To be fair, BARS started out with some unavoidable sex scenes with Selina that didn't exactly sell the development its characters would eventually get (including Selina herself). Hopefully HL will similarly improve as it finds its footing.
Might as well give my quick review of the first update while I'm here. I'm always eager to see games that don't focus on harems and/or incest so I want to be onboard here, but I don't think this game is my cup of tea right now.
Like
bubaldo I'd prefer to get to know the girls in non-sexual ways before we get down and dirty, but this game is having none of that. The 'contest' is too on the nose to take seriously, especially when the MC is a virtual stranger to all of them. I'm used the aphrodisiacal powers of a visual novel MC, but this is something else. If you wanted to avoid a slow start, I think you'd have been better off giving the MC some history the girls (or at least a solid majority of them) to start out. Maybe that was part of the idea - the situation had been smoldering between Caitlin and Lane while the MC was with Simone and now that he's apparently free they're pouncing. But when the MC himself is blindsided by interest it makes the girls look kind of delusional. If this is literally the first time Caitlin or Lane have spoken to the MC at any length, it can't be that much of a love triangle.
Speaking of Simone, I
*REALLY* don't like her role in the game. Call me cynical, but when a game has the MC break up with a girlfriend based on some out-of-context eavesdropping, I take it a given that the girlfriend was faithful to the MC and we'll eventually learn the shocking [sic] truth after a suitable amount of time. In this case I find that particularly frustrating. Simone isn't very appealing to me (her face is oddly angular and the nose ring/haircut really doesn't do it for me), yet I'm forced to take her side because the MC's actions - at least as presented - are insane. Someone she knows calls her "babe" and invites her to a group gettogether and it's breakup time? Seriously? I get that Steve seems to be a former lover so the suspicion makes sense, but we skipped the suspicion and just jumped straight to treating it as fact.
Perhaps the MC saw more incriminating messages after that, but we certainly didn't. Granted, the relationship is relatively new AFAICT, but it's portrayed as serious enough I'd expect the MC to at least consider the alternatives before he closes the book on Simone. Yet even if I try to steer him in that direction (listening to her explanation, telling her she needs time), Simone is still summarily forgotten in the next scene and then it's sexual olympics ahoy. Maybe it's a side effect of not having any interior monologue for the MC, but the end result is very heavy-handed and leaves me poorly disposed towards my own avatar yet without an obvious end game to play towards.
So I didn't like the setup and I'm not a fan of the MC as initially presented. What about the main cast? Hard to say, really. The game clearly has a sense of style in mind and it does a good job portraying that through the relentless tattoos and the characters' attitudes. Unfortunately, the characters all seem to have the same attitude: they're sarcastic, they're off beat, and they're far too cool for school. Even Caitlin, who seems to be positioned as the wallflower of the group, still gets in a zinger or two.
It makes it hard to see the characters as anything but their most basic archetypes: Zach is the wingman, Cailtin is the virgin, Lita is the horndog, etc. That's not to say I dislike them or that they can't grow. I generally like them and they have plenty of potential, but it's just that: potential. For now, the girls are anatomically correct blank slates. Even turning down a threesome to focus on Lane tells us more about the sidegirl than it does about Lane. Until the cast have the room to show the full range of their personalities there's not that much to make them stand out (from each other, or from the host of other AVN characters out there).
Right now I'd say the art style is this game's biggest asset. I'm generally in favor of moderation when it comes to tattoos, but I can understand why everyone's sporting them because they fit the aesthetic and help ground the characters within it. Even familiar models look a little different here. Ink aside, I think the cast looks pretty nice (even Simone looks fine, she's just not my type). The animations are short but (from what I've seen) look good. The game has a solid artistic design.
The only thing I'm not sure about on the art side are the dynamic images. I get the idea, but they feel off. Sometimes I think they're a little too fast paced, but in general I think the problem is that they're used way too often. AVNs aren't movies, you shouldn't be trying to make everything dynamic! Save that for scenes that need to stand out: quick cuts for something meant to be disorienting, a slow pan for something dramatic, or an extra long pause on a big punchline, that sort of thing. If you try to give everything a dynamic flair it just comes off as animation envy. Still images are the bread and butter of an AVN, and the right still can convey just as much as a simple animation. Embrace that and you'll have a stronger base that will give you the most bang for your buck if and when you do go outside the lines.
That's my advice anyway. Take it for what it's worth, and good luck on your game.
tl;dr The game's got style to burn, but so far it's not capitalizing on it all that well.
