VN - Ren'Py - Completed - Mythos: Book One [v1.1.0.0] [Nine of Swords]

Okay, so… Mythos. This one stung a bit, because it could have been great. The premise is solid: supernatural murder mystery, secret societies, quirky cast, romance routes, choose your MC’s gender, the bones are there. But somewhere along the way, it trips over its own purple cloak and faceplants.

Chapter 1 is the biggest offender. It feels like every single line has to be a joke. Not in a “ha-ha, witty banter” way, but in that sitcom-y, “nobody can stop talking” way where every character sounds like they’re auditioning for the same stand-up act. It’s exhausting. And the mystery? Buried under so much awkward chatter it’s a miracle you even remember there’s a murder to solve.

Romance? Don’t get your hopes up. You basically get one hookup scene per route and then the game just drops it. No emotional build-up, no relationship growth, just “welp, back to the mystery.” For something billed as an adult visual novel, the “adult” parts feel stapled on rather than integrated into the story.

Visually, it’s fine. Renders look decent in places, some backgrounds pop, but the animations can be stiff and character proportions get weird sometimes. Audio is there, but not memorable. The sex scenes themselves feel tacked on, lacking any real intimacy, which is wild considering this is supposed to be a selling point.

The lore and world-building could be cool, there’s potential in the urban fantasy vibe, but the tone is all over the place. One minute it’s trying to be spooky, then goofy, then sexy, then serious… and it never commits to any of them.

I pushed through three chapters before tapping out. Later chapters do focus more on the plot, but you have to wade through the messy first half and the tonal whiplash to get there. If you’re super into urban fantasy mysteries and don’t mind clunky writing, you might still have fun. But for me? It’s an ambitious mess that needed less clowning, more heart, and romances that actually matter.

Mythos Book One Review

Unsolved Murder of Mystery & Pleasure
After the death of someone once close to you plays out within the small town you live in. Strange things begin happening after the funeral, where your investigation starts its journey into the mystical new world of wonders and pleasure.


Story - Content
Mythos, Book One begins with our protagonist (who can be chosen to be male or female; the only difference during the game session will be intimate scenes and some dialogues and the surname) getting questioned by Agent 8699 about their name and nickname, and while the question is being held, you can find a donut on the desk a little blurred out. If pressed, the game would say, “Wrong Game!”

I’m not completely certain of which game it relates to, but one review I made was of a game called Sunshine Love Chapter 1. Which had the mini-game throughout the session. For each donut found, a lewd image would be unlocked.

No achievement, but a goofy Easter egg.

Mythos, Book One is, in short, an NSFW visual novel about a murder case of the main protagonist's ex-girlfriend. Shortly after the funeral, everything starts opening, as if the main character’s eyes have been shut for years until this event, after which they open to all mystic wonders and confusion.

This interesting and well-made visual novel consists of four chapters, and the shortest it can take is around 3 hours to finish if you don’t read that much. But the story will make your eyes curious, and when you least expect it, it will make you start reading the dialogs and catch you in its grip.

Containing celestial beings, demons & angels, spirits, vampires, wizards/witches, cults, and more.


The game also displays three important features:
Hunting Achievements?
There are Achievements in Mythos that unlock special renders of the Mythos girls!

Finding these Achievements will require you to think outside of the box and interact with the game in ways that will not be explicitly pointed out to you.

Every Achievement can be done while in the game, and won’t require you to do anything outside of it – don't go deleting files!

Be Patient!!!
When you see this spinning hourglass symbol on the screen, you don’t need to click! The game will automatically advance within a few seconds. Clicking could cause you to miss cool things like animations.

This can be disabled in the preference menu.

The Mythos Lorebook
This handy book will keep track of important info for you!

You can access it any time by clocking this link at the bottom of from the game menu.

Something that can be found in the main menu is Tales from Mythos which are short side-content stories or backstories/lore for some of the characters within the game.

It’s only a texted story, but if you enjoy reading or even yet enjoy the game, I would recommend reading these tales.



Visual & Audio
Visuals
There isn’t a lot to say about the graphics except that they are well done. Both the characters and the interior are looking good and detailed. The characters look pretty, and the interiors for a lot of the scenes are highly detailed and, to be honest, look amazing.

And as for many visual novels where they try and add facial expressions/emotions, it doesn’t work as well as planned. Or at least not many of the few I have tried before.

Audio
For audio, the game only consisted of different background music. As in many other games, the songs switch between scenes fitting for the scenario.

The songs themselves are well made and sound beautiful; they’re not really on repeat of the same song. But when it does repeat, it is barely noticeable.

The only unfortunate thing missing is intimacy sound effects. Even if they would be small ones, there are none, but a special sound effect is added. And one even being in an intimate moment, lightning sound effect, all I’m going to say.


Pros and Cons
Pros

• Story
• Visuals & Audio
• Jokes & Easter Eggs
• Dev to Player Interactions
• Displayed Choices/Paths

Cons

• Difficult Finding Achievements

My final little thoughts
Mythos, Book One is a highly enjoyable game with a great story and good visuals. And on top of all, the developer has great taste in color. Purple is the best there is. I've had purple hair for almost 8 years soon if I am correct, and anything purple looks great.

And the name in specific, “Mythos, Book One” will there be more books to continue the story, or will there be a whole other people but the same world/universe as the ones from the first book? Or is it just for name purposes only?

Price-wise, I think it's a fair price for all the content given, and as for how interesting the story is. Either way, I would highly recommend trying Mythos, Book One, any day.

But I swear by God, by the ocean flowing out to the sea, and even with the warning from the developer themselves... FINDING ACHIEVEMENTS IS IMPOSSIBLE. And all that made by only one person??? Good luck, all you achievement hunters. I wish you the best of luck.

Rating 4.5/5
(Will pick 5 as I can not pick 4.5)

Links
Steam Store Page
Website Review

I played it first when it was completed, absolutely hated chapter 1 and dropped it. Now i came back to finish it, and while chapter 1 is still by very far the worst, once you get past it it's fairly decent, albeit extremely unfocused and messy VN.

Chapter 1 got many issues that make it kinda insufferable, and as an introduction to the story it's a very poor look. Character introductions are messy, plot hook is done overall very poorly, you are not given any time with characters really, and worst of all deveoper tries EXTREMELY hard to be funny, so hard it ruins all the jokes and vibes. A comedic relief is very important for the story, but when EVERYONE is a clown and are on shit joke mode 24/7 it simply sucks, it becomes a circus that is very hard to read.

Chapter 2 and onwards game tones humour down a tiny bit (still a huge issue but slightly less so) and get laser focused on actual mystery which is perfectly acceptable and unravels in a fairly satisfying way, although criminal is fairly obvious. A different issue arises however, the relashionships between characters are so horribly done it pretty much doesn't matter what you pick, whether you romance or no. For example with Mara i picked "We can try to explore it beyond one night stand", and like, it doesn't lead absolutely anywhere? And it's the case with every single character, game is completely fully 100% focused on being a mystery and character relashionships not only stop being a focus, they dissapear entirely. Kind of a problem.

Character models are nice, animations not so much but are mid enough to enjoy.

Overall, how should i put it... I just don't think it should have been an AVN at all and feels like developer wanted to make a normal mystery without any adult stuff. I don't know if developer reads this, but my advice would be to actually properly balance character development and mystery instead of 95 mystery and 5% relashionships, and severely tone down on the funnies, it's not as funny as you think it is. If second book will improve over first in places that matter it can be a great experience, but book one ends up being just alright.

Can recommend to fantasy mystery lovers, and overall if it's something interesting for you based on overview try it out and if chapter 1 is insufferable for you, try to power through it and see if 2 is better.

I tried, played through 3 chapters but it was hard and gave up.
First of all I understand it's a new dev, and good luck to her, but...
Story - 3 - The story is average. Nothing wrong with that, most stories of AVNs are.
Writing - 2 to 2.5 in some aspects - it's not the worst but it's closer to bad than good, with a lot of cliches, as if it was written on bad days without inspiration, to fulfill some quotas. The humour, and I understand this may sound subjective, but also feels a bit forced as everything.
Dialogue - 2 at most - the lines often sound alien for people in their mid twenties, it would maybe match people in their mid to late teens that try to sound cool.
Characters - 2 - Aside some weird body proportions or angles sometimes - I'm not too hung up on that - the characters are pretty. The problem is that the guys look feminine, while the women act masculine (some more than others - especially 'B' - by the way who the hell calls themselves that, it sounds like a low tier 90s rapper). I understand it's a fantasy story but it's supposed to happen on Earth - it's as if the characters are some androgynous species not human; certainly they don't feel very human. Yes they technically aren't, but they are supposed to basically feel and act very similar to each other, as if they were humans, but they feel weird, even the human ones.
I found none of the characters relatable. None of the characters are particularly sexy despite the decent looks.

I read somewhere the dev saying that renders are not great at start, but they are actually - as I said, aside some obvious mistakes here and there - completely fine; it's the only aspect that I found adequate. It's the writing that fails pretty hard, especially everything about the characters.
It's a pity, I had hopes at the start screen. The cop lady looks especially pretty in some images, and it's probably the character I liked most originally, but even she somehow managed to drop in my tier list compared to her introduction which is rare...
The polishing on this one is not bad at all, above a 3 * for sure, but somehow the content drags it down.
If I ever feel like restarting playing it I may modify this review but I just cannot continue it at this point, that's very rare for me.

This felt like a practice run of a developer finding their voice and learning how to make a VN, and I'm excited to see what they do next.

This really needed to have fewer characters that were developed more. There doesn't feel like a huge difference between befriending or romancing a character outside the one initial sex scene that decision gives you, and that feels like a consequence of just having too many main characters for choice-based gameplay to work with a solo dev.

I'd encourage the dev to be a bit more linear in following works to allow themselves to let fewer decisions have more depth and breathe more, even if it's at the cost of fewer meaningful choices. Making fewer and stronger paths mean more players get your strongest writing, as opposed to more paths that means players will see less of the whole work and is usually weaker.

Good themes, good instincts, great climax, I really look forward to future works. This was definitely an ambitious practice piece.

While at first it might seem like it is a leftist propaganda piece - it is actually not. What it is a very charming, funny and clever story filled with compelling characters (I personally thought I would absolutely hate Rain, but I just couldn't, she is awesome). Urban fantasy setting, great jokes, some extremely entertaining plot twists - if you, like me, hesitate to try this one because cast looks like they came from the cover of "feminist weekly" - do give it a try, you will not regret it

Great game, engaging story and intrigue. Only thing i would ask for more in the sequel would be more scenes to build relationships. I managed to figure out who the villian was but what make this game good is that even up until i picked, i was still doubting my self.... that in my book is the sign of a good who done it!

Im not a huge fan of this game, i got up to and finished chapter 3 and am a bit confused with the high rating. The story is decent with a detective themeing (but your character is a random guy that is solving it for some reason) in a modern world with magic and monsters.
However the romanceable characters don't really feel real at all, even less so when interacting. There were many times when characters after just meeting the MC(who is fine but a bit fuckboyish) are fine with full on polygamy, when there is/was no preamble to falling in love much less likeing each other. This isn't even done to accelerate the porn aspect of the porn game, because while the scenes are done well they are not the focus.
VNs like this need the girls to feel real and have worthwhile connections to the MC, half the women in this talk like dexter or robots, and the closest relationship presented is childhood friends who haven't talked for years; there has been no relationship development since(which makes sense as solving the murder takes priority), but i just don't know these characters enough to care if they get piped, and as I continue i'm not really sure what the point of this being a porn game is.
Overall the game(ch1-3 which i played) is a decent story novel with good models that doesn't do very well in making the romanceable women or their relationships feel real or likeable, coupled with decent porn scenes that come out of nowhere randomly.

A 3/10 game recommendation to those who want to give this game a try maybe. And honestly seeing all the good ratings, I can't but help to feel that this low rating is something maybe closer to my own personal preference.

Gameplay : A good amount of choices seem to matter, and can lead you down paths that allow your to pursue other characters. I would recommend downloading a mod that shows you the right choices to select that will not only give you + points with characters, but also lead to a path meant closer to the "good ending".

Story : I can see and feel where the author is trying to point the direct of the story to. A very simple genre of mystery and thriller about unsolved mysteries. Not exactly my taste in VN genres but It was worth a try for me. The MC basically experiences loss of his ex-girlfriend, and feels that there is something wrong surrounding her mysterious passing, not by natural causes as listed in the public records. He goes on journey to find the truth and while making romantic companions along the way. What I would like to point out is that I could see this being a book more than a VN. The characters don't give this connection between them, everything is bland and artificial to me. It doesn't exactly drives me deeper into the story. A great story builds tension, makes you feel something inside of you like excitement, or butterflies in your stomach, anything. But I feel nothing, no connections to the MC, story, characters, nothing at all unfortunately.

Visuals : Personally, I am a huge sucker for game visuals, because better game visuals tend to have better stories, which is proven true on the popular games on F95zone. I would like to say that the visuals aren't great, compared to even some games released earlier than 2020. I would like to give credit that the author is a a solo dev, so props to getting a whole game out to this level. But judging from just a visual point of view, I feel it is very lacking. Characters are just so so, there isn't much abundance of details, feels very artificial over all.

Scenes : Scenes aren't great. aren't too bad and there are some animations. Like I've said before, the visuals are great, thus making the scenes just so so.

Customer Support : N/A

Overall, I personally am not into the game, but seeing the amounts of good reviews, it might worth a try to others. Just don't expect much elements of surprise or a TOP tier story to come out of this.

I almost can't believe that this is your first game ... all credit to you.
In my opinion, wonderfully made characters (I want Rain Sunbeam for my birthday).
I personally haven't played the female MC story, so I can't comment on that.
I think the male story is well done and exciting.
For me a 5 star game without restrictions.

I don't like writing reviews. If you don't know my taste, you don't know what to do with it anyway, so it's like proving my importance to myself.
Briefly about myself: I'm not really into porn, and I'm biased towards the developer. (She's nice, sympathetic and communicative.) Please take this into account, I try to be objective.

Story/writing/characters: there aren't many urban fantasy crime comedies, so the story is unique. The characters are not two-dimensional, they have developed personalities, which is rare in these games. The writing is fair, the story is interestig, the storytelling is logical, the dialogue is realistic within the context.

Graphics/Music: Fortunately, the developer doesn't just use music as background noise. Animated scenes are few and far between, although I don't think this kind of story really needs them, the graphics are elaborate.

Fun: no grinding, no statuses, all sex scenes easily accessible. If you like detective games or good stories, I can recommend it. If you are just looking for masturbation aid material, this might not be your game.

A surprising level of attention to detail goes into this VN, and for a first project, it's production value is impressive.
The game is filled with little details that make you go "Huh! I can't believe they thought of that!" which I appreciate a lot.
The writing is good and the story is very interesting. Characters are unique and interesting, and the renders and animatios are nothing to complain about.
The criticism about some scenes feeling mechanical and lacking in romance is valid though. I kind of just chalked it up to inexperience on the part of the author. (Not sure if it's any better with a female MC, maybe it is. I haven't checked).

Edit: I am ammending my review now that I have tried out the Female MC side and I have to say, while I still believe the game deserves the 5 stars for it's clever writing and interesting narrative, it is definitely better played with a female MC. While the author goes to great lenghts to make sure the story works both ways, there are some moments that just don't work very well with a male MC. (An example is how after the first sex scene with Tara, she is wearing a completely out of character gamer shirt the next morning, which makes little sense for the male MC, but in the female MC line, it turns out it's the MC's shirt.)

All in all, I'd give the male MC version 4/5 and the female version a 5/5 if I could do so separately. I think this game sitting at a 4.5 is relatively fair all things considered.

Mythos, a game by Nine of Swords (Nine for friends and everyone else), is an AVN with a large focus on characters, story, and mystery. While playing, it becomes immediately apparent that Nine is a skilled storyteller. Both the text and visuals are packed with details and world building, without them becoming on-the-nose or overbearing.

Characters are introduced masterfully. We’ll have a small conversation with them before we’ll see a splash screen with their basic information. Every main character has their own primary color and theme music. This helps cement these characters in the players’ memory. Additionally, Mythos has what it calls a “Lorebook”, which is a notebook where the game writes important information. Unlike every other game that has this kind of system, right-clicking inside the notebook does not open the Save or Preferences menu, but goes back a level or closes it. It’s a detail, but a nice QoL feature to have!

The sound settings are at 50% by default. This level is perfect for me, and made first starting this game an enjoyable experience, instead of frantically having to click through splash screens to lower the volume quickly.
Other settings include ‘Textbox transparency’, ‘Romance hints’, and ‘Investigation mode assistance’. This last one is applicable to Chapter 3, where the player is tasked with clicking words in dialog to pick up on interesting or contradicting remarks. Enabling this option will display a border whenever such an opportunity presents itself.

As if this weren’t enough, Mythos also includes an in-game achievement system, a gallery, and a collection of unlockable short stories. These stories are canon and expand on the lore and (side)characters.
When starting a new game, Nine will warn players that no game files need to be edited to access any achievement. Of course, this being a Ren’Py game means someone could edit files to unlock every achievement, but where’s the fun in that? This remark does make me wonder if Nine played ‘Doki Doki’.

After a few splash screens with warnings and tips, Nine introduces their game. After this, an intro cinematic plays. I can’t express how much I appreciate it. It’s short (about 90 seconds) and gives a good impression of the game’s characters and the world they live (or died) in. It’s remarkable that the intro doesn’t spoil anything about the story, while still containing so much information. At the same time, rewatching it after finishing the game, immediately makes certain plot points and mysteries stand out.

After the intro cinematic, we get to pick our main character. Our choice is between Kyle (male MC) and Kylie (female MC). The game’s content for either MC is the same, except for, of course, pronouns, and sexuality.

For my first playthrough I chose to play as a male.

I like the game’s interface. Profile pictures (side images) accompany the text, and change depending on the mood/expression of the person talking. While the characters have facial expressions in the renders, they mostly convey the general mood of the person. The side images provide a line-by-line tone. Having a sense of the MC’s emotional state during his lines is very helpful as well.
Another small detail is that a rotating hourglass will signal to the player when an animation/transition is playing. This helps the player to avoid accidentally clicking through them. I don't understand why other games don’t do this. The player is primed to click as soon as things stop moving or when we’ve finished reading. Just let us know that there’s more coming. You, the dev, spent time creating that render, and we’ll happily click through it, not even realizing it exists.

As far as adult content goes, Mythos is fairly tame. This is fine, since the game is story-focussed. Relationships aren’t over-complicated and are left to the player’s choice. The player can enter a monogamous relationship by acting monogamously (and their partner will notice this), or be polygamous. None of the Love Interests will try to force monogamy on the MC. It’s also possible to keep things friendly with every LI. The same goes for individual sexual scenes, each can be avoided if a player wants to. Because of this, the relationship we have with the LI can seem disjointed from the story. Except for a few remarks here and there, it would be possible to cut out the sexual encounters and end up with a T-rated game with the story fully intact. This isn’t criticism, after all, this game is about the MC’s investigation, it’s not a slice of life story.
The animations are good, with attention to different body parts moving at different speeds. The lust the characters have for each other is palpable, but I’m missing actual intimacy and build-up. The lesbian scenes feel more intimate to me, due to the position of bodies.
From chapter 3 onward, Mythos does away with animated sexual scenes, instead opting for renders. I think this was the right choice. From the perspective that a developer has a limited amount of time, I would rather they spend it on longer interactions with attention to positioning and interaction, than animation.

Writing - 2/5
Graphics - 2/5
Story - 4/5

This seems like a decent first attempt at a VN, with a few standard flaws.
The author seems to be more into book writing than VN writing, not letting the graphical elements do their work in telling the story. Instead there is an overflow of text to describe what is already on the screen without adding anything of value. If anything it takes away from the immersion as the reader's interpretation and involvement is discarded in favour of telling the reader what his/her thoughts and reasoning should be. A strange choice given that the VN seems to tilt towards a detective-oriented "can you figure it out on your own" kind of game.

The sex stuff seems tacked on almost by accident, not fitting with the overall story at all, and definitely not fitting with the personality of the MC. Classic good guy / horny guy split personality that is far too common in VNs. It probably needs to be said again that *it's okay to want sex and to try and get sex, even for good guys. There is nothing shameful or deceptive about it.* It also makes for a much more consistent personality and better story if the MC doesn't end up getting sex every time by women accidentally falling on his dick just so he can preserve his moral purity and good guy status.

Best of luck to the dev.

Mythos is a good surprise to me with its strange mix of humour and a detective story amongst odd and supernatural people, the good writing makes it work very well.

The possibility to choose between a man or woman MC helps to add some replay value. A good plus as the MC is wrote as a likeable character and not some cringeworthy pervert creep.

Another plus is that the story moves forward smoothly instead of stalling and meandering around, there's a bunch of surprise happening around the plot, giving some depth to the Mythos world.
The characters are fun and have some interesting interactions and dialogues with each other progressively revealing more about themselves and what they are and how they could be possibly involved in the main plot.

The only bad point i have with Mythos are the sex scenes that lack feelings with no romance or love atmosphere surrounding them, they feel very artificial/mechanical (at least with the man MC).

But other than that, i really liked the various dialogues going between serious (there's the ex-girlfriend murder to solve after all) and some funny banters. Some of the 4th wall breaching from "B" are sometime leading to some funny and puzzled reactions from the MC.

Can't wait to see what's going to happen next in this quality AVN as there's some very good potential.

I really enjoy this one. The writing is great, lots of humour, realistic sounding dialogue, and a story that grabs and keeps your interest. Throw in a very eclectic bunch of differently attractive LI's and I think it's a winner.

If you're looking for a dozen women with the same face and quadruple F tits that want to have sex as soon as they meet you, or corrupting your 'landlady', this isn't going to appeal to you. (Not saying there's anything wrong with those, I play some of those too.) But if you want something funny and engaging that also has some good sexy bits, then it's worth your time to try it out.

v5.0.0
The lewds are totally tacked on just to say the games has em. The renders top out at above average. The content is hyper-woke. And it's pretty short. All of that, and its still the easiest 5* on this site for me. If the lewds are super important to you, it might behoove you to look elsewhere. If you require S-Tier renders. There are other games for you. But if you care even a little about writing and 3 dimensional characterization you'd be a fool to not play this game.

This game has the best writing of any game on this site. The plot doesn't actually break any new ground. It's a magical-ish murder mystery. Plenty of movies/games/books have done that. But the way the plot progresses here is amazing. Its funny. Its engrossing. Its VERY unique. And a little sexy too. Frankly its my favorite AVN of any sort. It isn't SG or BaD, but it doesn't try to be. Nine of Swords is a dev that absolutely knows what kind of game she's trying to make here. And just makes that. And she makes the absolute best version of that game. Its all a real breath of fresh air.

I'm not saying everyone is going to love this game like I do. But if you like good writing, even if the tags don't appeal, you should absolutely try it. It's honestly not trying to be the next big thing. Its smaller than all that. You should absolutely try it out anyways. I absolutely adore this game.

4 very good and well written chapter so far . The initial exposure of the characters , the lore and tying it all into a murder mystery was very smart and well done .
Having a choice between male and female protagonist is a nice plus as well .
The renders are excellent , and only improving so far . The characters designs are pretty good , even for those i assume to be lesser NPCs , which is rather rare

Review for 4.1.0
Well as this game is 4.8 rated I just had to give it a try. However, it did dissapoint me a bit but there are definitely some good elements in the game so lets get into it.

First of all, this is probably one of the most expiremental and extreme game i've found out there. Especially in the first scenes of the game where a lot of sounds/music/animations and such have been effectively used to create mostly jokes/funny moments. But personally I felt like the humor was a bit over the top and childish. All the animations, sounds and the personalities of the love interests felt a bit off/unrealistic and too extreme for me to actually enjoy it.
Dont get me wrong, personalities are definitely appreciated in games but this was a bit too much.

The romance furthermore also felt similar to the general feeling of the game, a bit extreme and over the top.
The graphics are decent (a bit outdated maybe) and the sex scenes are animated surprisingly well. Because of the graphics and the expiremental style of the game I will have to give it three stars at minimum but because of the dialogue and romance I cant go higher than that.

I wrote quite a bit about the game in the thread already, but since I neither wanna just copy+paste the stuff not simply repeat myself I feel like I should write a bit about my experience with this game, why I feel it deserves 5 stars even though to me personally it's more on the 4,5 star end of things & what makes this game stand out as one of my favorite VNs I read in recent memory.

First things first: I'm not a native speaker, so my praise for the writing should be taken with a grain of salt. I am pretty sure I'd notice repeated typos or if something was really odd, but I mostly go by intuition when writing english myself, so I wouldn't know if there are some advanced grammar or language rules getting broken.

That out of the way I will now shamelessly praise the writing in this, to me it's extremely easy to read, it transports the emotions I would expect in the respective scenes, there is a light tone overall but the tragedy around Lisa & the protagonist, especially Lisa's passing & the fact she never gave them a chance to come clear or work out a solution is treated with the appropriate level of sincerity, seriousness and soft melancholy on the writer's end. From there we, as the players, are given a more than satisfying level of control over how exactly Nelson feels about things.
There's also a very competent use of humor, not only does it balance things out in contrast to the gloomy aspects of the story, but it also never goes too far in the other direction. There is some ridicule in the 4th wall breaks, but it is never directed at the important characters, least the player, instead it lands some decent hits against porn logic, porn games that take themself to seriously, or even the writer themselves and the fact that some things happening in the game are a bit convenient, for the sake of preserving the author's sanity as well as making sure the game is as enjoyable and wholesome as possible.
Maybe it's just bad luck on my end, but compared to my usual experiences with 4th wall breaks specifically this really impresses me. Normally I'm clicking through and ignoring 4th wall breaks, here they made me smile or even laugh at 1 or 2 occasions.

Next I wanna talk about the characters, which have all been very likeable for different quirks (primarily, but certainly not only, the main cast, which to me are mostly the characters having a dedicated romance route), their interest in the protagonist comes across as genuine (I'm playing female Nelson, so I will say it surely helps making it pretty believable that female Nelson isn't simply pretty or busty but an actual, gorgeous cutie with just the right amount of imperfection - especially in regards to her facial features - to seem exceptionally attractive but not like an immaculate doll or statue.) but certainly based on physical attraction as much as (potentially) liking her. Here player choice's seem to play a significant role.

I tried out 2 seperate romance routes and went for just romancing everyone at once 1 time, so I can't tell for absolutely sure, but it seemed to me as if the story and characters very well register the difference, so they have a bit of varying dialogues depending on the player faithfully sticking to just 1 loveinterest or wooing them all. The latter part doesn't lead to any major conflict yet, in fact I think every character specifically states they are open for polyarmory, but I will say I felt as if there was a slight amount of (in my opinion not undeserved) wit directed at the fact that it's obviously one of those conveniences, that exist to make the game accessible for different types of players.
Personally I see that as a positive, despite not enjoying harem and especially polyamory stuff all that much, because I don't think a game should try to lecture the players about those things. Yes, in reality it would be a pretty selfish and shitty attitude to want a bunch of lovers for oneself, without necessarily feeling okay with the other way around, but that's obviously 1 of the reasons why people enjoy having it in a game.
Kudos to everyone who can guess which Devs I'm taking a friendly shot at when I say that it probably helps a lot to not have a dozen self-insert characters of the authors in game, which they then are unable to treat like NPCs with the main purpose of making the players enjoy the game as freely as possible. Believe me, I fully understand that sentiment, but I think it has no place in business and when you expect people to praise your game.

To end this probably a bit overly lengthy review: The music in Mythos is nice in my opinion, visually the game is very appealing, the characters look good (well, Tara looks a bit strange in a lot of scenes but I'm not even sure why. In her animated scene she didn't look off, so I think it's a mix of my eyes and lighting.
Speaking of the animations: They are simple but look very smooth, some of the best animations I've seen in this type of VN.
The reasons why I would give this 4,5 stars rather than 5 on a purely subjective level is that I feel like this would be even better if it was a bit slower & lengthier, more scenes for the characters and the protagonist to grow close to each other, a bit more idle time with scenes not serving any other purpose than being enjoyable to read (yeah, wholesomeness, you got me, I want as much of that as possible :c), a bit more buildup to the whole story and the twists and turns (of which there have been 2 big ones to me by now, especially the 2nd one just caught me entirely off guard) and just some more alone time with the chosen loveinterest.
I can't in good faith give 4 stars for that though, it's entirely personal preference on my end and especially it isn't the Dev's fault that there are no half star ratings on this site.

So...take your 5 stars, you doodle, and don't you dare not at least releasing 1 or 2 games for Nelson & the loveinterests from this game, otherwise I'll throw K-Pop collections at you.