The biggest issue I feel is that with MC, the jokester/buffoon angle just seems like such a U-turn compared to the characterization that was established for majority of the game's progress till now.
In all the story that's been revealed since start of the game till MC, Aren, Lyra's arrival at Stormgard (or whatever the Capital is called, I just forgot the name lol), the character dynamic had been the following:
Aren was the insane joker of the group, with MC and Lyra being the more serious/rational/much less joke making to balance things out.
However, as the MC and his friends got to the capital, the dynamic suddenly shifted; Aren's screentime (compared to previous updates) got a lot less, and MC suddenly started acting childish as if he was emulating Aren.
Personally, I'm not a fan of protagonists who are jokesters, but even putting that aside of the equation for a moment the tonal shift of MC in the past 2+ updates (basically since he arrived at Capital) just felt very......alien lol.
And even in this update, that entire Cat scene (from arguing with the Guild head to the kid) & MC joking with Princess's bodyguard I didn't find myself laughing, but just......rolling my eyes.
I dunno, perhaps I'm overthinking this, but if felt like the game was overcompensating for lack of Aren scenes since arriving at Stormsgard by thrusting upon the brunt of that character's humour aspect onto the MC.
And I'll say that; I just don't find it working - sentiment that I had for past 2 updates and still have.
Just seems to cause weird contradictions/inconsistencies to MC's characterization.
Additionally, I'm not really keen on the whole "zero dialogue/narration sex scene."
Reminds me too much of sex scenes in Talothral's games - narrative & characterizations for majority of his games I do like a lot (such as TRS1 & TRS2). But having said that, zero dialogues/narration in the sex scenes just makes them awkward experiences lol.
If it was me, I would have just done animation for a very small part of the sex scene, and the rest, just do with renders and narrations/dialogues.
But that's my personal preference and for others it may differ.
If Caramel Cowboy likes doing animations for the entire sex scene, it is what it is I suppose.
Other thoughts/wishes in which I think could make the game better:
- I would like there to be more pov of the vampires. Yes, they are the big bad but seeing how they thrive and how they plan their army and conquest I'd say will probably balance out the more lightheartedness arcs we're seeing in MC's side.
- Bring Nevaeha back into the fold.
Since her fight with the female criminal (where she got poisoned), Nevaeha has been entirely taking a backseat in terms of the main story, which given she's my favorite out of them all has been very disappointing for me.
Bringing her back and having her interact with MC (especially) and others would be great.
