"I can't be your girlfriend anymore Tara! You said you're cool with me sexing up other women but it turns out you're really a crazy yandere who murdered my last girlfriend to get to me! ...we can still keep having sex on the side though, as long as you promise not to murder any more girlfriends."
Also, I'd like to point out that Rainsex sounds funny to me. Like if someone didn't know the context and was trying to figure out what Rainsex was. It sounds like some kind of fetish or something.
People can be weird. There's a sort of bias towards playing the "newest" game (especially if it's the one people are currently talking about), so a lot of people will start with a later game and then work their way backward if they like it.
I know for me personally I started with Saints Row III and only went back to play the first two when it turned out I really loved the third one. And I know there were a ton of people who only got into the Witcher games with 3 and then went back to play the first two after they wound up loving the third.
So it's always a good idea as a dev to assume that the game you're currently working on is always going to be
someone's first glimpse into your world. So you always want to try and make new games accessible to new players while still trying to keep them appealing to people who've been ride-or-die with you from the start. It can be a hard balance to keep, but things like optional recaps or codex entries can make it a bit easier.
There's actually a saying in the comic book industry - "Every issue is someone's first comic." It's supposed to be a reminder that you don't want to make comics so convoluted and confusing that you have to have been reading for years to understand, because
this may be the issue that someone picks up for the first time, and if you alienate them they may never pick up another. But if you can appeal to them they may start buying more. But it's a good rule of thumb for creative endeavors in general - you always want to try and be aware that not everyone is an obsessed weirdo spending years discussing the most minute details of your story and characters on a message board. So each game should be at least somewhat standalone so new players don't feel completely overwhelmed.
It sounds like you've got a pretty good grip on that for Book Two, though.
This is always sort of my position when people complain about "You can't criticize X unless you do X." "Oh, you can't criticize the artistic choices of that film because
you're not a director!" "I'd like to see
you write a novel before you criticize that story!"
It's like, sorry, but I don't have to be a chef to know when one serves me a dog turd in a bun and calls it a hot dog. You can appreciate (or criticize) tons of things without being able to do those things yourself. I don't have to be a musician to enjoy music. I don't have to be able to code and develop an entire video game to have opinions about video games.
Things that are meant to be appreciated and enjoyed aesthetically can also be discussed even without one iota of ability to
replicate those things.
That being said, on the subject of the actual visual shift, I noticed it as well and definitely prefer the original designs more than the newer ones... but it also wasn't
that huge of a shift in my opinion to the point where it detracted from my enjoyment of the game so I never really thought about it all that much. It's definitely not as bad as some games on this site where a game loses its original artist and everything that happens after a certain point in the game looks way off-model because the new artist has a significantly different art-style.
Mara still looks like Mara to me, Tara still looks like Tara to me, and so on. So minor variations are acceptable.
To play Devil's Avocado, even though Lisa broke up with us, multiple characters have told us it was very clear she was still deeply in love with us. And we can play our character as if we're still not over her (I was definitely picking those dialogue choices). So there was always the threat that we could have gotten back together. Especially if it ever became obvious that we weren't ordinary either (since Lisa only broke up with us to protect us because she thought we were a normal human and thus in danger from her new life).
So what better way to prevent a reconciliation and keep us on the market than removing the potential obstacle?
"Lisa-as-perceived rival" is great motivation for some of the suspects (Tara, Becki, Sophia and B for starters). It's even technically motivation for Monica (Lisa still loves us more than her new girlfriend, so Monica lashes out in a jealous rage...).
The real question is mostly whether or not someone else had a
better motive...
Cecil's been my prime suspect for a very long time now. And the cat as a manifestation of what's left of Lisa's soul has been my go-to explanation for the cat for a while. Which would explain why it's clearly helping us solve her murder.
