This is an utterly ridiculous amount of girls especially given the context of the MC’s social phobias. There’s no counterbalance with guys either.
The counterbalance is the basketball boys. The game cannot go 50:50 screen time between girls and guys because obviously the focus of the relationship would be the girls and not the guys.
Suspension of disbelief can only go so far and it feels like there was an overwhelming push to put as many girls into place as possible as quickly as possible for no obvious reason.
In general, I'd usually agree with you that I'm not a fan of too many girls. There are so many games that introduced like 10 girls from the start and I thought they could benefit from being reduced down to 5 or so instead. However, specifically for Summer's Gone (and a few other select high-quality games), I don't mind that it has so many girls because of the way they are presented. In most other games, what we have would be 10 girls that are just on rotation where we get some scene with girl A, then girl B, etc. That breaks the flow of the game because those girls often exist as if exclusively and individually for the MC. In Summer's Gone, those characters are all part of the same existence because they interact with multiple different groups fulfilling different roles in potentially multiple plot points.
A few examples:
1. We were introduced to Ayua as Bella's friend, but we immediately got Ayua paired with Nami for the group project to kickstart the interaction between MC and Ayua. Her character wasn't pigeonholed as Bella's sidekick which then allowed her to be a more neutral character that can be a voice of reasoning to the complicated Bella/MC relationship instead.
2. Robin is a duo with Sasha. We get to see her being a victim of the gossip along with MC, then being an antagonist by tricking MC to help Zara/Nadia, but also going against Zara/Nadia by informing Bella/Marla. She is also a potential housemate with MC, Nami, and Mila. She does a lot.
3. The connection between plots where we get to see Mila being insulted by Mario that then led to MC working with Bella to sneak into Mario's house because Bella doesn't want Amber to be with Mario's dad which then led to MC/Bella trying to get more information from Vanessa. All this while also having other related plot points such as Amber/Mario's dad plot, MC meeting up with Elsa, Vanessa potentially being a future step sister, and maybe more.
In most other games, a character like Ayua would be one dimensional Bella's sidekick who exist only with MC and Bella. Similarly with Robin/Sasha. Plot points are also often unrelated to one another where MC interacts with each LI individually as if they only exist when with MC but not with each other. In Summer's Gone, all these characters are part of the big picture and they have lives that don't have to revolve around the MC.
Does anyone else find this offputting at all as they move through the story, or is it just me? Will it make paths too convoluted going forward?
Due to the reasoning above, I don't find this off-putting at all. I actually consider this as an amazing strong point of the game.
I can't say whether this will make paths to convoluted going forward because it isn't clear yet how the paths will be done for most of the characters, but I think LI-path-wise, it could be done as simple as having a point where MC will have to choose who he wants to be serious with (and breaking up with whoever else he was in relationship with at that point, if any) before the path move forward.
I'm definitely interested to see how the story would unfold that could lead to the more complicated potential LI such as Vanessa (how could she be convinced to break up with Mario to then end up with someone who is potentially her step brother by that point?) or Amber (how could she date a patient? how could she date her daughter's classmate? how could Bella give the OK for this?) and others that have complicated situation too. So far, I'm really enjoying the writing and the storytelling. I'm just going to enjoy the ride and see where the Ocean goes.
