This is a review of version 0.8.
Pros:
+ Lucy is cute. So is Maddie. Alice too, of course.
+ Music is nice
+ For an unfinished game, it's relatively long
Cons:
- Plain visuals
- Amateurish renders
- Bad writing
- Effectively no choices (and some broken ones)
In-depth:
I wish I could've given this game a better score, because for what it's worth, I had some fun with it. But as it stands, that would be undeserved.
Let's start with the obvious. Visuals.
The character models are a bit generic, but still fappable, there are plenty out there that are much worse.
However, the renders are bad. There's just no two ways about it. The screens are taken with depth of field turned off, therefore the images look flat and the characters don't feel like they are the focus point. And many pictures are also taken from so far away that the character (which is the most important part of eroge) takes about 5% of the screen. Take your talk with Lucy at the pool in the beginning for example. Why is she so far away? Why is there no close-up on her face or body or anything, just 2-3 times closer than what it was? It makes no sense. Or another talk with her at the beach - you sit there talking for a looong time, and all that time she has, I believe, 2 images, with her head turned a bit to the left, and another - a bit to the right. Come on, some more poses, angles, AT LEAST facial expressions would go a long way for scenes like this to look less dull and even beautiful.
Additionally, on some images characters clearly pass through floors and objects (come on, it's not even during the animations!), and some poses look weird to the point where on some images it looks like their legs are broken (take Aunt sunbathing scene in the beginning for example), it's just horrifying. Clothes in the same scene change. One second a character is wearing a t-shirt, next she's already in a jean shirt. Here she's barefoot, next image - in shoes, next - barefoot again! Magic!
And the sperm looks ugly. Yeah, I know, odd complaint. But still, it looks like it's just the chunks of it floating in front of the body or piercing it instead of resting it.
Anyway. I could go on and on, but you get the point. Things like this should be cleaned up.
As for the sex scenes, or even just erotic ones... they are lacking.
In quantity - you get showered by dream sequences in the beginning, and then suddenly it's dry for days.
And in quality - even the kisses don't look particularly good. Partially because of that lack of focus (achieved by dof, fov and correct angles) and partially because of rather bland, vanilla choice of textures. And just as I've mentioned, there's no variety of poses or angles. Your first blowjob is a top-down view. That's it. No side view, no close-ups, nothing. Not only is it lazy, it's simply boring. And the last thing you want is for erotic scenes to be dull. People should crave for them, anticipate, but instead it's like... meh... skip... back to the story.
Speaking of which, the plot is rushed, the writing is bad and on the nose. Characters don't have even a slightly believable motivation before giving themselves to you. And there are a lot of grammatical errors.
Now personally, none of these things bothers me too much, especially the spelling, my English isn't perfect either, so I don't expect it from others. But if you care about this stuff, it may irritate you.
Still, again, neither the plot, nor the grammar are the worst I've seen, by far.
What's worse is that even though this game technically gives you choices, there is no content for these choices at all. And to be fair, the author says in the very beginning, that only the love route has content right now. OK. I could live with that. But the limitations are waaay too strict. You can forget about any role playing, freedom or immersion.
Just as an example, your first meeting with your mother has you either hug her or not. I chose not to, because to me, it made sense story-wise. This was literally the ONLY "bad" option I've picked, but it already closed some content later on. There should be more leeway, especially with such minor choices.
Still, if it was the only thing, I could close my eyes and forgive it. But wait. There's more. Not only did I miss that content, the game thought that I have seen it. At a certain point, the aforementioned mom started talking about the events that did not happen for me because of that one point of difference. A kiss that was never even an option for me. It was very confusing.
Right now, as it stands, the game has choices for the sake of choices and it would honestly just be better if there were none at all, than ones made this sloppily.
Now with all that said... I still had fun. If by release this game gets polished, and polished A LOT, I think it has some potential. Despite the writing, characters still grow on you, like in a trashy (in a good way) anime that you just watch to relax and not think critically about. You know, like "Rosario+Vampire" or "Princess Resurrection"? Boy are the dialogues and animations horrible there, but they are still entertaining in their own right.
Well, the same is true here. I honestly wish the developer the best and hope to return to this game again after it's fully released and, hopefully, change this review to something more positive. But until then, I can not recommend it.
Pros:
+ Lucy is cute. So is Maddie. Alice too, of course.
+ Music is nice
+ For an unfinished game, it's relatively long
Cons:
- Plain visuals
- Amateurish renders
- Bad writing
- Effectively no choices (and some broken ones)
In-depth:
I wish I could've given this game a better score, because for what it's worth, I had some fun with it. But as it stands, that would be undeserved.
Let's start with the obvious. Visuals.
The character models are a bit generic, but still fappable, there are plenty out there that are much worse.
However, the renders are bad. There's just no two ways about it. The screens are taken with depth of field turned off, therefore the images look flat and the characters don't feel like they are the focus point. And many pictures are also taken from so far away that the character (which is the most important part of eroge) takes about 5% of the screen. Take your talk with Lucy at the pool in the beginning for example. Why is she so far away? Why is there no close-up on her face or body or anything, just 2-3 times closer than what it was? It makes no sense. Or another talk with her at the beach - you sit there talking for a looong time, and all that time she has, I believe, 2 images, with her head turned a bit to the left, and another - a bit to the right. Come on, some more poses, angles, AT LEAST facial expressions would go a long way for scenes like this to look less dull and even beautiful.
Additionally, on some images characters clearly pass through floors and objects (come on, it's not even during the animations!), and some poses look weird to the point where on some images it looks like their legs are broken (take Aunt sunbathing scene in the beginning for example), it's just horrifying. Clothes in the same scene change. One second a character is wearing a t-shirt, next she's already in a jean shirt. Here she's barefoot, next image - in shoes, next - barefoot again! Magic!
And the sperm looks ugly. Yeah, I know, odd complaint. But still, it looks like it's just the chunks of it floating in front of the body or piercing it instead of resting it.
Anyway. I could go on and on, but you get the point. Things like this should be cleaned up.
As for the sex scenes, or even just erotic ones... they are lacking.
In quantity - you get showered by dream sequences in the beginning, and then suddenly it's dry for days.
And in quality - even the kisses don't look particularly good. Partially because of that lack of focus (achieved by dof, fov and correct angles) and partially because of rather bland, vanilla choice of textures. And just as I've mentioned, there's no variety of poses or angles. Your first blowjob is a top-down view. That's it. No side view, no close-ups, nothing. Not only is it lazy, it's simply boring. And the last thing you want is for erotic scenes to be dull. People should crave for them, anticipate, but instead it's like... meh... skip... back to the story.
Speaking of which, the plot is rushed, the writing is bad and on the nose. Characters don't have even a slightly believable motivation before giving themselves to you. And there are a lot of grammatical errors.
Now personally, none of these things bothers me too much, especially the spelling, my English isn't perfect either, so I don't expect it from others. But if you care about this stuff, it may irritate you.
Still, again, neither the plot, nor the grammar are the worst I've seen, by far.
What's worse is that even though this game technically gives you choices, there is no content for these choices at all. And to be fair, the author says in the very beginning, that only the love route has content right now. OK. I could live with that. But the limitations are waaay too strict. You can forget about any role playing, freedom or immersion.
Just as an example, your first meeting with your mother has you either hug her or not. I chose not to, because to me, it made sense story-wise. This was literally the ONLY "bad" option I've picked, but it already closed some content later on. There should be more leeway, especially with such minor choices.
Still, if it was the only thing, I could close my eyes and forgive it. But wait. There's more. Not only did I miss that content, the game thought that I have seen it. At a certain point, the aforementioned mom started talking about the events that did not happen for me because of that one point of difference. A kiss that was never even an option for me. It was very confusing.
Right now, as it stands, the game has choices for the sake of choices and it would honestly just be better if there were none at all, than ones made this sloppily.
Now with all that said... I still had fun. If by release this game gets polished, and polished A LOT, I think it has some potential. Despite the writing, characters still grow on you, like in a trashy (in a good way) anime that you just watch to relax and not think critically about. You know, like "Rosario+Vampire" or "Princess Resurrection"? Boy are the dialogues and animations horrible there, but they are still entertaining in their own right.
Well, the same is true here. I honestly wish the developer the best and hope to return to this game again after it's fully released and, hopefully, change this review to something more positive. But until then, I can not recommend it.
