Done playing and i must say i had a complete blast once i understood the context to play the game. The massive scale the dev has aimed in terms of freedom when it comes to relationships is just.... incredible and so so complex. I honestly didn't think anyone except a huge studio production could get this straight as this game has done so far. Great job there's no denying once finished this one is going to be a huge achievement in the adult gaming world.
To contrast with the praises from above, I have 2 points that are still slightly disturbing me.
Firstly my biggest issue : although the game provide so much dialogues options, I felt way too many times cornered into making decisions resulting into binary outcomes, which either would push me into abusing/manipulating/cheating/straight forward romancing a character (being a D*ck or a pusher path and get their content) or otherwise choose the other option which led to negative or no relations points at all and loosing the character interest/sympathy/content.
This drastically reduce the realism of the situations for me since i wish there would be more middle ground options that would allow me to keep these characters close/friendly to me and with maybe later on still a way to win/block them back once the story has progressed and i'm able to make up my mind on what i'm willing to do with them. It's very confusing at first because if you haven't played the prequel then you're not emotionaly connected yet to them and you're just kinda thrown in the middle of this storm of a casting that keeps growing on. It's a little deception to me since along the way i grew quite emotionaly fond of some of them and their background/attitude.
Along playing the story, I could really immerse myself into the life of this photographer bearing this heavy past and his new role in the business. Finding myself in his shoes, I was aiming more at pleasing his new coworkers and the people who lift him up from the sh*tty past he threw himself into, trying to maintain a thin balance while having the max fun i could harness along the way.
This bring us to my second deception, which is a very small one but still can't get pass over it. After the fashion show, when you're at the club you're suddenly forced into making one of three choices when it comes to who you spend the night with (Luana Vs Belen Vs sleep alone). The consequences of this decision were so anticlimatic to me that I realised i completely felt for the writting behind those characters, probably got so much hyped or throw too much projections on what i expected them to become in the future of the story. At this point, i wanted to be the exclusive f*ck friend for luana and still have my way with Belen, I projected the first as my futur business head partner and best friend and the second as a f*ck friend as all the other big top models have been to me until now. So when i saw the consequences in terms of relationship points of choosing one over the other... i felt like I hit an invisible wall that the game had never pushed on me until this point. Was the best option to go to sleep and get cuckhold by both of them while getting a nap?
I know it's just probably a very personnal issue because the situation completely messed with my projection/plans for the story but i wish the both of them would not be at the same place at the same time sharing this proposition with the mc (because if he choose one of them, it feels like throwing the other one under an emotional bus (reflected by the hit their relationship points take). We know they have a personnal beef/competition why then act rude and add to the fire? Considering his profession he is supposed to know by now how to manoeuvre models to keep a cool atmosphere and being able to do his job which massively depends on maintaining good relations with them. I don't know, it felt to me like a forced-closing path to something that should had led to more fun or developments and completely unecessary considering the sh*t storm the MC is already in (arrivist competition at the magazine and blackmailed by both ways). Each time i play to this point i dream about not having to make this choice. Which means a lot in terms of how immersed i became into the story.
I'm really not against drama, just not the invisble type of drama reflected only by the loss of relation points and its indirect consequences, it makes this path looking a little cheap in comparaison to the rest of the others.
Except from those criticisms, I think the game is freaky amazing and I can't wait to see the final version of this baby. Great job from the devs and thanks to them for providing us with such upscale content. I'll definitely be a buyer the day it gets out.
Sorry for the engrish, tried to keep it under control, probably failed though xD