So, there are 3 games that hurt my soul to see so many people praising. Don't get me wrong, they're popular, I know that everyone has played them in some capacity, but they are all deeply flawed, and yet they all have massive loyal followings. Each of them could be salvaged with some clever writing, especially the last one, but as they stand they are, to me, games I can't really stand anymore.
Big Brother - Big Brother is a mess. Setting aside all the fan hatred for reasons like NTR, because I don't think that's a valid criticism, you don't like the content that's fine, but that doesn't mean the game is bad, it just means it's not for you. No, the problem with BB is the poor game design, the violently mediocre art, and the failed storytelling. Dark Silver set up something mildly interesting, but even from the beginning, I get a big red flag. Exposition dumps tell us all about the family, rather than introducing us to the characters and allowing us to learn who they are through experience, he just vomits it all onto our laps. Then we begin our first couple days and quickly learn that we won't be advancing the plot through story, no, all the content is going to be gated behind money. Then we get Eric. Now, I actually like the premise of Eric. He's an antagonist. If used properly, Eric could have been Max's foil, allowing the girls to be proactive and accepting. Instead, Eric was one of those bosses you run into at the start of a level and can't even damage, but that it keeps making you chase and fight until the end anyway, and the girls are minibosses who you have to constantly get past gates to move forward with. From there you have inconsistencies, like Olivia is a totally different person if you date her and your sister than the person she is if you date your sister and meet her later. Your mother has severe Multiple Personality Disorder. And both Alice and Lisa essentially reset their "affection" for you after each gate, making it as though you've made no progress. And last, I mentioned the art. To put it in perspective, it would take 5 or 6 of his scenes that you had to work your ass off to get and aren't even posed to give you optimal angles of viewing, to equal the opening scene of my game that you don't work for at all, just in renders.
Man of the House - Man of the House suffers from some of the same problems as BB, only without the Eric, and with slightly worse writing. If I'm honest, I like MotH more, but only because it had less potential than BB to fuck up. As a result of the fact that there is very little writing, the plot is advanced by grind. But that grind makes the game creepy to me. In short, if you have to wear a girl down, you don't have consent. And you have to wear all the girls down, not to mention getting your mom drunk to even get things rolling, blackmailing your older sister, and then impersonating a medical professional to convince your mom that incest is totally natural. Of course, both the little sister and the mother's content are played off as if they were a little taboo, but otherwise "romantic" and "consensual". The older sister, to start with, the blackmail that gets things started is so fucking weak, and it continues to be weak when you double down with her boss. You would need something much worse on her, or, for her to already know she likes being dominated. And that is the next problem, a switch flips and she goes from the mean bitch to your slave in no time, something like that, even with a willing sub in real life, takes time.
Dating My Daughter - This one, like BB has a lot of potential that it completely fucks. First off, I was just going through some of the art the other day, and I think Dots is genius in his use of expression. It makes D so much easier to love. But that's where my praise has to end. D is incredibly inconsistent. Sometimes she screens as being 13-15, but its a lot more common that she screens as 9-10. See, I personally don't have a problem with jailbait, if that's what the story is, lets go. What I do have a problem with is when the author is so dedicated on making her "innocent" and "young" that he makes her fucking retarded as well. To add insult to injury, D is, throughout almost the entire Ch.1 game, completely passive. She is constantly reacting. She makes no decisions on her own until the Cupid Night event. This makes what is written as if it's a budding romance into more of a corruption feel. Yet the entire time he refuses to commit to that corruption feel. Dad is supposedly a gentleman, or at least, he honestly thinks he is. And that brings us to the largest problem overall, pacing. This game makes most stairway to heaven scenarios look like express elevators. You don't even get a blowjob until the entire first game has finished, and then we are several releases into the sequel.
