In so many ways, this is everything that a porn game should be. It's got lots of nicely rendered sex, it has a distinctive art style, it has real gameplay, it tells a fun and exciting story....
I could actually go on a bit longer. It's really good. It feels ambitious and it meets those ambitions. There are some great character moments with fantastic background art. Like a good game of any genre, it successfully drives the player to be curious about the world and the plot. It leads with exploration and gives the player lots of porn treats and power ups along the way.
But when I think about what adult visual novels can be--what they really excel at--this just doesn't get there. This is a very well-made indie game with an where the character progression includes rather rote romances that happen to include explicit lewd scenes. There is no decision making within those relationship because the game isn't really about those relationships, it's about the pornified supernatural mystery. And as those mysteries begin to get solved, enjoyment of the game starts to depend on one's enjoyment of the tropes of the genre and the YA-inflected tone of the whole thing.
I could actually go on a bit longer. It's really good. It feels ambitious and it meets those ambitions. There are some great character moments with fantastic background art. Like a good game of any genre, it successfully drives the player to be curious about the world and the plot. It leads with exploration and gives the player lots of porn treats and power ups along the way.
But when I think about what adult visual novels can be--what they really excel at--this just doesn't get there. This is a very well-made indie game with an where the character progression includes rather rote romances that happen to include explicit lewd scenes. There is no decision making within those relationship because the game isn't really about those relationships, it's about the pornified supernatural mystery. And as those mysteries begin to get solved, enjoyment of the game starts to depend on one's enjoyment of the tropes of the genre and the YA-inflected tone of the whole thing.