I wanted to give this four or five stars because in a lot of ways it's a major improvement on this author's previous works. That's how I felt for most of the beginning, but after he starts getting hot with Melody (which takes a considerable while), it was all downhill.
It suffers from the same flaws as his other genre-defining title.
Again, you made me fall in love with the main love interest, Melody... just like you did with your daughter... and then you had me doing self-cucking stuff right and left.
I drew the line when the ex barged into my apartment and then called herself my fiance right in front of Melody, and I'm not given the chance to correct her, to clarify to Melody and right to that chick's face that she is history... and worse, I'm forced to "hug" or "kiss" her goodbye when I want nothing to do with her. And I've made that clear in all choices leading up to this.
There is a lot of this... manufactured drama. The choices you make do not lead to drama, instead drama is foisted on you by NPCs and situations outside of your own control... and generally resolved by NPCs.
And the characters have development in their actions which makes you like them... but same as his last work, all the characters speak the same, using "as" as a filler in sentences, like one would use the word "because" or to combine what would have otherwise been two sentences:
"I couldn't see them at the mall, as I was doing my nails at the time."
"I want to feel you up, as I am incredibly horny right now."
"I was at the store and I thought I might as well buy it, as I don't own anything like that already."
This happens on average about every 10 lines of dialog, so much that I can't avoid seeing it every single time. It would be perfectly fine if this was one character's pattern of speech, but all characters sound like this. They all speak in complete, proper sentences. No shortcuts. No slang. It's easy to read and highly descriptive... but repetitive and indistinguishable.
The sexual build up is pretty good. It's a great vanilla date simulator... emphasis on vanilla... but the sex scenes aren't very hot and the animations are like alien probings... the models are cute in a very Barbie Doll kind of way, but they defy physics on beds with legs hanging out in the air and the poses are all unnatural and stagey.
I stayed with this a lot longer than I did his previous work. And just like that one I went all in on every love interest, only to fall for Melody as she develops later, and then I'm given no chance to rectify any of those relationships and am forced to keep seeing them when clearly I should be all in on Melody at this point. But ultimately none of this mattered... I felt like a creep but the MC didn't. His inner dialog was perfectly fine with saying "I love you" for the first time to Melody and then fucking someone in the next scene.
If you go on a date with Becca or Amy you're going to end up fucking them later even if by then you're committed to Melody, who wasn't even close to committed to you at the time you accepted those other advances... and it was their advance, too... the MC has no agency in this... aside from planning where they're going on a date, or what lessons Melody is going to learn, the MC initiates NO action in this.
All the breakups are initiated by the NPCs too... they all get jobs in other cities. The MC is DTF with everyone but also very clearly professing and acting out of love with Melody... it's a bit bipolar.
Every sexual encounter and every hookup is started by the NPC with the MC asking all along the way "are you sure about this?" In fact every action in this is preceded by one of the characters asking them if they can take that action... at some point you would think Melody would just up and go to the bathroom without asking permission. Nearly every action by every character occurs this way, with one character asking permission to do something, no matter how spectacular, or mundane.
And the sex has too much talking in it. "I'm going to lay you down on the bed." "I'm going to put it in." "Are you ready for me to put it in?" "I'm ready to have you inside me." "It's going to feel so good inside you." "What are you waiting for?" "Right, I'm putting it in you..."
This had potential. This author is infuriating. If this was garbage throughout, it would be easy to just walk away from this without a review and chalk it up to someone learning a new craft... but this grabs you with characters you start to fall for, and then breaks you by forcing drama that could be avoided simply by giving the MC a choice to do what the reader is dying to do in that moment.
It was insulting to Melody and all the romantic times her and the MC have had, even early that day, to not correct the ex in that situation. Unforgivable. Make me care about this and then force me into that...
And ultimately choices mean nothing except the one where you decide to stay with a character or not. You can screw everyone and it doesn't seem to affect the main relationship and eventually they all break up with you before there is a conflict. The choices that advance her stats are arbitrary and it's really a matter of using click-and-back to find the right choice that gives the most points. It's unclear most of the time which would be the right choice and you just have to wing it. Like when you first offer her food: offering her meat ends up not giving her points but the salad does, so later when you're given the chance to order for her in the restaurant, you're thinking she likes salads, but no, this time she wants the ribs.
And I couldn't tell you objectively which is the most impressive compliment but when she asks you how she looks before a concert your options are "Perfect" "Amazing" and "Dayum" ... one of those gives you points. Can you tell which one does? It's a crap shoot. This is an example of nearly every stat advancing choice in this game.
And near the end of the infuriating storyline for the ex, you're given a chance to "intervene" or "do nothing" when Melody's guitar ends up in danger... intervening leads to the guitar being destroyed and not doing a thing ends with the guitar being given back... this choice was just a crap shoot and the choice that seemed right was wrong. This happens a lot.
And it's hugely annoying how the MC -- a musician who can play any instrument and who has toured live and recorded for years -- goes WAY out of his way to avoid playing an instrument alongside Melody when she is a solo act and when she forms a band. This entire time I'm screaming at this thing "PICK UP AN INSTRUMENT IDIOT!!!"
For a guy whose first love is music, he does every thing in his power to avoid playing music.
Why can't he manage and be part of the band? And for that matter, why can't he manage the band and date the singer? They're all adults, she has talent leverage and the MC has blackmail leverage... the sneaking around is again, manufactured drama.
To the author: You write great love interests.... you do real well with the inner dialog and the build up is a very good pace... but you need to work on their voice to make them more distinguishable... and give the MC more agency, have him advance some sexual situations and sometimes keep his mouth shut during them... and a better realization of what the reader might be thinking. You've made Bethany into a total cunt, you'd have to know I'd want to punch her more than I'd want to "hug" or "kiss" her in front of the main love interest of the entire story... and the choice system could use more meaning. Give the user clues to what they should pick before they're forced to decide.
And the daily recaps that are clearly in there from when this was being made in chapters gets really old. A good idea when you end these stories would be to go back and edit down the mental recaps that marked chapter breaks from development. And in future works, maybe work on adding a second stat that gives alternate meaning to making choices. In this system it's always a binary right/wrong choice... even when given multiple options, there is still only one right choice. The stat build up is a good system to give the user a feeling of advancement but it needs a reason to pick the other options.
And a final tip: Song titles cannot be copyrighted and artist names can be printed as long as you don't defame them. All the fake names alluding to real people and songs is just a time-wasting puzzle for the reader. Just avoid lyrics and you can use all the real stuff you can think of... and this would be much better for it. You did a real good job keeping the music theme going throughout, it just would have been better to not have to try and figure out who you were discussing.
This is probably more of a three or four start thing... I'm biased because I left this mad. I cared about the characters and then was forced to put them through things I'd never do to someone I care about.
I'm not certain it wouldn't have been better to have not cared at all.
