VN - Unity - Completed - The Hero's Journey (NSFW edition) [v1.5.4] [maneki_mushi]

The good:
- unique hand made art
- characters have emotional depth
- lots of branching options and endings
- fresh story concept
- female protag (not a plus for everyone, but I thought that was really cool for a fantasy/medieval setting)
- choices have hidden consequences

The bad:
- i don't like any of the characters
- you have to do a lot of emotional work to try to understand the characters. they don't really say what they mean
- the story moves slowly, and gets hung up on the smallest details
- slow to get to sexytimes (maybe a plus for some people)
- choices have hidden consequences

The ugly:
- game freezes on macOS if I change any of the settings
- lots of clicking needed to progress the dialogue

I applaud the devs for trying something different. This just isn't my jam.

The artwork and the music make this so much more than the usual visual novel. Most striking is that it never feels like the characters are displaced modern archetypes. That is not to say that they do not check the boxes that would get them classified under various archetypes, but they always feel like people--strange, inscrutible people but clearly people driven by their own motivations. The effect is that it conveys a singular sense of guilt when the Hero disappoints them. Oh, and she will disappoint them despite your best efforts. The web of deceptions presented here is a tangled one, and I can sus out no solution that does not betray people who trusted Seren. That emotional element combined with the bizarre and unsettling ambience makes "playing" it strangely engaging, like a good book.

The porn is unnecessary, but it does not detract from the story. If anything, it gives you the player a personal attachment to the love interest that you choose. It is more a narrative element than it is a goal.