To a degree, I agree with you. There is not much agency at all when it comes to story events in TNH. But I didn't have major problems with how they tie progression system and relationship system with storyline.
I just finished reading your review and, I think you brought up a good point.
So I would say design language was not intuitive for me, and would be clearer without icons suggesting that I'm making some crucial decision here (rejecting a girl or choosing a path for myself). Or just spell the effects like in normal choices (for example, "you encouraged Laura protectives" similar to "you gained 6 trust").
Girls can get levels, seen a notification popping up, but blink, and it is gone. Haven't found any place to check what level they are currently, nor what exactly changes with levels.
There seem to be level 5 cap for yourself, you can reach it early, and there is no indication that you can progress any further (like when you reach max trust or love), in fact you seem to still be getting XP, just bar stops moving, but It's really hard to say if it completely stops or is just progressing more slowly.
However, and I know it was already mentioned few times before, verbally and explicitly asking EVERY TIME you make any, even smallest, action during sex scenes is absolutely ridiculous and just kills the flow or excitement or spirit of play.
If the game was more communicative about how far you can get in things, like relationships, sex, etc. I would have less a problem with tying relationship progress with story progress. A lot of the limits, etc. are not intuitive for me. Like, I'm already max love, I'm already dating the person, I've already had my tongue their ass, but sex? No, that's a step too far. Gotta wait until chapter 3 (not literally. I can't remember which chapter)
I do agree with you in your review in that there are certain aspects of it that fills what RLE lacks. But it does feel unfocused. The GUI being unintuitive, the story choices giving only an illusion of choice. I'm wondering if the reverse relation should have been better. Rather than requiring chapter 3 to increase relationship, requiring a certain relationship level before being able to continue the storyline. Like "You've become Rogue's boyfriend. That means you can do chapter 2 AND 3". It's *kind of* that way in RLE in that you have to get to a certain level before you can get a key to their room or get Xavier off your back for that girl or until they tell you their backstory.
So, as a programmer, I occasionally get approached by people going "I have this idea. It's this and this and this. Wanna get in on it?" And, more often than not, I'd have to tell them 1 of a few things (or some combination thereof):
1) It already exists.
2) The problem your idea is suppose to solve, doesn't really solve the problem.
3) The problem isn't really what you think it is.
4) This is an unethical solution.
5) It's physically not possible.
I feel like The Null Hypothesis is what happens when no one tells the creator that this idea is number 1, 2 and 3. And, as much as I hate to say it, solutions that look for a problem, if it doesn't learn to pivot (correctly) or have a HUGE backing (i.e. too big to fail), often slowly get bloated and fail. A lot of learning to become a programmer isn't just learning to write code, but to understand and find the essence abstract human concepts. When you don't have that understanding of the concept you're trying to bring to code, you are often left with really bad code trying to make up for worse ideas until everything just grinds to a halt because it's too much trouble/hassle to fix/expand/work with. Like, fingers crossed, my best wishes to TNH team and I hope I'm wrong or they're the rare exception, but yeah. And, contrary to popular opinion, even if you throw a bunch of money at a problem, if it doesn't have the right people/skill/solution that can get the money, the problem will not get solved.
Which brings me back to why I'm so lenient on Oni's code. He's pivoting correctly. He's refactoring bad code. Slowly but surely. I've seen commercial products that die because they weren't able to do that. Hell, I've literally heard of someone that committed suicide because he couldn't do it right. So, again, 8 year old code that's still running and actively being improved and all being done by one person. I know people keep complaining "He's making so much money, the code should be better." But I can tell you, first hand, what he's done is pretty impressive. Because, again, how many google products have died during RLE's existence? And they had more money AND people behind it.
