As much as I enjoy this VN and I support the developer, playing this makes me feel like I'm temporarily living in the head of someone with bipolar disorder. It really is a whirlwind of emotions.
Most people seem to let the MC off the hook here, but I don't. Much of this shit is his fault for simply just letting shit happen around him. Imagine letting someone you've just met (Abby) run some experiment on you and your relationship. To the point where she drugs your wife and girlfriends, which they are at this point especially Mia.
Allowing yourself to be treated like he was during "girls day" or for even allowing such a thing on a trip with Lacey and Mia that he is paying for.
I'm glad that he's now seeing a therapist, she was right to be really concerned. I wouldn't be surprised if he spends part of the next chapter in a mental hospital.
If you don't understand why the MC let everything that happen to him happen, you haven't paid enough attention to his characterization, he is a broken passive man that does pretty much anything anyone ask of him, because he is driven by a desperate need to make everything better for everyone else. He did what Abby asked because he trust Jeanette, and she is her sister, and because of that he assumed she knew better and wouldn't do anything that would have cause serious damage.
As for the notion he is heading to a mental hospital you clearly don't understand how the Dev of this game think, I thought the three Acts would have shown this Dev doesn't believe in really solving problems unless it serve their narrative, and their narrative is built on a onslaught of drama, solving problems equate to stopping drama, so nothing really constructive is going to happen during this story until the final Act, at which point having driven its story into the ground via an excess of drama, the Dev is very likely to pull the typical 'United We Stand' trope of tossing a major threat to the characters, forcing them to overcome their issues to triumph, with failure likely to lead to death in the case of either or both of Lacey & MC, otherwise its going to be some sort of positive ending that hasn't been earned but artificially justified by the shared triumph.
So yea the likely outcome is next Act will start with someone quickly catching up to the MC and make him feel guilty for running away and abandoning all his girls, before proceed to whatever actual story the Dev will have artificially fabricated for that Act, which as I stated before will likely follow the pattern of them patching things up, Lacey fucking things up, patching things up again, and end on another cliffhanger to keep us hooked until Act 5, if you expect anything else you haven't learned any lesson from the first 3 Acts that all virtually followed the same framework.
The whole thing with Dianne was perfect, absolutely spot on. Not only did she call Lacey out and hold her accountable but she's seen the same kind of relationship from the MC's side so it's spoken from experience not just ranting.
She's the exact friend that Lacey needs to help her grow.
I am a bit saddened by the whole Vegas thing mainly with Jeanette. She was one of my faves but the BDSM club really let her down.
Shameful admittance but during the 2 years me and my twin sister traveled we did go to a couple of raves and happened to pop ex on more than one occasion. It didn't make me do anything I didn't want to or change anything about me personality wise. What it did do is make me want to dance and talk a lot of waffle for few hours. I couldn't stay still at all.
It's also insanely dangerous to spike someone with. If someone happened to have a medical condition or a bad high then it doesn't end well.
I did wonder to myself if Abby was put there just to make Lacey look good in comparison. Abby fucked up mahoosively which took some of the heat of the others.
Yue is also making her way to my shit list slowly. I adored her for the first 2 parts but now she's essentially wanting to do to Brandon the same thing Lacey has done to the MC. Her and Brandon have a kind of thing going on and she's chasing the MC. I do find that a bit icky.
I think Jamie is going to end up as one of my faves. He was super adorable as a guy but now he's leaning more into his feminine side even going to some boobs, I think the now she will be a sweetheart.
I want to like Anna but she did annoy me during the trap fail. She's all mouth and rage against Lacey but the second she needs to show a bit of spine she breaks down and shits herself.
Mia is the friend no one needs. She just brings chaos and amplifies problems that don't need amplifying.
The biggest issue being with so many women is it takes constant effort to keep them all happy and make sure no one is jealous. Having them all in a kind of harem looks great on paper but so few of them have shown themselves to be worth the effort it would take. This is why I keep harping on about the dev needing to start building them up because the longer it keeps going with the friend group drama the less girls the players will want to keep around. Prof needs to realise he's making some of these girls incredibly unlikable and reel it in a bit, especially with Mia and Lacey. Mia right now is like one of the antagonists, any further and he'll be unable to bring her back to a tolerable state.
He also needs to start resolving some of the drama even if only in the friend group. He keeps piling it on and it's getting overwhelming. 3 updates of constant drama and no time to breath.
I think for his next game he should lean into the drama and do a tragedy instead of trying to push a group romance ark too. Without the nonsense excuses, he clearly knows how to write dramatic stories. If he wasn't trying to keep a handful of relationships going and Lacey's constant excuses it would be a good drama story. Sadly he hasn't quite got the balance between the drama and relationship building right now. It's very heavy on drama and far too light on relationship building.
Huh first, what was that about Yue? My Yue was very hooked to the MC and chose him over Brandon, but the MC basically forced her to take Brandon and implied just about they'd figure something out later. I guess you possibly have a lower point version of that Yue meeting, or you misunderstood things, anyhow the MC would be to blame on that one, Yue clearly want to be with the MC in my version but said outright to Yue that she has to date Brandon, so if anything I think the Dev intend basically 3 possible outcomes, either the MC cuck Brandon, either the MC & Lacey swing with Yue & Brandon, either the MC decide later to stay away from Yue? I guess that will be our choice down the line. Not that I like it, I would have rather kept Yue for the MC, I don't know if their is a way to possibly keep her for the MC, if their is its unknown yet.
As for why he doesn't bother it seem at all to fix the relationships issues, look at what I wrote above, to me its becoming incredibly clear the Dev intend to pull a last Act major struggle to get everyone to play nice together, nothing will be earned and everything magically enforced upon the characters, its the only way I can see things heading after 3 Acts of dramatic onslaught.
