Hi everyone! Posting for the first time here 'cause I recently started playing Our Red String spontaneously after I dabbled with the visual novel genre in my gaming career from time to time – I didn't try dozens of them but played through some great classics including Katawa Shoujo, Yin-Yang! X-Change Alternative and of course GGGB quite many years ago.
One thing I do wanna point out as a positive aspect about ORS is how characters are built more comprehensively and, in my opinion, a lot more realistic and down-to-earth compared to GGGB. This improved the gaming experience and fun (read: nastiness-induced joy) a lot for me since the creators playing with certain stereotypes, shaking them up and questioning them a bit makes the whole game feel more light and interesting at the same time. Take Wade, who's written an attractive guy, and identified as such by other characters, but has grown quite complacent with this sedentary lifestyle and seems very resistant to change, no matter how hard the MC tries. Or Robert, who appears fit and handsome, and isn't an evil manipulator, but makes for a quite convincing bland, good-as-a-fucktoy kind of guy. I was quite impressed by the writing in how Robert was asked by Lena about his passions during a date and he sort of explains he's rather indifferent about his job and enjoys partying with his mates, going on beach vacations and doing more partying and jet skiing at those beach locations. It just seems so convincing because you
will encounter these kind of people in your own life – not evil, not super-Chadly but also not super nerdy and "Beta", and also not super interesting – just content with their routines. I also do love the characters of Emma and Allison so far, kinda torn between both of them as Ian. Props for that, Eva Kiss!
I would like to hear from you guys what you think about Ivy as character, especially in relation to the story ark with Holly as girlfriend/member of the girlfriend group with Ivy and Lena. In my playthrough with Lena, I sort of steered Holly into be more outgoing, dressing more "confidently" and working out more, without her becoming too corrupted. Of course we gotta keep in mind we're playing an adult game with a lot of porn content here, in which Ivy is written as sex-positive, highly driven and shameless OnlyFans model – and yet, I couldn't help but feel irked how her attitude towards sex and life is constantly being reinforced by Ivy and the game's plot, and the MC seems to have limited options to question this. It seems Ivy – much like Jessica in GGB – is convinced that all men in this world want and value in women is their bodies and sex. And yet, her idea of "living life to the fullest" seems to be having casual sex with lots of guys (nowhere in the associated dialogues does the subject if the girl in question even
wants to have sex with guys appear), becoming "hot" by mainstream heterosexual standards and making money by selling said hotness to men. Holly in contrast is described by Ivy as having a "miserable existence" or something similar, and the way to make her confident includes her losing weight (which is kinda problematic seeing as she's already very slim to begin with), make herself hot to men and having sex with hot guys to become "more confident".
I like nasty story-driven VN sex as much as probably any of you, but these things still continue to irk me a bit. Somebody could teach Holly that in the 21st century, one can be a nerdy book-geek woman, make money without sex work and can still explore your sexuality.
Curious to hear what you think!
