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.