Well, better late than never as the old saying goes, and what's a better late than right before the release of the remake to make this review/thoughts-thingy for any future player who might be interested in trying this game out?
Setting:
The game uses the classic roommate formula, this being one of the games where you're actually roommates and not "roommates" if you know what I mean. Being too old for a foster home, the matriarch type character of the game, Alex, takes you in to live with her and four other ladies your age. From here on you’ll spend the game getting close to the girls, learning more about them and the Island you’re on. Being an abandoned game, the story is obviously left unfinished and there’s some minor pacing issues through out the story as well. But overall, I’d say that I enjoyed seeing how the Island slowly expanded for you as you hanged out with your housemates and eventually some side characters that joined in on the fun as well. The main story really picks up about halfway through the game, keeping you wanting for more.
Main characters:
The good thing about having a household consisting of a landlady and four roommates is that you’re able to take advantage of many different character types. Something the dev sure did. You get served a nice smorgasbord of characters. You want a tsundere? You’ve got one. You want a laid-back gamer girl? You’ve got one. You want a more maternal figure? As mentioned above, Alex, can take care of that need of yours. Playing through the game I can’t say that there were any of the main girls that I didn’t enjoy, they all had something to offer and they did that in a good way in my opinion.
Side characters:
Throughout the game you’ll encounter a number of side characters through the main girls’ storylines. But due to the state of this game being abandoned a lot of them don’t get past a simple greeting as far as content is concerned. At the end there’s only two characters that has anything more than a greeting or a quick scene. One being more standalone-ish, while the other got story content connected to the main story. Not to spoil too much, but the scenes with one of the side characters gets quite steamy. So for what there is available with the side characters, like the main characters, does not disappoint.
UI:
The UI is simple and easy to use and understand. The tutorial in the beginning explains it well. There’s a few clicks to orientate within the house, so I usually just tended to use the map button and then press the button that would teleport me to the bedroom instead of clicking through the house when I needed to sleep or something. Was it actually faster, not sure but it felt like I’ve saved some “precious” milliseconds of my life doing it.
Grind:
There’s technically two types of grinds you’ll face in the game, although one borders on non-existent honestly.
Affection:
Outside of the main events you can eventually have repeated sexual events with the main girls and one side character. You can have a few different types of events with them that unlocks depending on your level of affection with them. Affection can be gained by simply hanging out with them or by partaking in sexual acts (personally I would recommend the second option since it gives you something nice to look at while you grind ). This understandable can be off-putting to some players since for some characters you’ll need up to 20 points in Affection in order to unlock the final repeatable sex scene. But personally, since the sex scenes available also increased Affection and 20 points isn’t *too* high in my opinion the affection grind wasn’t that much of a problem.
Money:
Now the second grind, if you can even call it that is the money grind for a few stuff you’ll need to buy through out the game. But most of this money you’re actually given, I think I needed about two minutes of playing the games on my ingame-phone to make up for the difference that I needed. So calling it a grind might actually be somewhat of a stretch in my opinion.
Playtime:
This is obviously highly personal since reading speed and stuff differs between person to person, but if I were to give an average I’d say that to get through all the stories and see all the content you’ll need between 8-12 hours. So if you use a Saturday or whatever your version of a day off is, you’ll probably have no problem getting through it all in one sitting.
Final verdict:
I’d say that if you came here from the remake or from somewhere else and looking for a game to try, to give this one a shot. It might be abandoned, but what’s there is worth a try in my opinion and earned a five-star rating from me.
Setting:
The game uses the classic roommate formula, this being one of the games where you're actually roommates and not "roommates" if you know what I mean. Being too old for a foster home, the matriarch type character of the game, Alex, takes you in to live with her and four other ladies your age. From here on you’ll spend the game getting close to the girls, learning more about them and the Island you’re on. Being an abandoned game, the story is obviously left unfinished and there’s some minor pacing issues through out the story as well. But overall, I’d say that I enjoyed seeing how the Island slowly expanded for you as you hanged out with your housemates and eventually some side characters that joined in on the fun as well. The main story really picks up about halfway through the game, keeping you wanting for more.
Main characters:
The good thing about having a household consisting of a landlady and four roommates is that you’re able to take advantage of many different character types. Something the dev sure did. You get served a nice smorgasbord of characters. You want a tsundere? You’ve got one. You want a laid-back gamer girl? You’ve got one. You want a more maternal figure? As mentioned above, Alex, can take care of that need of yours. Playing through the game I can’t say that there were any of the main girls that I didn’t enjoy, they all had something to offer and they did that in a good way in my opinion.
Side characters:
Throughout the game you’ll encounter a number of side characters through the main girls’ storylines. But due to the state of this game being abandoned a lot of them don’t get past a simple greeting as far as content is concerned. At the end there’s only two characters that has anything more than a greeting or a quick scene. One being more standalone-ish, while the other got story content connected to the main story. Not to spoil too much, but the scenes with one of the side characters gets quite steamy. So for what there is available with the side characters, like the main characters, does not disappoint.
UI:
The UI is simple and easy to use and understand. The tutorial in the beginning explains it well. There’s a few clicks to orientate within the house, so I usually just tended to use the map button and then press the button that would teleport me to the bedroom instead of clicking through the house when I needed to sleep or something. Was it actually faster, not sure but it felt like I’ve saved some “precious” milliseconds of my life doing it.
Grind:
There’s technically two types of grinds you’ll face in the game, although one borders on non-existent honestly.
Affection:
Outside of the main events you can eventually have repeated sexual events with the main girls and one side character. You can have a few different types of events with them that unlocks depending on your level of affection with them. Affection can be gained by simply hanging out with them or by partaking in sexual acts (personally I would recommend the second option since it gives you something nice to look at while you grind ). This understandable can be off-putting to some players since for some characters you’ll need up to 20 points in Affection in order to unlock the final repeatable sex scene. But personally, since the sex scenes available also increased Affection and 20 points isn’t *too* high in my opinion the affection grind wasn’t that much of a problem.
Money:
Now the second grind, if you can even call it that is the money grind for a few stuff you’ll need to buy through out the game. But most of this money you’re actually given, I think I needed about two minutes of playing the games on my ingame-phone to make up for the difference that I needed. So calling it a grind might actually be somewhat of a stretch in my opinion.
Playtime:
This is obviously highly personal since reading speed and stuff differs between person to person, but if I were to give an average I’d say that to get through all the stories and see all the content you’ll need between 8-12 hours. So if you use a Saturday or whatever your version of a day off is, you’ll probably have no problem getting through it all in one sitting.
Final verdict:
I’d say that if you came here from the remake or from somewhere else and looking for a game to try, to give this one a shot. It might be abandoned, but what’s there is worth a try in my opinion and earned a five-star rating from me.
