My usual disclaimers when writing reviews on here are that A. I am here for the "plot" not the plot and B. I generally dislike visual novels. So take both of those into consideration for my review when thinking about this game.
The Secret: Reloaded seems like its taken a bit of a pasting in recent reviews, I think quite unfairly. I'll sum up a few of the pros and cons I've seen in other reviews and then add on a few of my own thoughts at the bottom.
Pros
- Great visuals - this game has pretty excellent visuals, the women are all hot as hell and the animations, while minimal, are also pretty nicely done
- Sex scene quality - very regular and fun, plus there's a lot of eye candy here even outside of the sex scenes. Basically, everyone seems to be on the same page that this is primo fap material
Mehs
- The writing and premise - I've seen a few reviews talking about how ridiculous the premise is. Literally every girl you meet, including the lesbian, basically wants to fuck you right away and the whole situation is a bit ludicrous. I'll come back to this!
- All the women have similar body types and huge tits. I put this in "mehs" because I want you to know: it's definitely true. HOWEVER, I personally actually love this, so don't give a fuck about how unrealistic it is.
- The English translation is very, very far from perfect. It's not SO bad that it put me off, but it's certainly a bit distracting
- Buggy conversations - I noticed a couple of big issues. Primarily that the game will say the wrong person is speaking (happens VERY regularly) and also that after a while it began to refer to my character as "Username" which was a bit silly. I assume this is something that can be patched though, so not exactly a negative.
Cons
- The protagonist looks like a child - Blatantly the biggest issue with the game. I don't understand what kind of design choice this was (beyond going for a straight shota type of thing) and it just fucking sucks and ruins the immersion
- The FUCKING, FUCKING, FUCKING, FUCKING decorating minigame. Everyone has complained about it even though it's a one-off, 20 minute segment. That's just HOW hard this sucks. I sincerely hope it either gets removed or at the very least the creator makes sure to NEVER have anything else like it.
- Why does it have a wee transition screen advertising the game in between every scene? That just annoys me...
- Akita's hair. Call me nit-picky but her hair style to me is actually far dumber than the excess of crazily busty women. It just... It just looks so stupid...
Now some of my own analyses from having played V.0.4.1.1a.
First and foremost, I think everyone complaining about the story is being ridiculous. This is a porn game, and porn games are ALWAYS at least somewhat silly and unrealistic. Sure there are things like
Being a DIK where it actually feels like it could genuinely happen, but even then it's still extreme and pretty unusual. Good writing in porn games is the cherry on top, not the bulk, and things like
Being a DIK are the exception, not the rule.
Quite frankly, I even enjoyed the fact that it seemed to not take itself too seriously and knew from the outset that this was just going to be about banging different big-titted babes. On that note as well, I can totally understand that this and the fact that most of the girls have huge boobs is somewhat off-putting to some, but for me it was just gravy.
Whatever the case, it really doesn't deserve the lambasting its getting for its story, because honestly in terms of what I'm here for (which I assume lots of us are here for) it's pretty cracking!
Where it DOES disappoint is in its current choice set-up. It seems to be intending to go the route of a dating sim, structured into time-slots. But, this is just a facade and currently there is only one linear route through the game. It's also very, very short currently and is barely starting to get into the plot. However, as it seems to be a relatively new addition, I do think it has the promise to become really much, much better with the addition of more content.
On this note, there seems to also be an opinion metric in the game, but whether that actually has any bearing right now seems unlikely. Partly because its too short, but also because its too linear. I currently have no thoughts on it, although will say its current presence feels very pointless.
I also kind of wish it dealt with its kinks a little differently. For example, in one sex scene you are not allowed to proceed until you've done everything... Except I'm really not into feet and the whole foot-job thing kind of killed the whole moment for me, but you have to do it to proceed. Hopefully something else that can be fixed in the near future.
I think overall, for my purposes this is a 3.5/5 with the potential to be much better if it begins to introduce branches to the story and some genuine choices. I've rated it a 4/5 because I think that it deserves much better than the 1s and 2s it keeps getting. It's clearly just for fapping, but that's exactly what I want and it delivers perfectly.