Updated review for v0.4.6
The major improvement for this update is several more lewd scenes. I think Ch4 had as many as Ch1-Ch3 combined. Unfortunately, the dialogue and narration are still too long-winded. It's like the developer took a pre-written full-length novel and is trying to put all of the text into a visual novel instead of strategically using the visuals to help tell the story. There are sometimes more than a dozen screens of dialog using the same render. The writing is overly-descriptive of both obvious and unnecessary details and subsequently, it's frequently just
boring. Also, the story is just getting too dark with the suicide theme and there's the retarded idea that the boss works in the office right next to the MC but nobody has ever seen him. I guess it's supposed to be an overly-dramatic erotic sci-fi thriller, but it doesn't work. It definitely kills the erotic nature of the game. However, even with the downsides, it's still way better-than-average for games available on F95Zone.
Previous review for v0.4.4
Pros:
Great story. Great renders. Good animations.
Cons:
The writing is overboard for a visual novel-type game. There's way too much unnecessary dialogue and narration that elaborates on various points of the story. I spent so much time reading dialogue and narration and thinking to myself "Yeah, yeah, I get it, please, please... just get on with the story." Instead of a visual novel, it's trying to be a novel with visual aids. Don't get me wrong, the writing is good, it's just not the right balance of writing and visuals for this type of game. Fixing this balance would make it a great game overall, but that would require the writer to go back and rewrite all of the dialogue and narration in about 70%
fewer words.
The other low point is the basic game engine mechanics. You can make text "instant", but the game tells you it might cause problems, you can make transitions "very fast", but the game tells you that might cause problems. Experienced developers know that players want instant text and they want to be able to skip transitions. I understand that developers are also artists and they want players to experience the game the way they intend it to be experienced. However, this game, like so many other similar games, has choices and most players save/reload to see what happens when making different choices. The experience for those players is very different the second, third, or fourth time through, and not being able to speed up the process is frustrating.
Combine the slow text and transitions with the excessive amount of text to read and you'd think the dev is getting paid by the hour... of playtime.
Summary:
It's still a good game compared to what's available, but it's disappointing that this experienced VN developer created a new game with such fundamental issues.