Having more characters is not an excuse for the narrative to be moving forward this slowly. You can absolutely introduce/flesh out characters while driving the narrative forward.
But that's the thing, the narrative
is not moving slowly. For a visual novel that's meant to be near 30 chapters, it's moving at an optimal pace. We've literally
just exited the introduction. What exactly were you expecting?
So in 4 updates, which is over 10% of the story all we know about the main plot is police officers were involved and that mc got injured (and snippets of summer and mc's life together). Definitely enough for players to even START thinking about piecing the information together. In all of the memorable mystery books I've read I was at least able to create believable theories in my head as to what might've happened relatively early on, I'm not even close to being able to do that here. You can't judge how good a mystery plot is before knowing more about the mystery than the bare minimum, this is like saying the da vinci code is a great story (which it is) after only reading the first 10 pages. You can say he's great at creating suspense, you can't judge how good the mystery itself is though.
Actually it's 5 of 30+ updates( future half chapters included)... do you see where I'm coming from? Do you seriously think that, with that amount of content, the main plot won't be expanded on? You not being able to create believable theories right now, means that Oceans is doing a good job. He
doesn't want the main plot focused too heavily at the moment. There is still ample time to delve into Summer's disappearance. You're acting as if all mystery novels
must share the same format and pacing. Mystery is one of its central themes, but Summer's Gone is much more than that.
Also, concerning the subplots, please tell me what's so special about Nojiko and Nick, and the whole underdog tournament arc? It's entertaining sure, but I really don't see what sets those subplots apart.
For one, it's through the Nojiko and Nick subplot that we learned:
- That Zara and Vanessa are Nick's daughters and are both potential family members
- Nick lives in the same area as Bella
- Vanessa possibly played Bella for a fool
- Vanessa is somehow connected to the woman(forgot her name) that gave Nami her earring
- Nick may become a future father figure for MC
I may indeed have missed one or two things, but you act as if this subplot served no purpose. You act as if many aspects of this story fail to serve a purpose when we literally just left the introductory phase
with this update. The tournament opens the doors for a lot of things. This update showed us that MC has ambitions to become a professional athlete. It also reconfirmed the fact that most of the cast will be revealed through this tournament. Who knows? Maybe Summer may even be reintroduced via the tournament. It's the biggest subplot for a reason.
As far as the dogshit games, I meant that 99% of games on this site are dogshit, I never said that there are sites with VNs that make COBD seem like trash, I simply meant that a game doesn't really have to be all that special to be considered good compared to most other games on this site. Doesn't mean there aren't still great games on here.
I see.
Again, I love this game, and yes, it's unique on this site. You have to remember though that the vast majority of games on this site are fucking dogshit, and even a lot of good games only have insanely good porn going for them.
So what does this mean? I'm referring to the underlined portions obviously. In regards to the rest of your comment, were you expecting erotica-level writing when you came here? Lol. When I first came, my expectations were super low, because of how I initially perceived this website. But some of the relationships in these Adult Visual Novels can really give the relationships in top erotica novels a run for their money. Though I can probably count on one hand how many AVNs can actually do that. There is some truth in your comment that the writing doesn't have to be all that special to be considered good... but the writing here in Summer's Gone is actually good irrespective of the terrible writing consistently displayed in most other games on this site.
I have to say that COBD is a bad comparison, sorry for that. But I do think it is fair to compare the overall quality of a game like this that gets such high praise to what is in my opinion the best game on this site.
No worries lol. COBD is one of the best novels on this site, that we can both agree on.
Again, I do think this game is among the best on this site, and it's potential is exceptional. But I do think the pace is excruciatingly slow even for a mystery story, which I still think is a valid criticism. As I said, the game has high potential but I think it's a bit ridiculous to judge a game based on it's potential (it's going to have 30 chapters!) rather than what we have in front of us right now.
No, I totally get it. The beautiful thing about art is that every artist creates their pieces in their own unique ways(every good artist anyway). Writing and storytelling are art forms. Oceanlabs is no idiot,
far from it. In fact, he's one of the most intelligent developers I've personally met on this site. From what we've seen so far, he really doesn't seem the kind of writer to do things without reason. I get your frustration, but I personally believe that Oceans knows what he's doing. My reply here was 100% subjective, so you can totally skip it.
Objectively, it's not moving slowly at all. That's... really it lol.
Pacing is a problem even in The Wire, the best show of all time in my opinion. The overwhelming majority of fans I've talked to agree that the story could've been told in much less episodes without losing any important character development. I feel like there's a good chance we'll be able to say the same thing about this game when it's all said and done. Obviously doesn't mean that it's bad all of a sudden, just flawed. If I can acknowledge that my favorite show of all time has flawed pacing then I just can't pretend like the pacing in summer's gone is perfect.
Pacing is a problem everywhere when viewed through subjective lenses. In order to measure such a thing objectively, we must compare the story of interest to one that has performed correctly within said field. There is no such story on this site. Oceanlabs is the first to develop something like this, and this is currently one of his first games(or perhaps
the first game). He has nothing to compare to, outside of erotica and YA novels. Considering these things, I think he's doing a decent job as far as pacing goes. It's not perfect, but it's not bad either(far from it). Like my American friends would say, cut him some slack.
Edit: I really like talking to you lol... and wow this post is long
