-Edited-
Even though I'm not satisfied with every part of the game, I can't give it less than 5 stars, since it has brought me so much joy and good memories. Starting from the discovery of the home town, including the zombie massacre and the ntr events, I don't even dare to tell how much I was engrossed in this game. But now I don't exactly want to write about these fun times, but rather about those elements that made me feel a bit lacking.
In this game, the focus is mainly on the heroines. Their personalities are unique and engaging, their looks are particularly attractive, and their voice actors are commendable.
Every player could rightly assume at first, the real goal of the game is to "conquer" these heroines hearts with our "heroic deeds" during the missions and through the adventures we went through together. But that's not what happens.
This relationship build-up between the MC and the heroines takes place in a form of a separate side mission called Intimacy Events. But even if you reach the maximum level for all heroines, it doesn't change anything in the main story.
It's actually like having three separate stories in the game. The main story, the intimacy events, and the NTR. These three lines have no influence on each other. It's true that in a kind of game like this there is no way to connect these events at all, but it's quite disturbing that even after you've completed an ntr event with a certain heroine, the intimacy events still continues as if the cheating didn't happen.
But since I'm talking about the ntr, I have to mention that the first three scenes was an excellent hit with all heroines. I can almost say that they were perfect, and matching their personality. The problem with the sequels was actually not that the MC found out the cheating, but rather the lack of creativity. From the fourth scene on, the story was more rushed than enjoyable, so the genre had no effect on us from that point on.
But in a nutshell, the new NTR events were mostly about this:
- Quite an anemic scenario, but eg. one of the bull just out of blue gives you a wardrobe key to let you watch as he fucking your girlfriend. It's one thing that this move just entirelly killed the voyeuristic factor from this whole event, but I can't see any logic in a scenario where the bull literally exposes himself, and risk to ending the constant affair with the MC's girlfriend. Not to mention that in this event the MC suppoused to be angry or somewhat surprised as he discovered his girlfriend's infidelity.
- Watching a hidden recording from Hikari and her lover was somewhat more interesting since it was closer to Netorare, as they don't know we have saw them together, just the MC's indifferent reaction ruined the most events.
- At the end, the most heroines: "Ok, you caught me, I cheated on you, I'm sorry ...Oh wait, why are you turned on? Did you like it, you perv." ...I could say, after the final event the MC was who had to explain himself..
There was no tension, conflict, jealousy or any of the emotional reactions that make this genre so unique. The option of breaking up didn't even come up. The change to netorase was quite unexpected, and the MC accepted the whole cheating too easily.
The story simply became too rushed towards the end. Instead of the MC's fast intervention, the story should have played a little longer with this secret-voyeur topic, and watching the heroines "cheating progress" from a safe distance.
But when a game includes the both version of NTR, in normal case the netorare should rather comes after the netorase events, and not the other way around as it happened here. But mixing the two genres just to have a good ending wasn't necessarily the best idea, since this way the plot didn't get any effective closure, but more of a harem happy ending. Even though I like cheating I'm not a hardcore NTR guy, but I still consider the Charm song's NTS a boring failure.
Overall this object seeking as a basic idea didn't really work in long run. It just made every storyline somewhat similar and pushed the whole genre behind limits, which made the new events quite ineffective.
The other topic I want to talk about is the Home Town. The place is simply brilliant and it's perfectly designed. It's clearly visible that the developers spent a lot of energy to perfect this part.
I'm one of those players who like to wander around the Base between two missions or even after finished the game to admire the exquisite decoration, while enjoy the music and watching the movement and behavior of the NPCs. The problem is that the life at the home Base is limited to the main corridor and there is only activity within that.
The localities of the Home Town, such as the heroines rooms, or the unlockable facilities such as the laboratory, the armory, or the hot spring, are only in used for a few missions.
Kirara should occasionally go into her room to read, and Hikari could train, Aya could work on the computer, and Ichika could play video games. The residents and heroines could sometimes practice in the armory, and use the hot spring. Aya could go into the lab from time to time, and so on..
I simply want to see as the life goes on in all areas of the Base. On the other hand, it might also prevent the npc's from getting stuck because of the crowd near the entrance.
Some sex activity at different points of the Base, be it ntr or vanilla I also think it's a good idea, actually I really want it. But I only see its meaning if it can be in sync with each heroine's intimacy level where we are at currently in the game. Otherwise it's pointless. This also applies to ntr.
The new facilities of the dlc such as the Inn, the Game Center, and Hikari's hometown I consider completely unnecessary and pointless just to be there for a short mini-game, since these rooms are not part of the Base according to the story.
For me the new missions and stages was a great success. The new locations was cool, and greatly decorated, and the missions was pretty long and challenging. The new weapons was great. At the end when the zombies celebrated with neon tubes during the concert I felt it a bit excessive, but it was definitely good for the mood.
Overall I'm glad the devs continued this game. I hope we can still count on more updates.