I think this is one of the few times I've played through consecutive releases of a story based AVN. The second time around experiencing this story, a lot of the things I overlooked are glaring and I have to talk about them. A lot of that is due to the great time between releases. But I am a loud voice in the argument between monthly releases versus good releases. And this is mostly good, don't get me wrong. But this story has a parallel story in the developers other game, and it's ironic considering this takes place well after, or at least later in it's storyline. To a point where, if I recall correctly, Jess isn't even a part of yet? So you can't even know most of the references this story makes because THEY HAVEN'T HAPPENED YET. But I will say two stories this closely related is an interesting idea, but releasing bite-sized pieces of each at the same time doesn't work well. I can only imagine how much of a pain in the ass it is. I also wanna say, I started this before getting to the end of ch7 so any changes in thoughts or exposition at certain parts will be in parentheses.
This game starts out with MC, your average, everyday kpop softboi that has no real personality and he just got done having sex with his sister, Sky. You know, normal stuff... Anyway he's a young guy that works at McDanks and is overly proud of it for some reason. Learns his mom is going to rent out unused rooms to some people, and they happened to bully him for a year in high school. He gets really hung up on this fact at the most random times and outside of it being the title of the story, it really doesn't matter. Essentially, Aine, the bully, made his senior year hell because her mom forced her to and he was a chubby funster with no self esteem. He worked out a lot and graduated top of his class but did nothing for no discernable reason. Back to them moving in, Aine, Emma, and Gwen just lost their big source of income and decide to rent rooms to save money. Even though they're all bottomless pits of money. At the end of ch7, it says end of prologue, and that makes the scope of the story absurd. Especially with this story blowing gallons upon gallons of its expositional load on this latest update. To be as reductive as possible: MC's dad killed Aine's father and brother. Aine's mother, Hera, wants to make MC suffer for what his dad did. And suddenly MC is all knowing, cunning and good at martial arts after learning why he was bullied.
The pacing of this story ends up completely disjointed as of the latest update. MC just abruptly changes personalities all the time, it cuts to Lily randomly as she has no place in the story outside of another love interest, and so many story beats or interactions are cheapened by the nudie title card that flashes at the end of, or during a scene. Once again, don't get me wrong, I like this story there's ACTUAL WRITING. What a concept. But I unfortunately feel no connection or way to self-insert into the MC. This is very much HIS story, not mine and I don't mind it, but it's a little weird considering you'd have to play the sister story to get a feel for parts of this one. Who you also have to self-insert into...? I guess onto the love interests.
Gwen's story falls flat, most of it being told by her father, Johnny "Glenn" Bravo. And the idea that her parents marriage fell apart because of the MC getting bullied, a person they've NEVER MET, is ridiculous, and almost even contrived. On top of the fact that I really feel that there is a detail completely lost in translation, a detail I will press on very hard later. Gwen doesn't want MC to beat himself up over her parents divorce, but I still feel like I'm missing a piece of information. Her backstory is "rich girl allowed to do everything, wants to help stop MC getting bullied. But then her mom wants to crack down on rules suddenly when she's 20 years old?" And most of her inner conflict is "Why won't HE ask me out?" She's the first love interest that gets elaborated on and it just doesn't make sense. And even worse, it's cut short by the introduction of the last love interest, Moon, who at the time of writing has maybe 10 lines in this story. (I hadn't gotten to the end of ch7 yet.) MC and Gwen's main connection is they were each other's first sexual partners, and she liked that he tried hard. And reading the timeline, she's two years older than MC and a delinquent, the fact that a 20 year old drunken rule breaker was a weird pure virgin is a little hard to believe. Later on she get a little more personality, "horny semi-cuckquean share bear." Nothing deeper than that though. But the demographic for this is mostly the turbo virgins that can't handle women having a relationship before meeting them. So THAT I guess I can understand...
And Gwen is made to seem even duller when followed by Emma's story. I will say it did provoke a little bit of emotion out out me, but I don't like using her mother's death by cancer as the source of empathy. Like, yeah, cancer sucks but I still feel tragic backstories can exist without cancer or drunk drivers. And it's so much more impactful than all the other love interests combined. Aine? Rich girl that's sad she had to bully someone. Boohoo. Sky? Sister that isn't allowed to have a legit relationship with her brother. So sad. Lily? Dead parents, fought with her best friend. I'm being reductive to the umpteenth degree, but Emma's story is the only one you're ever put through in that much detail. At the time of me writing this. And on top of the cancer, two of the biggest promises made to her are broken during very important developmental years. If ever there's a choice for any of these women it's a no brainer who'd deserve it (which there is as of this update). This also opens up Hera's history too. Between when Emma is 5 and to the current date, Hera suddenly becomes a sociopath obsessed with the fact that MC's dad chose his mother and not Hera? All I can say is there better be a VERY well written fall from grace.(it's okay at best) Because Emma's mom is her servant and she's been shown treating them like actual garbage up to this point. I get a lot can happen in 15 years, but I don't see how she could backtrack like that. And now after reaching chapter 7, Hera's intentions are retconned to be revenge against MC's dad.
Then there's Lily, she gets most of a chapter showing that she ran track. And after introducing her tack team, twice, all you get out of it is she was injured and had a falling out. Why? Who knows, this story like to be cryptic. So not much more to say about her, unfortunately. Next there's Fraeya, Aine's sister. She's a Twitch thot, even though she deliberately says she's not, and laughs a lot. She doesn't get much depth other than her being willing to work hard. And she likes to tease MC. Klara is MC's mom. All we learn is she left an assassin clan and orchestrated a lot of this. And Moon, former child soldier that has no self worth. And characters like to say she talks strange but there's not actually anything weird it's just slight metaphors. Aine gets a little more into why she's never dated. All because it can end in death being in a mafia family. And the whole time we're told that she's super pretty and attractive by everyone, but I guess she's just not my type because I don't feel it. Sky is just a sister in love with her brother, they don't get back to it by the end of this update, so all we know is she knows MC is cheating on everyone. Oh. I forgot, Naomi. She's the 4th wall breaking developer insert that has two scenes and it's boring banal nothings. But, yeah, they don't get as much personalization as Emma, so I can't say much.
Well, if anyone is still reading this, most of that is nit picky, but this is story focused and I like it so I'm critical of it. And if you're going to read this story, I'd hope someone else notices a lot of these things. I feel a lot of the day to day stuff could have been compressed, and so far this story has taken place over no more than a week or two. That is insane escalation. But it's very much worth a read. And my last complaint, is there needs to be an editor/proofreader to help with the English. I will say it's written by someone that learned the language very well. And there are decent portions of this I don't even notice it. But there are times when it's very stiff and doesn't read well, which takes me out of what I'm reading hard. This is a lot better than most, but IF YOU ARE MARKETING ANYTHING IN ANY LANGUAGE IT NEEDS TO BE LOCALIZED AND EDITED BY A NATIVE SPEAKER. Especially if you are selling a product.
TLDR The idle banter goes on really long, the title cards are a little distracting, and there's a big exposition dump at the end. But the story is good and there's good sexy content. The renders are good and there's a broad range of themes explored, I'm scared to say I'm excited to see what will become of this.