Review of version 0.7/Season One. - Spoiler Free
Projekt: Passion is perfect. But it isn't. Realistically speaking, when it comes to any type of media, we cannot perceive them as perfect. Everything has to be flawed to some degree. Ask any creator of anything, ever. They will tell you something they could improve upon in their work. And once they improve that, they will find another detail, no matter how minor, that could be improved. I'm sure even Mr. Lemon would give you a dozen of things he would like to make better or different. Now, despite all of this, I consider Projekt: Passion to be the ONE perfect AVN, and despite that, it probably is not even my favorite one. After all, we humans are not binary beings that would perceive the world on a binary spectrum of "perfect" and "imperfect". Therefore, if something is perfect, it doesn't make it the best. PP (I shall continue calling Projektk: Passion PP from now on.) comes very close to the top, though. Now, to move away from the abstract and start with the more comprehensible part of my review, I would like to put my words to reason.
PP is not really perfect in the traditional sense. There are probably scenes that could look better after a bit of fiddling with the camera, the lighting, and the expressions. There may be music that is not fitting as well as it could; maybe some sounds a little too stiff. Audio mixing may not be completely normalized across every single file. There may be some... you get my point. These, for lack of a better word, superficial factors can always be made better. Even if by a miniscule margin. Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying that PP is lacking in any of these categories. I mean, have you seen some of the stuff that Lemon is capable of? PP is among the best of the best when it comes to the body and soul of said AVN. It's not perfectin this aspect, though, for it is feesibly impossible to be.
The real brilliance of the game comes from the fact that it managed to make use of a completely different aspect of the industry that you wouldn't even consider. You see, there is one thing that most AVNs have in common. It is the episodic nature of updates. Normally, you would completely disregard this aspect as an unfortunate circumstance of the industry. But I'd like to make the argument that Lemon managed to weaponize it to a wildly strong degree, dare I say perfect it? And I'm not quite sure if intentionally. Hear me out..
Whenever a new game comes out, its quality usually fluctuates with every update. Mostly, these fluctuations are not that massive, and the quality stays roughly around the same point. There are some burning exceptions, of course, cough cough AL. But when we average it out, games usually stay around the same level of quality throughout their development. This is not what happened with PP. When I first played PP, it was quite obvious that the game was great. It did not really engulf me with passion in the prologue of the game or anything, but it was definitely well above average. Now that has changed. I'm not sure if this is a byproduct of Lemon being a superhuman who can simply absorb all of his experience at once and build on it in a matter of 2-4 months. But when it comes to PP, the quality manages to not only steadily grow, But it manages to steadily grow RAPIDLY. I do not perceive it as feasible to have THIS much growth as a creator with every game you make. Lemon manages to do it with every update. It's genuinely baffling. And it's not even him getting better and better with every update. It's the set-up, the twists, the cliffhangers, it's everything. It works so perfectly to make you yearn for more. It doesn't utilize cheap tricks to create an artificial sense of suspense. It manages to make everything work together so fucking well. There is nothing on the market, that even comes close to the quality that Projekt: Passion has. It perfected the nature of the format. And I'm willing to bet that there won't be anything that even comes close to the bar that PP set for a long, long time.
Unfortunately, there is a problem with my statement. I'm contradicting myself. If Lemon gets so much better with every update, how can it be perfect if the next update utilizes this better, right? I'm scared of the fact that it won't. I'm scared that 0.7 is the breaking point that won't be beaten, even by the likes of Lemon. It's just.. too good. Too perfect. But I have faith, that Lemon will be able to prove me wrong. Even if it won't be the next update, it will be the one after, or the one after that. I don't think this is the peak of what Projekt: Passion can give. I think this update is the peak of perfect Projekt: Passion.
TLDR: good game, play.