Finding this game was like manna from heaven. I wanted to scratch a really specific itch, knowing full well that I would probably only find something remotely similar (if that): a game that has futanari characters, and romance with them, but it's completely incidental.
Like not a setting where a futadom thing is baked into it, not a game where there's a futa scene or two and it's basically just an excuse for penetration, and not even something like Tales of Androgny where it's heavily emphasized but still very...intentional about it. What I wanted was a game where it's an unusual situation and there's an awkward fumbly quality to navigating the whole thing because they didn't go into it with that 'I'm a futa and this is what you're here for' attitude; the feelings came first and then they had to navigate them.
The first and I think only time I saw this was in an otherwise mid eroge called Cat Girl Alliance (which had no catgirls??) and I -loved- it, but it teased me because the dude-kun only got as far as touching her dick while he was inside her and admitting to loving the feeling of rubbing penies with her through the membrane of one of the other girls while they were both inside her. They riled me up and then left me hanging with a scene where she's trying to charm him into some fellatio but he wusses out. I remember all of this vividly despite playing tons of h-games since then (and many of those falling into my memory recycle bin) because this whole scenario left a huge imprint on me. I wanted some other game to do this, take it further, and do it better.
The title of this and the assets (I'm sorry, other games have trained me to think that generic art assets = generic writing) set my hopes very low, and when I saw it was -the- most typical setup they were even lower, but as it got going I felt a warm kindling. Here was a game that was taking the most typical lazy western porn setup and...executing it well. It wasn't just an aunt or landlady inexplicably doing lewd things with an ambiguously related unfuckable loser, these are all distinct characters - including the main character - who, even when they engage in shenanigans, are staying true to their personalities, doing things for sensible reasons, and generally stopping at the point where they should rather than just letting the porn currents carry them.
It was during that second bath scene with Suzuki, where she was tickling him, he trapped her hands, and she tweaked his nipples to tease him and get her hands free that I could truly feel how good the writing was (even if it could use an editing pass to clean up some individual dialogue lines). Despite the scenario being acceptably silly, the writer found a way to get the aunt to touch him in a sensitive area without it coming off like she was crossing a line for no reason. It was totally natural. Even scenes like Eri flashing her boobs at Riko because she really does think of it as a buff to some charisma roll she's making rather than a sexual action (to the point where she doesn't seem to fully appreciate how others would see this) come off as funny and sensible in the scene.
And it is genuinely funny!
The writer has a great sense of comedic timing, lots of creativity with the gags and scenarios, and while using some obvious anime archetypes does use them as a start rather than an end, so they feel like unique characters. Even this tired situation feels fresh because it's just flat-out being done so well. Really goes to show that the pieces you choose to plot the story really don't mean anything in and of themselves; it all comes down to how the story is told.
I was ready to settle for any type of main character as long as it could hit the basic beats I wanted to see, but Riko is one of the exact types of characters I most want to see in this situation. Then the personifications of his different traits started suggesting that the game will have a system where you have a little control over how he develops and I felt that this game was actually answering this modest wish I'd held for years. A character like Riko having a whole aspect of his character dedicated to trying to seem manly in direct defiance of his body (and maybe even his true desires) and seeing how that would mesh with him getting into a relationship with a futa while not knowing what he's really in for, and especially seeing how he might wrestle with moving from only wanting to do things the 'manly' way to experimenting with being on the other end, is so exactly what I wanted to see. The possibility of making a Riko Build to approach this process with the different characters in different ways is catering so much that it's something I dared not ask for; even if it ends up being a totally linear progression gimmick I can't even speak against it because anything above and beyond at this point is just gravy.
Usually I can zero in on things the game could improve on, but playing this I've got nothing. Everything is being done exactly right and all I could ask of it are little touches, like fleshing out the sandbox with some events or activities that aren't directly related to the cousins - or maybe some side characters - but even if this stays entirely focused on the core stuff I wouldn't fault it one bit.
When it does get around to escalating the relationships toward sex I have every reason to believe that the writer knows how it should happen with each character, so that it'll feel like a natural progression of the relationship rather than just tossing it out because it's time. I'll finally get to see someone who's seemingly on the same wavelength and has the skills to bring this scenario that stuck out in my mind to life.
If this gets abandoned I will be absolutely devastated.