Like, I understand some of the criticism I've seen here. There are moments throughout the game where you're questioning the MC. But these are always explained within the story, often in following scenes and/or sequences. He's pushing himself to the extremes, resulting in increasingly severe panic attacks because he hasn't adequately coped with his own depression(not too uncommon in real life). I've also seen many people critique the sexual nature of some scenes, and I actually agree to an extent. Sometimes, an LI is out of place to strip and/or act suggestively. @Oceanlab can work on executing those scenes/moments better so that they feel more natural to the player.
"There is no worse blind man than the one who doesn’t want to see."
I have no issue with your other points. You are right. And I personally have never criticized Ocean for his dev cycle, coding, artistic or animation skills.
That said his creative choices are seriously questionable. And you cannot tell me you don't notice how he's been shooting himself in the foot consistently every time he goes back and reworks scenes and dialogues. You cannot tell me you haven't noticed the monumental drop in quality of the game. Take the damn Nami scenes for example. Specifically the post argument when Nojiko finally tells her about Nick and the bathroom scene. Two perfect examples of the incredible highs and massive lows the game currently offers:
- In one you have a deeply emotional and beautiful scene where her nudity seems to make sense. She is staring out the window clearly hurt when the MC walks in and she takes off her clothes in an attempt to make herself vulnerable and exposed while forcing the MC to confront (and hold) her in that state. It's subtle, emotional and the dialogue is strong which makes it memorable.
- Then you have that awful, vomit enducing bathroom scene, which was changed for the worse from the original one, if you choose to stay. That abomination that seems to have been added as nothing but an excuse to "lewdify" the game at the expense of the characters and story. Same thing he did with the new Nojiko porch scene that seems ham-fisted in so he could get us a few cleavage shots of Nojiko, once again at the expense of the characters and story. Need I go further? Can you honestly tell me you like the new Bella fight scene over her sisters picture in the bedroom? Compared to the emotional height the old one reached?
Need I remind you that Ocean could have simply updated the renders and kept the script and scenes as they were? He made a conscious effort to change them. Now we all have our own preferences and taste but if you approach this from an unbiased and imparcial angle, can you seriously tell me that you think the game is stronger now than it was then? I know I'm not the one taking crazy pills. There have been hundreds of people, in this very thread, pointing out the massive decline of the game for years now in terms of story and dialogue especially. You can't dismiss us all as haters...