Played Version: Day 5. This review was edited about 1 week after initial posting. The original review was needlessly Rant-like and not up to the objective standards i would like to be known for. Things may still sound a bit harsh.
Also increased my rating to 3 stars. The logic for giving it 2 intitially was to counter the large number of highly subjective and low effort 5 star reviews. Seeing as i was litterally stuck at a 2.5 rating, i needed a reason to go 2 or 3 anyhow, and this was the one i used. I upgraded to 3 stars because 3 means "Average" and That New Teacher is very much your average AVN. Several of my own grieviances were admitedly also subjective in nature.
Summary: That New Teacher as an AVN can be considered being or having textbook examples of a couple niches. Harem, male power fantasy, fuckfest, incest and netori. Let’s toss in Loli for good measure. There is scarcely a plot present, and everything seemingly serves the objective of getting MC laid with as many LI’s as possible, as fast as possible. Here we have an MC that was recently laid off from a position at a lab, only to quickly find new employment at a specially structured school. At the school genders are kept apart and MC gets to work in the female wing (both students and teachers) of the school. It's a classic porn plot at the end of the day and an easy way to set up for MC getting female attention quickly. The power fantasy relies on MC getting set up at the school with extreme measures of power, as dictated by the schools shady benefactor. And you can probably figure how things go from there. Right, the mother is also neglected by the husband, the younger brothers GF (one of the students) by the brother and the younger sister is another student. We end up with a story that isn't trying to do anything revolutionary or make a twist on something known. I realized early on that this wasn’t going to be my kind of AVN, but I reached the end anyhow by skipping a bit and the whole AVN wasn’t that long by day 5.
Pros: I think I saw some characters sport different haircuts in different contexts. That was nice. I think the mother sported tied up hair when going for a run in sport clothing.
- Body language, posing and to a lesser extend facial expressions are handled pretty well.
- Animations are also pretty decent quality. Both in and outside of the lewd scenes. An example would be when a LI quickly leaves a scene due to having been embarrased by something.
- Grammatically speaking I honestly didn’t notice anything bad. There are still other issues with the written content, see further below.
- RogueOne was a Bro for his fellow devs and put in several guest characters and handled them pretty well.
Mehs and hit/miss: Too many girls. Splitting them into categories as seen in the gallery is probably a good way to make things more manageable in the long run.
- Too much sweat used during H-scenes. People look like they just spend 25 minutes in a sauna. EDIT: This was only extreme in 1 scene, and slightly over the top in a couple others.
- One of the main appeals of this game has to be the whole legal loli aspect. I can’t exactly substract point from an AVN for having chosen a controversial niche. EDIT: If loli, visual and/or behavior, makes you feel icky, give this one a pass. It is a core aspect of the That New Teacher.
- EDIT: I complained a bit about being confused by the weird mix of japanese, korean and western names. Was told this was mostly the result of characters ending up loking eastern in the HS engine, so eastern names were used to make names and looks more consistent with one another. I still think that some more clarity should be written into the scenario. Like, i am not completely sure where That New Teacher takes place.
- The whole super convenient scenario. EDIT: Here there used to be a small rant. Instead i will say that setup simply felt too rushed. Kinda like it was an afterthought. Hence the super convinient part.
- 21 years to get into a bar? Again, is this Japan or the US? I believe bars and or drinking is allowed from 20 in Japan. Dev did mention something about 21 being the limit because the establishment wasn't so much a bar/club but actually a strip club of sorts. Still, a bit more clarity ingame would be nice.
Cons: MC seems unable to hold a conversation without losing his mind in the presence of any female it seems (Belle intro scene).
- One LI crashes into the side of a pool because she was taught how to swim but not how to stop swimming? EDIT: Another rant-y part. But i suppose this is a good example of the kind of logic that may be used from time to time. It's not for everyone. To those of us who are less inclined towards silly anime tropes and humor, it can be outright infuriating. The fact that it was used as a plot point and not just a comedic moment (which i would have accepted) is what set me off.
- EDIT: Wrote this part over from the start. MC is not a good person, which isn't inherently bad when you are supposed to "max out" the whole male power fantasy to begin with. I had a long list of his toxic traits here, things like being spiteful, greedy and unnuanced. But looking over things from the beginning once more, i think i know what caused most issues with MC. That would be the dissonance between the often silly and trope based premise and humor, and on the other side the very serious subject of corrupting and controlling the female students and staff members. I think this discord is the main reason i was unable to immerse myself in MC's shoes.
- The tone is highly juvenile, especially the humor. EDIT: Shortened.
- Something in the way characters communicate. It’s all very surface level and to be understood at face value. Never anything to read between the lines. EDIT: Also shortened.
- Several other reviewers mentioned how most girls are totally head over heals in love with MC within 2 or 3 scenes or encounters. It would be more exciting if you felt like you earned more things.
- The glassy doll-like eyes that some girls have are clearly a stylistic choice. But i find that several of them look creepy and/or weird. I think almost everyone would feel the same, so i consider this an objective opinion. Nova and Esme are the main offenders regarding the eyes.
- Oh dear. Baseball bat dong. Not the "biggest" issue really, but i prefer it when devs don't overindulge themselves. And i will always bring it up and criticise it when i spot it. You can't stop me!
- The wet squish/slob sounds for lewd content is a bit yucky. Minor complaint.
