Version Played: 1.0
Short Answeer: Is this my favourite Visual Novel that I've ever played? I don't actually know for sure what my favourite is, I'd need to replay all of them to find out - but I can safely rate Once In A Lifetime my favourite in the meantime. It's honestly fucking great.
Humour: I'm not going to pretend putting humour in a porn game is a new concept - it's actually done an awful lot, and often - not that well. I don't think everything lands perfectly here, but I giggled more often than I didn't at the jokes.
Characters: Are these characters a walking ball of cliches? Yes, yes they are. Does it feel like a little bit like the dev had a checklist they where going through? It does a little bit feel that way, yes. Are these cliches well executed though? Fuck yes they are. It never felt like they had a checklist while actually playing. Lets face it, we're all looking for things we like - in many ways the game is fairly vanilla, besides the incest kink, and the teacher taboo. And you're going to find those familiar characters you're playing all these games to find - but, everyone actually here felt organic, and like they belonged in the story. Things become cliche for a reason, it's because they work, and I think they're all executed damn well here.
The characters are engaging in their own right, they have their own interests, needs, and tendencies. And even if they where built to requirements: it never feels like someone is interested in something for the sake of it, or the story.
You do need to suspend your disbelief a little, and let porn logic reign to make what these characters are doing believeable - but isn't that what we're all here for?
Renders: I don't remember the early ones being that bad like a few reviews I read - although it's possible they were redone, I haven't looked into it much. What I can say is, they've fallen a little into the trap of the MC looking much worse than all of the love interests - but then who is our attention on? I think the characters are all beautiful, perhaps a little samey body wise, but you can definitely tell the difference between them all, even if obvious things like tatoos were removed.
Animations are a tad lackluster I suppose, if I'm trying to be objective - but they didn't lack any eroticism to me. Also, dem faces - emotions defintely getting protrayed well here, which is always a huge plus to me.
Story and Writing: Plotwise, it is a porn game, where the MC can end up with every interest at once, and there's somehow an incredible lack of tension between them all. A lot of that isn't really addressed, and to some people that will be a flaw - I'm just taking it as getting rid of the akward roadblocks in the fantasy. That said, between some characters, it is brought up and adressed for the story - and for the ogbligatory threesomes.
And this is where my hat comes of to Caribdis - those interactions are... close to believable, and well played out. Like, of course we're suspending our disbelief, but it's not that far out of reach. Let me break out the spoiler tags, because I recommend playing the game first.
The actual quality of the lines themselves certainly does vary, and I've replayed a couple of scenes where the same lines are reused between different people, depending how it plays out. But for the most part, the writing is definitely good. Probably not amazing, I should take some salt here, I'm clearly biased in favour - but that bias developed for a reason: I really fucking enjoyed the game.
The Sex: so, taking it purely on it's own, it's a little vanilla and repetitive. The animations... on thinking a bout it again, I'm going to say the quality of each is actually pretty good, and you're not going to get much better without fully animating them switch between positions, or adding all the different variations of how people would move in each loop.
Spoilered section below for a late game character.
Closing Notes and thoughts: Games like TiTS or Corruption of Champions, or other Sandboxes, are my regular affair. Both Visual Novels and more Vanilla games, are ones I usually play once, and only once. Usually, I already know having just finished it less than an hour ago, that I am going to be giving this another full playthrough from the start. I'm also going to be going into my app data folder,and working on rearranging those saves into a nice order. I always try and keep the saves in my head to play out different choices, and I never do, and I never remember my order, and I end up with 2-4 saves on each pages, with no clue what they're for. Not this time, the games worth the effort.
5/5 - Enjoyed and recommended, excellent, excellent game.
