Adding my 2 cents on the Oliver discussion, it's unfortunately consistent with one other situation in the game that's been irking me for some time.
We get
bombarded with flavor choices (which is fine btw), but on
crucial matters, matters that are
asking for a choice, some things are forced down our throats.
To be clear, I don't even mind Oliver... if it's on a sub path, or that 1 time earlier to find out you dislike him and cull him afterwards.
But I still agree that suddenly forcing him on the player again, especially the 'how', is poor design.
Making him less demeaning towards the MC doesn't really work here either, because the whole scene as such is clearly not really written with that in mind.
I really think he shouldn't be mandatory on at least the Stag routes, period.
Even if that means skipping a whole chapter, and going through the hassle of a different way to develop Laura's preferences for getting dominated and disrespected by alpha/sigma bulls.
Because the latter doesn't need to be done in our home. It could be Laura having a 1-night-stand with an Oliver-type guy, or it could be in Oliver's flat.
But the way the scene was written, all players are forced into what's a rather sub-cuck situation with no true way out, and I absolutely understand why a lot of people dislike that and feel like it's touching on NTR with the lack of choice.
--------------
This lack of choice is unfortunately also in line with one other part of the game that's been irritating me greatly, even if I'm probably in a minority there:
With Ashley (love her character in principle), you either have to reject her entirely, or you're forced to effectively cheat on Laura, at least twice so far.
In my opinion, it feels more like Laura isn't
sharing us with Ash, she's rather getting coerced into tolerating us occasionally
cheating on her with Ashley.
The first time, the very first blowjob, Laura knows what's happening, but the MC does
not know that she knows... yet we never get the choice to confirm with her.
In reality, the way things unfolded in that scene should be a red flag to any girlfriend.
I mean, by the time it happens, the last info the MC had was that Laura still isn't sure about sharing him, so without asking her before letting Ashley suck him off, he's effectively cheating and not giving a fuck about Laura at that moment, regardless of Laura's agreement with Ash behind the scenes.
The second time, during his birthday, it gets "even better", as this time it
indeed happens behind Laura's back (well, in front of her eyes in the end), and
again we're only given a choice between rejecting Ashley early, or just letting it happen...
instead of getting an option to, you know, ask for your girlfriend's consent the same way we (used to) expect her to ask us for ours (outside the "allowed to break rules" option... and now Oliver).
It's then brushed off because it "turned her on", but that doesn't change what happened... and that any balanced or sub-to-Laura MC worth their salt should absolutely at least feel guilty about it, or just not let it unfold that way to begin with.
Basically, with how these Ashley blowjobs have been handled, there's technically avoidable NTR already, although for now it's just
Laura getting NTR'd by the MC+Ashley.
Which I find annoying, because the balanced path was kinda my path (disappointed it was removed), and I absolutely want sex with Ashley, but
not at the price of cheating on Laura without asking for her consent.
--------------
Anyway, to avoid misunderstandings: I don't really mind NTR vibes. I chose this nickname for a reason
And like I said, having a bull like Oliver makes sense on the sub paths; personally I don't mind that, either.
What irks me is that these situations, or rather
how they've been handled, are clearly at odds with how a lot of other situations have been handled in this game, and also at odds (in terms of lack of choice) with what I'd want to see in an otherwise pretty good pure Netorase/Sharing game.
Forcing a sub-cuck-leaning scene on all players, and forcing anyone who wants Ashley to kinda cheat on Laura, is simply at odds with the whole "sharing with consent and mutual respect" thing that's so important to true sharing to begin with, and that the game otherwise handled fairly well so far... apart from these recent exceptions.
Basically, it kind of feels like LeStag is denying the MC some sensible courses of action over personal preferences... and maybe a bit of laziness.
For example, the "MC cheating on Laura" situations I described could be easily avoided with just 1 additional choice to contact Laura, and a handful of messages between MC and Laura before "it" happens.
In any case, I was going to write most of this as explanation for giving the game only a 3-star rating in its current form, even though it used to be 5 stars to me, but the text kinda became too big to manage through the smaller review text window, so I'm posting it here and might do a smaller review later.
But yeah, the removal of the Balanced path, the "cheat or nothing" with Ashley, that Oliver scene getting forced on everyone, they all seem to follow the same trend:
Mutual consent and respect seem to be slowly getting kicked to the curb in favor of doubling down on the fringe extremes, which is a bit disappointing.
