I've gone back and replayed episode one, with the express purpose of evaluating the storyline as presented. To be clear, I care not at all about the various VtM foundations of this VN unless they are explicitly presented in the VN itself. As I have said before my only exposure to VtM is reading the various walls of text that its fans present here.
Before I say more I want to make it clear that EP1 is a damn masterpiece. Taken solely on its own, without the hindsight of the following two years, it's really good. Excellent pacing. Lots of tension. The ever increasing sexual banter between Sharron and the MC, along with his guilt over putting both her and Laurie at risk just moves the plot forward. Shannon becoming evermore flirtatious as the MC gradually draws her out of her protective shell. For those of us not fully enveloped in the VtM world, bit by bit we see parts of how the Vampire world holds itself together. Attractive characters, interpersonal tensions, a couple, maybe three, real bad guys (well two are women). The MC presenting diverse powers that defy categorization and present a puzzle to Sharron (our only available expert). It is such good writing.
So now let's look back, at EP2 and EP3. That pace that kept the tensions between Shannon and the MC is gone. It's proven to be all bait and switch. Only now, so many updates later, are the MC's powers starting to matter. Such a waste. If you compare the plot progress and character development in EP1 to EP2 and EP3, everything since EP1 should have been resolved part way through EP2. To be fair things are picking up again, but what a wasteland.
I've taken some heat here for stating that Calisto left the MC to die. Well let's examine the plot line in EP1. She turned him. He went back to his apartment. While in the process of dying Laurie found him and got him into a hospital. According to Shannon, someone at the hospital "noticed" him and notified the Archon who dispatched Shannon to get him out of the hospital and care for him as he died and turned. There is nothing to suggest that the Archon has any idea who turned the MC or that Calisto is involved in anyway. Actually much is made that no one knows who turned him.
If Laurie hadn't gotten the MC into the hospital he'd have died and ended up dead. Calisto had nothing to do with that. Perhaps once he turned up in the hospital she arranged for a call to the Archon, but he easily could have died before that happened. Slice it however you like. The storyline in EP1 is that, until he came to the Archon's attention, he was left on his own. Period.
Perhaps now that he's survived, Calisto is taking an interest, but any notion that she gave a tinker's damn about him prior to that is not supported by the storyline.
As for the lack of sexual content in this VN, and the "this is not a porn game" narrative. I absolutely defy anyone to go back and play EP1 and experience the pace of the building sexual tension between Sharron and the MC and truthfully tell me you expected us to be nearing the end of EP3 with no resolution of the boundaries of that relationship. As I said earlier, bait and switch.
Were I to rate this game I'd give EP1 6 out of 5 stars. EP2 gets maybe 2.5, and so far with the last couple updates actually moving the plot, give EP3 3.5 with the jury out because the writers can really knock this out of the park or strike out at this point.
I find myself a bit embarrassed. A while ago, I challenged the writers to abandon the nudity and teasing, which they pretty clearly had no intention of delivering on, and prove they could deliver an AVN with no sex/porn. Here's what's really amusing. In EP1 they did EXACTLY THAT, but then they shut the tap and stalled the tension and turned the growth of an adult relationship (because this is an "Adult Visual Novel" ) into some weird high school romance level interaction.
So to the writers, I recant my challenge. In retrospect it's quite clear that you can in fact deliver the required quality of writing. So my question is, since you have only done so while growing an adult relationship between the MC and one or another of the women surrounding him, why the hell have you stopped? Seems a fair question.
So this is pretty crazy. EP1 made this game. Grabbed everyone's attention, with damn good reason. As for EP2 & EP3, other that the VtM folks who are loving writing walls of text debating Vampiric nuances about which the rest of us have no clue, you're really letting us down. Pick up the pace let us actually make love to the "love interests" you've put before us. Advance the plot so we can walk whatever path you have in store of us and triumph or fail. That is the foundation you laid in EP1. I'm only asking you live up to it.
