Yeah no, sorry, I'm not gonna read 50% of the comments on this thread... feel free to enlighten me, tho, I'm always open to be proven wrong.
Again, I wish I could properly explain what it is that bugged me about the relationship structuring or design or whatever you wanna call it, but it's hard.
You don't have to, I made that as a jest as 50% comments are about Kaija (positive or negative, either goes).
Her being girlfriend (and her reasons for that) have been repeated over and over and over, to the point even most zealous of us got annoyed with it (Fuck Kaija though).
I'll say this tho, regarding your comment: "So just because girls are there, doesn't mean you HAVE TO flirt with them." I mean, but you kinda have to?? That's kinda the point of AVNs, to be fair... it's what most people are gonna do by default, and that IS part of the problem... you need to flirt with them to hop on their path and engage with them, yet you need to choose quite early... that was my point, maybe it would be better to allow players to interact more with them before making them choose, otherwise it feels like I'm just arbitrarily choosing one over the other with little information to back that decision up.
I fail to see why you have to flirt with them.
The point of the story is what dev + player make of it. If dev makes only erotic scenes, with no friendship content, then yes, I agree.
But in a VN that has multiple developed scenes where friends talk, why not experience those? They are there for a reason.
Dev spent time making them so not pursuing relationship is not punished.
Let me give an example:
"I woke up"...fade to black..."I took a shower"...fade to black..."I went to work"...fade to black..."I went to lunch"...fade to black..."I went home"...
That was an update from one of VNs I played. All of those fade to black are sexual content with various girls. Not on sex route? No content. None, zero, zilch.
Meanwhile, you want to be friends with Fiona or Elea and hang out with them? You don't max your points, but you still get a lot of them, and you still hang out (cinema, night club, beach, park). There is still content. Content with different dialogue.
Did you know you can have max-1 points (no clue where that point is) with Fiona even if you never talk to her first time you meet her?
On 2nd meeting you can engage with her for much longer than normal conversation and get relationship up to speed.
Heck, it might even be more organic that way. Someone bumping into you in street is hardly conversation starter. You meet someone that bumped into you previously while exercising? Much more likely to start a chat.
Like, how should I choose whether I still love Kaija or not so early? I have very little info and interactions with the character... it just feels like a forced choice to split the PTs, it doesn't feel organic.
Well, that's chapter 1, and then chapter 2.
There are some bombshells dropped during those 2. Was it chapter 3 with big conversation between the two?
I disagree on little info. She is basically info dump chapter 1-2-3.
And please don't take these as any sort of assault on you, I'm genuinely interested why you think there is not enough info on Kaija. Between mentioned huge scenes + flashback scene, I honestly think there is more than enough for player to decide if he wants to chase relationship or not.
. Like Aillil gets killed instead (and during the duel he offers his life instead, to have it coherent). So we'd have a Finnabair struggling with her newfound friendship with us and her renewed hatred for Templars.... But it's just wishful thinking ; I liked her a lot.
