So glad to see this come back, and fascinating to see how people fall in regards to the cast. I saw one comment about needing to include some happiness because everyone's lives seem to be shit, and well, we're still at the start of the story. Things need to be set up so the story can have disasters and triumphs, but the disasters typically come first. And, as a counterpoint, I thought Mary and her family were a wonderful inclusion. Sometimes, people really do strive to be positive. Her parents had me grinning the whole time.
Zoe was a surprise, but an entirely grounded one.
I feel more drawn to Lita now than I did in earlier updates, so the story development is effective, but she's still not one of my LI choices. Good friend, sure, romance, nah. I'd be mildly salty about being involved in that contest without being given a heads-up first and used for sex to fuck with
other people without context. Not enough to dislike her, but it's a wall between us. Fourth on my prospects right now, in terms of romance.
Cait is fine, sweet girl, getting out of her shell, would absolutely enjoy developing a relationship with her, but her mother's a bitch and a deal-breaker for as long as they live together. And I think she's going to just be too slow compared to the other girls. I'd put her at tied second place, with Mary.
Mary is lovely, proactive and positive, but really needs more screentime to get some development. That's what's holding her back and tying her with Cait right now for me.
Sloane... Hell no. Trying to be in a relationship with her would be a
choooooore, and I'm not even certain you could rely on her fidelity because she might not remember or know that not just sleeping with whoever isn't a thing you should do. Not trying to insult her, just pointing out that expecting things of people that go against their nature is dumb. Even in an open relationship, I'd still feel like I had to always try and keep her pointed at whatever we'd already agreed to do, and that'd get old real quick. Friend, sure, anything involving having responsibility for her, hell nah. Way at the bottom of the romance listing.
Which places Lane by far at the top of my prospective LI choices. Not just because she's gorgeous and has a colour scheme I love, not just because I'm a slut for cherry blossoms, but because she's probably had the most character development of the cast so far and it's all made me think well of her. She's had problems, she's fucked up before, but she's aware of what went wrong and she's trying to be better having learned from it. As much as you can ask from anyone, yet still surprisingly rare. She also doesn't dodge talking to us when it's obvious she's having trouble with something, owns her mistakes, and is playful without being obnoxious. To me, anyway. Barring any future plane crashes, she's going to be hard to overtake so it'll come down to what sort of dynamic she's after, and how many people can be present in it.
Side characters are all good; I'm intrigued by the new blonde we met at the bar, Seok is a sweetie with a kinky side, Cris is a bro. Animation quality remains consistently high, some of the best breast physics I've seen in a game yet, it's delightful to just watch them bounce. Some actions like nodding are still quite jerky though, and character models trying to grin is a thing from nightmares.
Really looking forward to more.
Edit: Hmm, how do people do fuzzy spoilers, as opposed to an outright click box?
