Review of version 0.1
TL;DR: Surprisingly well-made RPGM elements, good execution of Netorare gameplay (forum posts, phone calls, girl's diary), and pretty damn good artwork. Overall a great start with a lot of promise, but not a lot of content.
My Best Friend Kouta is a solid take on the quintessential Japanese netorare/netori/cheating story. The characters are as you'd expect: a well-mannered and kind, but naive and too-slow-to-act protagonist; his busty bombshell girlfriend who is super sweet but secretly a slut; and the Ugly Bastard™ - the eponymous best friend - an otaku with no verbal filter and a T-shirt that literally says "28cm". Go figure.
Gameplay is pretty solid, with some mild annoyances. You walk around town, visit locations at different times of day, and encounter events. There's an energy system but it's not too oppressive, and money is easy to come by. The character walks too slowly indoors which gets frustrating pretty quickly, but is much faster outside (plus there's a quick travel system). The netorare gameplay elements are typical but well executed: the protagonist can call his girlfriend at times, he can read forum posts of pervs talking about the girl, and he can read his girlfriend's diary too see her perspective (which doubles as a gallery, a nice touch).
Because it only has 3 characters and the story is entirely focused on them, it allows for easy self-insertion into any of the three roles. You play as the cuck, the naive boyfriend, but you can just as easily imagine yourself as the "best" friend doing the stealing or the girlfriend (especially since you can see her thoughts when you read the diary entry, esentially experiencing the scene from her perspective). As someone who very much enjoys the netori genre (being the guy who steals the girl), I had no trouble distancing myself from the protagonist's perspective and just treating it as a story, rooting for Kouta all the way.
The dialogue is surprisingly well written. Pacing is solid, the teasing is well done, and the complete lack of verbal filter on the "best friend" makes for some amusing scenes between him and the girl. Obvious hentai logic aside, it serves up some pretty decent corruption and moral degradation so far. The main drawback at the moment - and the reason for only giving it 4 stars - is the serious lack of content. This is basically a demo, no two ways about it. There are NO explicit scenes, not even nudity. It seriously needed the next chapter for launch as well. However, the potential is there and I look forward to seeing more, hopefully soon.
TL;DR: Surprisingly well-made RPGM elements, good execution of Netorare gameplay (forum posts, phone calls, girl's diary), and pretty damn good artwork. Overall a great start with a lot of promise, but not a lot of content.
My Best Friend Kouta is a solid take on the quintessential Japanese netorare/netori/cheating story. The characters are as you'd expect: a well-mannered and kind, but naive and too-slow-to-act protagonist; his busty bombshell girlfriend who is super sweet but secretly a slut; and the Ugly Bastard™ - the eponymous best friend - an otaku with no verbal filter and a T-shirt that literally says "28cm". Go figure.
Gameplay is pretty solid, with some mild annoyances. You walk around town, visit locations at different times of day, and encounter events. There's an energy system but it's not too oppressive, and money is easy to come by. The character walks too slowly indoors which gets frustrating pretty quickly, but is much faster outside (plus there's a quick travel system). The netorare gameplay elements are typical but well executed: the protagonist can call his girlfriend at times, he can read forum posts of pervs talking about the girl, and he can read his girlfriend's diary too see her perspective (which doubles as a gallery, a nice touch).
Because it only has 3 characters and the story is entirely focused on them, it allows for easy self-insertion into any of the three roles. You play as the cuck, the naive boyfriend, but you can just as easily imagine yourself as the "best" friend doing the stealing or the girlfriend (especially since you can see her thoughts when you read the diary entry, esentially experiencing the scene from her perspective). As someone who very much enjoys the netori genre (being the guy who steals the girl), I had no trouble distancing myself from the protagonist's perspective and just treating it as a story, rooting for Kouta all the way.
The dialogue is surprisingly well written. Pacing is solid, the teasing is well done, and the complete lack of verbal filter on the "best friend" makes for some amusing scenes between him and the girl. Obvious hentai logic aside, it serves up some pretty decent corruption and moral degradation so far. The main drawback at the moment - and the reason for only giving it 4 stars - is the serious lack of content. This is basically a demo, no two ways about it. There are NO explicit scenes, not even nudity. It seriously needed the next chapter for launch as well. However, the potential is there and I look forward to seeing more, hopefully soon.