skeleton around which the MC's interactions with Vivi are built.
