After my first hours with TGO after finishing TON, I'll rate the game a 3/5.
The Good:
The game starts of pretty atmospheric. I like to see a whole new place, a new setting (big city instead of that little isle the last time) and it feels very vivid at some places. The day/night cycle adds to the atmosphere, and the game started off strong with thunder and rain and some cool TV news catching up with the events from TON and how they might effect this place.
Also, the girls this time are much hotter than the last time. And it's cool to see some characters from the previous game frequently too!
The Bad: Quite a lot of the models have simply been recycled, for instance the poses within conversations. So the angel and some other girls simply got the same poses like Alia had in TON, which feels awkward and misses the opportunity to give them their very own character and behaviour.
And while it's somewhat cool to have gameplay elements that I know and understand, I feel that searching again for artifacts here feels a bit lazy and repetetive, and kills the potential original character this successor title could have, since it feels more like TON in a reskin this way.
Also, the first mini game - pushing hay around - didn't really provide any value, it was just a boring task. I hope they don't overdo it with these kind of mini games here. Mini games should always serve the purpose of being fun, not just any activity no matter how boring in order to have any kind of mini game in the game.
Game devs must ask themselves why they add certain elements to their game and if they're really necessary. Treasures of Nadia was themed around old tempels and the dangerous jungle, but this here is a big city setting. I'd love to see refreshing new ideas for mini games that rather fit the scenario, and not too many of them.
The Ugly:
Everyone seems to be instantly up to sex again, and the excuses for it are simply dumb. Our childhood friend shows us off her pussy at the first meetup, then goes topless and the second and ultimatively jerks off our dick with her legs "because mom could come back any time and we better get it soft until then". And while she says that, she's looking away ashamed while rubbing the dick with her leg and acts like she doesn't enjoy it, as if she didn't came up with this whole stupid idea and weren't offensive with nudity and showing off all the time anyways.
This leads to a lack of authenticity, it seems the writers aren't clear how she should actually behave. But way worse: It kills the fun. Where is the joy if every girl just jumps at me for the most dumbest reason they can find, or ask me for any sexual engagement only because they've been controlled by a sex virus, not because I finally build up a connection or interest?
I as player would like to conquer these girls. I want it to be rewarding if they finally drop their clothes. I like scenes like that with the leg-jerk-off where X and Y are kinda forced by the circumstances to get closer to each other, but please within the frame of good writing and some kind of comprehensibility, not by just throwing it in heartless, rushed and uninspired. It's basically the same as with the mini games.
Also, the house and booty calls are back. This system sucks, not only because the last time it left the player after finishing the game with hours of endless grind to buy all the possible stuff and see all scenes (which I skipped because I don't like if devs don't respect my time), but also because it again adds awkward behaviour to the characters:
Characters that already literally love you and would do anything for you or have been in bed with you several times already, wouldn't visit you because your house is too ugly. Characters who - by design - couldn't care less about riches because they desire a soul connection or whatever, are being turned off by the color of your roof when you invite them. No, really, this system is bad.
I wish they'd come up with new ideas here instead of recycling so much old stuff. I also can see my inventory being a big mess again because there's so much stuff to collect and to do, I'd prefer that on a smaller scale, more streamlined, clean, minimalistic. The mechanics are good, but they tend to simply overdo it.
Last but not least, the animation quality seems not been improved, characters still kinda look like plastic figures, especially at their private parts, and the cumshot fluids just look.. disgusting. It was halfway into TON when they swapped the better cumshot fluids into some 3D drippy ones, but they just look like something nasty. Like your mayonaise sauce from one week ago after it lost its color or some sticky glue, nothing alike real cum.
After cumming then - like always - the animation deviates for a still image. Which is pretty unsatisfying to watch, they tried it I think exactly 2 times in TON and animated the final cum with some continious fluids and you as player could decide when you'd want to leave the sex scene / animation.
Anyways, I'm looking forward to explore this title further and curious if it will keep me motivated or not because of too much recycling and overlap.