The following review is based off my personal experience with playing this Game/Visual Novel... I try to be as brutally honest and detailed as I can, and these are my own opinions and thoughts, from one or more play throughs... The version this review is based on is v0.3...
Even though it has some unoriginal elements here and there, it was not that bad of a story to read... There is some incest content, depending on your choices...
The visuals of the characters are your basic moderate quality Japanese style 3D models, probably using Honey Select... It was a mix of unique looking characters and some similar ones I've seen before... The background are the same, being a mix of ones I've seen before with a few unique ones... The animations were decent and fluid, and what we've come to expect from Honey Select... The developers added a little bit of production value by adding in some subtle facial and body movements now and then as the story is told... Some you may not even notice right away (such as subtle eye movement changes), making you wonder why pressing spacebar or clicking didn't move to the next image or story text right away... The user interface only has one clickable element that shows the relationship stats and information for each of the characters, and looks presented well...
The script is well done, as I rarely ran into spelling/grammar errors... The plot revolves around a male protagonist who dies and is reborn in a different body due to magical intervention... He is then set on a task to corrupt some female characters, I assume in their senior year, within a high school during summer school (but curiously it is not what you initially think when you envision summer school)... As he doesn't know who he has replaced, he also has to play sleuth to figure out his new life and what is really going on... Interacting with various characters as he plays his part...
The format of this one is a visual novel, focusing on story telling, dialogue, and character interaction... You are presented with choices now and then which mainly focus around how you choose to interact with the various characters as the story progresses... Usually in the form of 3 varying choices, one being rather bold and forward, another being more neutral and friendly, and the other being more passive... So you can choose to what degree you work on a relationship, in some ways... Not all choices are like that, but most tend to follow that pattern in one shape or another...
There was a mini-game of sorts in the way of a multiple choice question and answer session with one of the female characters, revolved around Manga and/or Japanese Fighting Games... So if you are not into that scene, or haven't the slightest idea what choice to make, you could just end up guessing... The difficulty is that you do not know if you were right or wrong until the end of the question and answer session with that character, as she tries on various Cosplay outfits... Obviously, getting everything right will open up a small amount of bonus content with that character, at its conclusion... I just ended up wasting time looking some of them up, as I had no clue... I may like watching old school Japanimation from the 80's and 90's, but I do not read manga or play any Japanese games outside of the occasional Japanese visual novel... So I was completely stumped...
I'm usually not a fan of mini-games at all, even more so when they are not simple and easy to get past... In a way, even though the concept was interesting, being that the developers chose to ask questions from a very specific niche industry and not something far more generalized, they are kind of pigeon holing their VN/Game into a corner, by asking questions a majority of folks are going to be clueless about... Just an observation, as I hope that doesn't continue to be a thing, because the more that type of focused content ends up getting added, the more it pushes itself into a corner with the type of audience it is targeting...
The focus of this visual novel is more on the story then erotic content, while still having erotic content... I didn't feel like the story was rushing at all, and most of the characters have distinct personalities... In some ways they are a bit stereotyped initially, but some are actually complex while others are less complex... As I thought the story was being told well, I didn't mind the few quirks it sometimes has... Such as the use of certain story elements that have been a bit overused over the last year or so, like with the school setting and Japanese themes, etc... But even with all that, it felt like the developers were taking things slower in order to tell a good story now and then, and not just rush head on into a wall of meaningless porn...
Even though this VN uses character stats, such as Love and Lust, which is more then likely used to gate some content eventually... There doesn't appear to be any grind elements... The stats are primarily effected by some of the choices you make, with certain characters... So in some way, you can influence what you get to experience with the individual characters, but without some repetitive grind slowing you down... Is anything gated currently? It was hard to tell...
Overall, I liked my play through of the current content... Yes it has a few quirks, but I can see a real effort to add some story depth and meaningful interactions with some of the characters... Bringing to light some of their backstories, or having the protagonist actually caring now and then, to figure people out and have some sort of emotional attachment, even when being a pervert... I do hope the Q & A sessions on niche subjects does not become a regular thing, but it's the developers baby to do what they want with it... This VN is still early into it's production, but I like what I've seen thus far... It's not as deep as others I've read/played, but it's far better then most in it's category... I actually look forward to seeing how this one develops, and will probably revisit it sometime down the road...
