The reviews this game gets are way too harsh.
I've played nsfw games since 2007, including both previous NLT titles.
First things first: When you haven't played previous titles and find the artstyle appealing,
play this game. You are going to enjoy it.
I understand that many people that played the previous titles expected more, but it does not make TGO a bad game.
In my opinion, it improved many aspects, although there was waay more room for improvement. To that I totally agree.
Keep in mind though, that this was completed 1,5 years after the previous one, which is rediculously fast for these type of games. The quality supporters get for this small amount of time is astronomic compared to many, many other creators.
I'd personally prefer more releases with smaller improvements instead of less releases with bigger ones.
Now let's talk a bit more about what this game does well and not so well.
+ Again top tier 3DCG renders and a noticable improvement over the predecessor
+ Tons of juice. There are roundabout 120 sex scenes in the story alone (not counting extras), that are distributed evenly throughout the game with many group scenes. Scenes are creative and super hot.
+ Puzzles to solve and extra bits to collect, like additional outfits for sex scenes. You can also collect pages for extra scenes where MC can invite girls to his home.
+ Decent money mechanic that balances progression and allows even extra content
+ A good balance when it comes to relationship escalation. Some characters jump at you quickly but other relationships build slower. In the end it's a nice mix.
+ Great quality of life features. Any scene can be replayed, and even filtered by all kinds of aspects
+ 12 Love interests
+ Ambient sounds are well done, some dialogue lines are also voiced. The world is generally very well designed.
o Very porn-y: People in this game are horny to a level that is a bit rediculous, but this is mainly subjective. Unnatural affections for things like cum, exhibitionism etc. scares someone away who likes more authentic and diverse characters. In the end, this is a porn game and I understand if devs want to make sure that everyone gets their tastes satisfied.
o This is a RPGM game. The engine is very old and quite some features that you may know and like from renpy games are missing. It utilises the engine pretty well through, with good interfaces and movement based puzzles that are well made.
o Dragged out story. Quite a few people complain about this, and it's definitely true. At a certain point the story feels like it's just about to escalate but then it get's dragged on for longer. This could have been done better, but I still found the story very enjoyable.
o Unnatural body types: This again won't bother you if you like bimbo-like bodies, but it bothered me. Asses are over the top perky, every girl has an insane hip-to-waist ratio.
o Animations are a bit weird sometimes.
- Indiverse body types: While the previous point was subjective, this isn't. Most characters have very similar body types. This is a common problem in the series, I found it especially bad in Lust Epidemic and I'd say this game does it best so far, but if you like a bit (or a bit more) bodyfat or petite girls, you will miss something in this game. Hourglass bodies are great, but you really don't need make 80% of the characters have the same bodies.
- Unintuitive progression. There is an 'oracle' in the game that gives you hints for any step in the story, but instead of being a last resort, I found it to be an essential tool for the progression. There even is the questionmark mechanic but it's not really used as often as it could be, quite weird.
This is again a problem that was carried over from the previous game
- Bad character writing. LIs are quite diverse on the surface but very generic and shallow. This is another issues that was carried over, I'd argue though that it was worse in previous titles. There is one LI MC has a love-hate relationship with that I personally found very enjoyable. Since this is neither a VN nor a dating sim, I wouldn't personally weight it that much however.
- Pretty bad voice acting during scenes. It's not terrible but there is definitely room for improvement.
- Lacking kink/fetish content. As a pretty vanilla guy, I didn't mind this as much, but besides lots of cum action and a bit of bdsm, this game does not have a lot of fetish content.
Let's tackle some common negative claims this game has been getting:
- "This is a copy of the previous game" No it's not? Have you played it? Just because this is the same engine, and it inherited a lot of (good) mechanics, it's not a copy.
- "LI Progression is too quick" This is a trade off devs have to make and too subjective. Many people don't wan't to play for 20 hours before they get any action. I understand where this is coming from but it's not as bad as people make it look
- "The game is too grindy" Grindiness is defined by repitition, and this game has very little. Just because there is as lot to do and to discover, the game is not grindy. You have to collect a bit of money sometimes but it is very far from being a grind. You also get huge rewards at times that
- "There is no way to impact the story" Having inpact on a story also requires to make one or more additional playthroughs if you want to see all the content. Since one playthrough takes like 10+ hours, this is a rather absurd complain.
In the end, this is a very good game with a few flaws. There is still insane potential for future titles and I really hope that it will be used.