This is one of the best VNs I have ever played.
The world feels very real, the characters have very varied and realistic body shapes, the dialogues are very well written, the mystery is managed in a very interesting and unobtrusive way that make it intriguing, the characters are loveable and memorable, the MC is easy to relate with while also being a well written unrealistically smart protagonist, which is hard to pull off.
I like touches like the achievement system, that makes it easy to have an idea of how much you have yet to discover after your first playthrough, and there is a lot of it, this is a generous game, and you can tell it came together through serious dedication and very clever and tight project management and scoping. The creator was very intentional with what they wanted to spend time on actually showing and what they could entrust the player imagination with. I love being able to see these choices that were made, that remind us that art obeys physical constraints and that your ability to deliver a project that reflects your vision depends on finding the best compromises to fit it within your means.
The result is a game with a weird pace, you alternate between long dialogues, tense tantalizing slow paced kinky situations, and abrupt time skips; but everything about it feels intentional and it gives the game personality: this is a game about power balance, domination and consent, a game that, very much like its MC, is dedicated to take you through the journey on its own terms and at its own pace, but through the variety of its options somehow delivers exactly what you need it too. Even the interface reflects the theme by allowing you to set everything beforehand if you don't want to play with default settings, rather than obnoxiously breaking immersion everytime you discover a character by asking you if you are okay with their name, which reminds me of the essence of a safeword, an agreement made before engaging in roleplay that allows for a seamless immersion afterwards rather than having to regularly having to break immersion to renew consent.
The gameplay is also very good, there where very few times where I was frustrated with the MC and felt like I would have preferred having a choice where there wasn't one, because the MC is reasonable enough and the story well written enough that anything he does either makes sense in the moment, or ends up leading to a pleasant and sensible outcome, the choices are plentiful, sensible and varied, intriguing when they need to, and clearly descriptive otherwise, and none of the choices feel superfluous, they either let you express your preferences in the moment, or feel meaningful to the storyline, even the ones that are not that meaningful feel like they are, which is all that matters unless you decide to go ahead and rewind again and again to compare, which is how I usually tend to play, but this time, the choices earned my trust and I decided to commit to every decision I made.
The story is interesting enough that I respect what it is and what it isn't: Yes Chloe is hot and I want to seduce her, so does Steve but he got rejected, and this is a game about consent, if fucking Chloe were just a matter of finding the correct sequence of choices, then Chloe would be just as bland as the average side-girl in any poorly written power fantasy harem VN, and I like those too, but that's not what I want from this game, I love that Steve can't have that hot friend of his he likes because that's the case for most men and it's okay because that's what consent is all about, and the absolute respect that Steve has for her rejection despite the frustration it must have been for him at the time is the basis of their genuine friendship, and a strong statement as well as part of what makes Steve such a badass.
This game made me care about the characters, I like that Chloe dates Daniel because they are my friends and they go along really well, and yeah she is probably the hottest girl in the game, but Daniel is also the hottest guy... They both feel like they are on league of their own, Steve is hot but he is still relatable, and it feels right for him to build relationships with people that are not his first choice, but end up being perfect for him, I feel that is what most people who found meaningful love in their lives have felt at some point, I sure did. Jenny, Marie and the other girls are still gorgeous, their proportions and faces are stunning enough to be the stuff of fantasy while being diverse and just realistic enough to feel believable.
The characters are convincing, they have their own story and to what extent you are a part of it depends on your choices, I like the ending the game has given me,
Even though my experience was overwhelmingly positive with this game, nothing is perfect and I figure I might as well talk about what I liked less about it, to provide some constructive criticism. There are a few typos and mistakes here and there, the animation is nothing to write home about, It is good enough most of the time, I like still images and simple animations and they fit the scope of the project perfectly but the quality is uneven; the character models are also good enough but sometimes lack expressiveness, and you are often better off relying on the text to understand their emotions; I am sometimes frustrated with some missed opportunities,
To me the biggest flaw in the game is how little care is given to any sex that isn't kinky: whereas kinky scenes are really well crafted, the more a scene approaches vanilla sex, the more rushed and unfullfilling it feels. The game is very kinky in its nature so I'm glad those scenes were the ones that received the most attention, but the unbalance feels glaring to me, and it ends up feeling like Steve is a terrible lover when he tries to be gentle, which is not what the game is trying to convey but I have to constantly remind myself of it in order to preserve my image of him, but it's hard to sell when the guy disregards foreplay entirely.
It feels odd to see the softer part of sex so neglected in a game where writing for platonic, romantic and kinky scenes are so well written and staged.
Overall this game is one of a kind, a hand held out for you to grab and follow blindly through a meaningful, heartwarming, fun, intriguing but most of all sexy journey about love, compassion, friendship, insecurities, slave fetishes and government conspiracies.
Wait, what?
