wtf is with Shu and the point of it? Can't we just have a game it a normal male friend instead of some weird ass one. I've never understood the appeal of "Trap" characters and it makes even less sense to have one when the MC himself knows he's a "trap" character. Plus his personality is trash and looks like it will cause issues with the girls.
Great update except 2 big things.
1. that damn waste of time with the track and field. I love lily but what could have been a short scene that would show character development turned into a 20 minute waste of time introducing a bunch of characters that are probably going to be in some other vn and have zero relevance here. Lily deserved better. The players deserved better. And it ate up time and renders that could have been used to the main story
2. Fucking Shu. He should have been ended when he insulted one of my girls. Unnecessary drama and falls into the we can't have a decent male friend in vns because of stupid reasons.
Egotistical, self absorbed waste of vn space.
This vn is better than those two mistakes
Really great update otherwise
thank you
Shu and his "trap" appearance came out of nowhere, though I don't think this VN is going to sexualise his gender fluidity. It feels like he serves more as a plot device: to either cause some light-hearted drama/misunderstanding, or to help the MC deal with the Hera situation. I assume he looks like a trap so that his involvement in the narrative is clear, and that people don't start a discourse over the infamous three letter fetish. But I could be wrong.
Putting that aside,
NiiChan I love your VN, but in my opinion, there a few problems plaguing it in terms of - writing, narrative and characters.
1. The proficiency of English being used in this game leaves much to be desired; most of the time it feels like it's written by someone who speaks English as a second language. The dialogue feels wooden and stilted, like it was machine translated by a decent AI. There are no grammatical errors (maybe an excessive use of commas), at least none that I could find; but the comprehension, structure of sentences, absence/presence of certain words just doesn't feel like native English, to me. I think along with proof-reading, some editing also needs to be done, by a native speaker. It can help to immerse the player even more, if the dialogue feels natural and life-like.
2. Like other people mentioned, flashback scenes are long winded, and delve too much into the minutiae. It drags on for too long, and as a player I felt bored and disconnected from the current narrative of the MC. Lily's was the worst offender of this, at least Emma is an important piece in the narrative chessboard, but that too overstayed its welcome. Lily's backstory and the subsequent characters that were introduced could be a whole other VN on its own, with its own protagonist. That level of fleshing out is a boon, and a bane at the same time. The delivery of information to both the MC and the player needs to be put into perspective and refocused.
3. Every character is introduced, and they always have some unfortunate circumstance/ painful past/ dark secret that connect them to the MC/ his family/ the narrative. It feels like a self contained story, inorganic, and bogged down in revealing how everyone has a past and how connected everyone is. It spends more time peeling back the past, than it does in resolving the present, and looking to the future. Like, how small is this world, is it just one city in the entire existence!? It gets exhausting seeing so many characters give a hint to their backstory that you know won't be fleshed out until further down the update line. This is bread-crumbing taken to the nth level. And it doesn't feel like the plot has progressed much at all, new characters are introduced, new mystery is created, new intrigue is generated, but the conclusion to the narrative still seems as far away as it did in the beginning. Instead of the narrative yarn-ball unravelling, it's getting wound up and tangled more, and seemingly new yarn balls are being thrown into the fray. The biggest problem with this is, that it takes away from player agency. It doesn't feel like the player has any control over the narrative or the outcome of the plot, we're just along for the ride, deciding if we want to bang Girl A or not, whilst we meet new characters (who are technically not new characters because their past is tied to someone else's), and slog through backstories and flashbacks. I think this style of story-telling works better for a Kinetic Novel, but it would still dwell in the past too much.
I hope my ramblings are comprehensible, and that at least the general message of my comment is understood. My apologies, if this feels overly negative and critical. I like this VN, and am therefore passionate about it, providing criticism in the hopes of seeing it improve and prosper. Good luck to you in your endeavours, and wish you good health
NiiChan!