I agree, for me this update feels disjointed, seems that some people felt the same.
It doesn't have the same vibe as previous updates, maybe the "story" is kicking in, but not in the direction that most expected.
I don't mind the sudden changes in the overall story (the direction of the story is interesting)... what left me uneasy are some decisions in the relationships with the girls.
So , in one route, having a lust relationship with Rion only leads to GB and future NTR (didn't expect having to choice a NTR scene by following her route, welp...). Not only that, there is no "alternative" scene for those who don't want that kind of scenes with Rion for that particular path, there isn't anything for romance path whatsoever in this update to be clear.
The whole Nora (the thing related to the gem), and Maddie scenes are... weird, didn't felt natural, but maybe that's intended.
I may be in the wrong, but i had the impression that if i choose a girl, i won't have any particular problems with NTR scenes whatsoever.
I don't mind NTR, if its done well... but it kinda feel forced and too sudden in this update. And as someone said... hours ago (in the story), they were having another kind of relationship. Feels like they are not the same people.
Another thing is that now there are several "routes" for Rion... so if Lust have NTR, and evil is the result of her hating you... now we'll have a route with "sharing / voyeur"? and another one with hard NTR (speculation, but by the dev notes is a full route for Rion)?.
Let me to think that the type of content that we had with Rion up until 0.7 its going to be less in future updates because those new routes, no?
Hard to digest that in only one update after all the romance and lust/wild scenes done just the 7 updates before in a game that had ntr content, but wasn't the focus because it was mainly on girls that you didn't follow and you choose to see them out of their routes.
I'm curious about the story... i think that i'll wait a couple of updates to see where the relationships with the girls are going.