Could be, when I played OiaL I didn't knew Ripples yet (outside of the fact, that the game existed), so I wouldn't have recognized her.
I'm moving this dialogue over, since it is more about Ripples at this point, so the mods might delete it otherwise.
Well, to be fair: That it is a Time Travel story only becomes clear later.
I think originally it was more the art style that put me off. I remember playing the beginning and Darci just looked...weird. If I understand this correctly Ep. 1 was "remaster" (?), so that might have helped me to get over the art style in a 2nd attempt. Darci's lower arms and hands still look weird though.
I honestly think the number of women in the game has become somewhat of a problem for the game, because it prevents the story from focusing on a more selective group of them. By now (I'm now in the middle of Ep. 5) it also feels like the MC is just walking from sex scene to sex scene, especially since most of the girls only appear in solo scenes (outside of like Krystal and Daphne). I know, that is also a bit of a weird critic for a porn VN, but I kinda inevitable compare Ripples to other quality VNs like Eternum, PC etc. since that were it stands in the weighted ratings. And most of these games have either a smaller cast (PC), a more structured cast as in clear main LIs and clear side LIs (OiaL) or the cast is closer together as a group, so LIs often appear in the same scenes together, giving them all time to grow (Eternum).
I joked about Ripples not having the harem tag, because at that point I (seemingly) had to decide between Jessica and Skylar and I thought that was the starting point of the game putting more of a focus on individual LIs. Only for Skylar do disappear from the game and the MC pretty much starting two other romances with Jenny and Alyssa.
Maybe it will change later down the line I don't know how large this game is supposed to become, but some characters like Daphne or Janelle really don't seem to serve much of a purpose storywise.