I have just reached the ending and... I'm not gonna dwell on whether the game is good or not but I must say one thing. The whole incest thing feels pushed in by force. I mean... mc and his sister commiting incest, their parents commiting incest, the princesses commiting incest... There's too much of it. It's like the story is about incest.
Agreed but not because some have been doing it (with the tavern wench implying there's actually plenty more... to be fair, back in those days, it wasn't necessarily that uncommon). I'd say it's because there's a bit of lack of chemistry. Obviously not between the parents, we never see them anyway.
MC and his sister almost never act like siblings, they don't share many secrets. Evelyn is overall fairly forgettable, despite her screen time. Could be easily fixed by Evelyn knowing stupid crap MC did or shameful facts about the once lazy bum. If she cares about him, she'll tease him to try and motivate him to do better. Or just for fun. Callie kinda gives off that childhood friend vibe for instance, though it's not exactly dwelled upon as much as I'd like. But Evelyn feels neither like a sister nor a mom. She feels like a friendly if not infatuated roommate? My memory of her is kinda hazy at best actually, that's how little of an impact her character made on me. Not enough personality. She doesn't need more screentime, she needs better screentime.
As for the princesses, I'd have liked to see MC actually honouring his word at first to explore a bit more their relationship, what they mean to one another. Possibly showing a scene with Thaddeus too to show him in a new light. Lilith apparently found him nice enough back then, maybe he flirted with her in search of power? As for Selena, he apparently loves her for real, even though I find it fairly inconsistent with his egocentric personality. I actually figured that was what didn't click and he was just looking to seize power through her. Got my head crushed for that answer. An answer I don't have much of a clue on because it's never been explored. Selena is the center of the story and when we can finally learn about her, it's just a sex scene and that's it. Basically, the only characterisation we get of her is: Selena = horny magical princess dyke.
Games are smoke and mirrors. They need to give the illusion of a living world to the player. That illusion is missing for those relations, which pretty much destroys them. I gave more of a crap for the Leanan Sidhe than Evelyn... and still wish her epilogue could be less heartbreaking. Poor girl is doomed to never be with the one man she loved enough to acknowledge her own nature, vowing to change it so she could be accepted by him and possibly have a chance. Yikes...
