Playing this for the first time but haven't looked at any of the thread so I don't get the plot beats spoiled.
Currently on Chapter 3 (I think?). So far the story is compelling enough to keep me interested... which is perhaps just as well because I'm not getting anything from the LIs at the moment. I try and make my first playthru of any VN as realistic as I can, making decisions for the MC that I could see myself making in the same situation (as far as the offered choices allow) and so far none of the offered LIs are clicking with me.
Danielle feels like the typical bitchy rich-girl who gets everything she wants when she wants it. I've rejected all of the game's attempts to get the MC involved with her, but somehow he's still getting tangled up in her mad shenanigans to try and get Damon back with her. She seems to have a complete inability to accept 'no' for an answer which is another point against her.
Mira: I backed off from her at the start due to the mistaken impression she was Damon's new girlfriend. I don't think the text made it explicit that they were just friends, all I remember is that he'd known her for a couple weeks and hadn't told the MC about her. I assumed that they'd had a date he had to call off and Damon wanted the MC to go in his place to apologise for him and try to placate her. She seems nice enough on the surface, but was giving off what to my mind was cheating signals. After I realised I'd gotten the wrong end of the stick, I re-examined that early interaction but it still gave me weird vibes. She seems super interested in the MC right from the moment they meet. It's way too quick and is giving me Lancaster Boarding House flashbacks. Let's just say I wouldn't be entirely surprised if she turns out to be a stalker.
Rose: Holy crap, this is one person I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole. She goes around with a perpetual scowl on her face and is literally pissy with everyone she meets. What attracted Chris to her? The guy's self-esteem must have been shattered into a million pieces by Ada's rejection when he moves on to that. When Rose was revealed as a cop, her personality made a certain amount of sense, but it doesn't endear me any more to the character. Now that she's in charge of the investigation of Damon's harassment, I can't help feeling she'll try to stitch the MC up for something just because she can.
Penny: Looks nice, but again I'm getting bad vibes from her. She starts off as a concerned mentor type figure, which is fine, but then veers off into predator territory. I was ignoring her low-cut tops which are massively inappropriate for a school environment because yeah, this is an AVN, what do we expect!?
But she tries it on with the MC
while they're both still on school premises. She either has blackmail material on her superiors and is supremely confident they'll never fire her, or any common sense she had just left the building. Perhaps it's because I never had the seemingly typical student/teacher fantasy, but this is a kind of relationship that just weirds me out. Any game which has a seduce the teacher option needs to do an awful lot of work to convince me that power dynamics are not being abused.
Naomi: I appreciate the backstory tries to paint them as the perfect couple, but I'm just not getting it. They didn't seem to be very compatible with each other, the MC was constantly disinterested in anything that interested her and with Naomi's abandonment issues, it feels like they were always going to crash and burn. If it hadn't been sparked by the MC's mother's disappearance, it would have been something else. On a purely aesthetic front, this particular 'model' does nothing for me (I've seen a similar model used in other VNs). I'm also not into the muscly spending-every-day-at-the-gym types.
Ada: This is the one LI that could actually work. She seems pretty cool, doesn't have any obvious run-away-now traits. Some emotional baggage, but who doesn't. Seems to like the MC without being dependent on him or controlling of him and in spite of the age gap. This is probably the route I'd take, if it weren't for the glaringly obvious fact that she needs to get back together with Chris. Such a bullsh*t reason for them breaking up which all came down to Ada's fear of disappointing her parents. Feels a bit pointless to pick her when the game is hanging a big neon-sign saying "Ada/Chris 4eva", lol.
So where does that leave the MC? Hmm, why couldn't I ask the girl at the burger joint who gave him a free packet of fries out on a date? There's no justice I tell ya.
Unfortunately I've reached a point where the game seems to telling me "You've passed on every god damn encounter I've thrown at you, you're gonna damn well pick someone right NOW!" Just past the scene where Rose reveals the nude portrait Mira painted earlier and Mira runs away, there's a scene where the MC talks to her on the steps and a decision comes up which looks like it's definitively shoving you on either the Naomi or Mira path. I mean... I suppose I'll pick Mira, but I'm not enthusiastic about this. I don't like it when VNs force the MC on someone. If there's no-one you click with, you should be allowed to stay single.