There are a couple good points: the girls are very pretty, and (almost) all the characters are well developed. I can see why some people get drawn in. But I am not one of them. Despite the quality of the characters, I couldn’t get into it. Something about this game also made my depression worse every time I played it, which definitely isn’t a plus.
There are a lot of things wrong, from someone giving the protagonist sertraline for an acute panic attack (do not do this. I can see why a placebo might work for someone having a panic attack, but it’s still a terrible idea, and although the protagonist could likely benefit from SSRIs, they need to come from a doctor. Also, you have to come off SSRIs slowly. I’m not sure what it’s like to go from a single day of a large dose to nothing at all, but if it’s anything like missing a dose, the character should be suffering horribly from it.) to using “retarded” as an insult, like it’s 1998, in a game in which “The game’s approach to mental health is healing…”
The opening is poor. I fought through it. It got better, but not enough.
Plot problems abound: the main one: there isn’t a main plot. There are a few subplots, but they’re fairly disconnected from each other. The character’s experience with growth is the unifying factor, but it doesn’t resonate with me. At no point did I really want to know what’s going to happen next. Then, there’s the fact that there’s no explanation of what the fuck happened with Summer, beyond “she’s gone.” Kidnapped? Murdered? Ran away? Abducted by aliens? It’s the end of S1 and I still don’t know the experience that lead to the protagonist’s breakdown, just that it sucked, and that Summer is gone.
Also, the protagonist smokes? But he does it like twice, so is it weed? I don’t know, but the player should.
I don’t necessarily mind kinetic novels, but, here, the lack of choices bothers me. Perhaps it’s because the protagonist is in college, where there are numerous possibilities open to him, and he chooses them without consulting the player, or even explaining them. Why does he agree to basketball? Why does he join the board game thing? These are important omissions.
In terms of what is straightforward, it’s a game that I don’t feel any need to follow, so I’ll give it three stars. I might try it again in the future, when it's 100% complete. I hope not, but I'm usually too curious for my own good.
There’s something else though; there’s something wrong that I can’t put my finger on. I don’t know why, (and that bothers me,) but my depression felt worse after each session with this game. I feel like I should mention this. I like plenty of games with disturbing content, and with characters struggling with mental health, so it’s not the obvious that’s the problem. It’s not that mental health is handled terribly, because it’s done reasonably well (although I do have a few quibbles.) That would justify a 1 star review. Perhaps it’s that nothing in this resonated with me, and there wasn’t any catharsis, but that wouldn’t explain why it made me feel worse. Whatever the cause, I can't think of any game, book, or song that afflicts me like that. For that reason, a part of me wants to give a 1 star review, but it doesn’t feel right to do so when I can’t find anything that wrong with this game/story/protagonist.
I also feel like I should mention that, If you're just playing for sex scenes, you're in the wrong game - there aren't any.
