Honestly, the game wasn't bad. The writing was a little cheesy, but had a lot of heart. Each of the characters, no matter how minor, had a distinct voice and were pretty likable.
Gameplay: 3
50 being the max stat for everything was way overkill. Between your strength, speed, courage, and three affection pools, I found it rather tedious to raise manually. The worse part is that you don't even need anything nearly close to the max values to get all the scenes. 30 in each stat should be more than enough, but the game doesn't really tell you that.
Between the random encounters and the variable dialogue, some even acknowledging seeing you before or hinting at a tree progression, you don't actually benefit from seeing the jogger, the cat, or the homeless chick several times. Nothing comes out of flirting with the jogger, the cat has the same exact prompt each time you run into it (except when it becomes plot-relevant), and the homeless chick only has a second variation, where she doesn't automatically suck you off at the end of sex. Had I known these things, I would have spent a lot less time getting attacked and rewatching the same scenes.
Similarly, telling jokes to Yelena and reciting poems to Daphne doesn't seem to unlock anything special. Annoyingly enough, telling the jokes gives you less affection than sex, but reciting poems gives more points than sex (which oddly enough, doesn't raise affection). Feeding Nakita info on Instagrammers doesn't really do anything. All three of these activities draw from a random pool, which made it difficult for me to figure out whether there was a point to them. While these things help highlight each character's personality and interest, I felt like it was a little much.
Story: 4
I like that the story doesn't take itself too seriously. The dialogue and scene descriptions are genuinely fun to read and the characters are very likable. I thought Jack was a great centerpiece and his geekiness is surprisingly charming. He feels like a natural part of the story, rather than a blatant proxy of the player. I feel very tempted to rate this a 5, but there were also times where I felt like the characters stubbornly refused to step out of their comfort zone. For example, Yelena only laughs at one, and only one of the jokes. Every other time, she shoos you away, despite supposedly secretly liking them. You forfeit your right to stick around and hang out. Or like Nikita never really shows a moment of vulnerability, despite having so many opportunities to. In the scene where she says "You'd pick Yelene every time," I expected her to be more somber. Daphne's sweet, caring, and doting personality all but disappears once she's young and confident again. All she seems to care about is just sex and poetry. What happened to the teas and stews? The mulberry pie? What about getting out of the cold and sitting by the fire? Why is she suddenly so distant?
Art: 4
For the most part, I liked the art. The models were pretty good looking and the posing gave them a lot of personality. I enjoyed seeing them and Jack interact with the scenery. My only complaint is that some of the visuals come too soon or too late and I end up rereading the most recent lines to make sure I didn't misread anything.
