Very roller coaster of a story, I enjoyed it but found a few inconsistencies. To begin with, you can tell the developer is probably ESL, specifically in an "Engrish" way (lots of missing words or poor word choice rather than improper grammar or misspellings). I don't take off stars for that, because I understand the story well enough, but for those interested in playing I felt you should be aware.
Mostly, the story is a kinetic novel. Yes, there are choices to be made, so it's not really kinetic... but the game rarely checks for them. A lot of variables are set in this game when making choices, so you would naturally think there's a lot of path divergence... but no, most variables in this are only used by the game to choose which scene to go with--which is silly, because you don't need to do that in Ren'Py; plug your entire scene into the if/else choice--and afterwards the variable is never used again. Once in a while a variable will get a second use, but it's then used for slight flavor modification in another scene that likewise has no bearing on the game. In short, there is only one ending and your choices will not have a bearing on it. To give you an idea of how serious I am, the last variable check comes about 3/4 of the way through the final chapter. From that point on, the game is on auto-pilot. Just read and click through the text, watch any videos, and click if the game pauses outside of that (two image repetitions; I'll go over that shortly).
Last issue I have is more with an actual inconsistency. Beforehand, let me give you a little background. I'll spoiler tag the entire next paragraph, it's spoiler-rich even if it is a sort of prologue/premise spoiler.
For those avoiding the spoiler, the MC tries to live a little bit of a double life at times, so he needs a cover for when he's hiding his identity. In doing so, there are times when the MC will he styles himself differently, wears a different attire, and goes by an alias 'Jack' when taking on the role other than that of his regular daily life. The inconsistency comes when the MC starts randomly getting called 'Jack' by characters who should be calling him by his given name, while being called by his name with people who know him as 'Jack'. By mid-to-late Chapter 3, no one close to the MC should be calling him 'Jack'. Those close to him have had over two years to realize who he is, our MC is not Clark Kent and 'Jack' is certainly no Superman. It's an utterly confusing mess. The developer should have kept better notes for tracking who knows the real MC and those who don't.
Graphics are rendered in Honey Select, so there's mostly eastern-style design elements (the story takes place in Japan, so that tracks). Renders are good, there's a glossy veneer on the textures where it's needed, proper shading and lighting.
There are two kinds of "animations" here: 1) Video animations--and these are absolutely amazing quality, smooth as butter--and 2) frame-per-second animations. I have a small problem with each. My issue with the video animations is that there isn't a keyframe, so these animations don't loop around properly. My problem with the 'frame-per-second' animations is that they don't have an ending point; the game just goes through an animation loop of, usually, two frames... but because there isn't any kind of timer in the code to escape this, the player has to click to advance. That's perfectly fine under normal circumstances, but it's incongruent with how the game automatically advances after video animations. It will be a minor annoyance for at least a part of Chapter 1, if the player is unaware of that inconsistency.
Music is sparse in this game, usually it's only used when a scene calls for it (at a party, music makes sense: a DJ is probably producing it). As strange as it is for music to come and go like that, I won't take off a star for the timing. I mean... it makes sense, if you think about it. We don't go about our day hearing music in the background, so why should the characters in our story? Also, there are some sound effects in this game as well, though there could stand to be more if they're going to be used--especially if the proper sound effect has already been used and is readily available. Why use a squelching liquid sound effect in one scene, but not use it for the exact same purpose the next time a similar scene rolls around?
Anyway, I enjoyed the game. There were some small details that, I feel, warrant knocking off a star... but largely those are technical. The story is fun and lively. While it might be a slice of our MC's life, this is pretty far from being a slice-of-life game. Give it a whirl and enjoy it.
Mostly, the story is a kinetic novel. Yes, there are choices to be made, so it's not really kinetic... but the game rarely checks for them. A lot of variables are set in this game when making choices, so you would naturally think there's a lot of path divergence... but no, most variables in this are only used by the game to choose which scene to go with--which is silly, because you don't need to do that in Ren'Py; plug your entire scene into the if/else choice--and afterwards the variable is never used again. Once in a while a variable will get a second use, but it's then used for slight flavor modification in another scene that likewise has no bearing on the game. In short, there is only one ending and your choices will not have a bearing on it. To give you an idea of how serious I am, the last variable check comes about 3/4 of the way through the final chapter. From that point on, the game is on auto-pilot. Just read and click through the text, watch any videos, and click if the game pauses outside of that (two image repetitions; I'll go over that shortly).
Last issue I have is more with an actual inconsistency. Beforehand, let me give you a little background. I'll spoiler tag the entire next paragraph, it's spoiler-rich even if it is a sort of prologue/premise spoiler.
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Graphics are rendered in Honey Select, so there's mostly eastern-style design elements (the story takes place in Japan, so that tracks). Renders are good, there's a glossy veneer on the textures where it's needed, proper shading and lighting.
There are two kinds of "animations" here: 1) Video animations--and these are absolutely amazing quality, smooth as butter--and 2) frame-per-second animations. I have a small problem with each. My issue with the video animations is that there isn't a keyframe, so these animations don't loop around properly. My problem with the 'frame-per-second' animations is that they don't have an ending point; the game just goes through an animation loop of, usually, two frames... but because there isn't any kind of timer in the code to escape this, the player has to click to advance. That's perfectly fine under normal circumstances, but it's incongruent with how the game automatically advances after video animations. It will be a minor annoyance for at least a part of Chapter 1, if the player is unaware of that inconsistency.
Music is sparse in this game, usually it's only used when a scene calls for it (at a party, music makes sense: a DJ is probably producing it). As strange as it is for music to come and go like that, I won't take off a star for the timing. I mean... it makes sense, if you think about it. We don't go about our day hearing music in the background, so why should the characters in our story? Also, there are some sound effects in this game as well, though there could stand to be more if they're going to be used--especially if the proper sound effect has already been used and is readily available. Why use a squelching liquid sound effect in one scene, but not use it for the exact same purpose the next time a similar scene rolls around?
Anyway, I enjoyed the game. There were some small details that, I feel, warrant knocking off a star... but largely those are technical. The story is fun and lively. While it might be a slice of our MC's life, this is pretty far from being a slice-of-life game. Give it a whirl and enjoy it.