Disclaimer that i didn't play too far into the game because i got sick of the nonsense early on.
This game suffers from a fundamental problem in that you, the human playing this game, know what you're getting into but the in-game character you play as has no idea. For me, this is a fatal flaw in the game design because you have to pretend to be oblivious just like your in-game character. Secretary makes that difficult to do because everything i've encountered so far is obvious and predictable. It was my first time playing and i know what's in that contract without my character being able to read it. I know the real purpose of the "therapy" sessions before going to the first visit. I already know the storyline with the apartment manager after the introductory interactions. I haven't read any spoilers, it's just that it's so obvious what the intentions are. The game depends on you going along with it and pretending to be dumb, but i don't find that enjoyable because there's no feeling of discovery. Repeated playthroughs are a different story but the first one shouldn't be so obvious.
I also found Secretary to be unnecessarily tedious. Is it really necessary for your apartment to have five separate locations instead of just making the apartment a single location and giving you all the interactions at once? I don't know, maybe there's something in the story later on that needs the separation but it's really annoying early on. What's the point of the wardrobe when it's far more convenient to just keep everything in your inventory? Why can my character only masturbate in the living room? Why are the video games separate from the computer as if slightly old computers can't play games? There's just so many unnecessary extra clicks going on for what seems to be no good reason. On top of this, there's too much reading relative to interactions. I feel like the writing is too bloated, detailing things that don't really matter and making dialog too wordy.
I felt that Secretary didn't give me enough control over my character and was even inconsistent with behavior. My character was in the lingerie shop and he refused to buy anything despite already wearing the ex-girlfriend's underwear. The game randomly made my character forget what the boss wanted to eat for lunch--if you're going to do things like this, at least tell me why my character forgot (too much arousal/stress or whatever), don't just do it randomly when my character isn't a dumb forgetful bimbo. I got to the first weekend after becoming a SISSI and there was nothing to do except have my character sleep or play video games. It just feels so limited and restrictive because it wants you to play at a predetermined pace and i don't have the freedom to play how i want.
I actually have more complaints but they're not my main criticisms and i've probably written enough already. The biggest complement i want to mention is that it lets you play online instead of requiring a download. I wish all HTML-based games would do that.
This game suffers from a fundamental problem in that you, the human playing this game, know what you're getting into but the in-game character you play as has no idea. For me, this is a fatal flaw in the game design because you have to pretend to be oblivious just like your in-game character. Secretary makes that difficult to do because everything i've encountered so far is obvious and predictable. It was my first time playing and i know what's in that contract without my character being able to read it. I know the real purpose of the "therapy" sessions before going to the first visit. I already know the storyline with the apartment manager after the introductory interactions. I haven't read any spoilers, it's just that it's so obvious what the intentions are. The game depends on you going along with it and pretending to be dumb, but i don't find that enjoyable because there's no feeling of discovery. Repeated playthroughs are a different story but the first one shouldn't be so obvious.
I also found Secretary to be unnecessarily tedious. Is it really necessary for your apartment to have five separate locations instead of just making the apartment a single location and giving you all the interactions at once? I don't know, maybe there's something in the story later on that needs the separation but it's really annoying early on. What's the point of the wardrobe when it's far more convenient to just keep everything in your inventory? Why can my character only masturbate in the living room? Why are the video games separate from the computer as if slightly old computers can't play games? There's just so many unnecessary extra clicks going on for what seems to be no good reason. On top of this, there's too much reading relative to interactions. I feel like the writing is too bloated, detailing things that don't really matter and making dialog too wordy.
I felt that Secretary didn't give me enough control over my character and was even inconsistent with behavior. My character was in the lingerie shop and he refused to buy anything despite already wearing the ex-girlfriend's underwear. The game randomly made my character forget what the boss wanted to eat for lunch--if you're going to do things like this, at least tell me why my character forgot (too much arousal/stress or whatever), don't just do it randomly when my character isn't a dumb forgetful bimbo. I got to the first weekend after becoming a SISSI and there was nothing to do except have my character sleep or play video games. It just feels so limited and restrictive because it wants you to play at a predetermined pace and i don't have the freedom to play how i want.
I actually have more complaints but they're not my main criticisms and i've probably written enough already. The biggest complement i want to mention is that it lets you play online instead of requiring a download. I wish all HTML-based games would do that.