Leap of Faith by DriftyGames
This one’s really difficult to review. Not because of the hard-hitting bit that people tend to talk about when discussing this game initially, but because I just don’t know what to make of it, especially when trying to put it in a positive light. There are some good things about it, and some not so good things about it, but I think it does overall come out at a net positive.
Talking with my friend Lagunavii, who had been playing this game at the same time as me, I felt that the more I spoke about it, the worse it sounded. The bits I don’t like about the game definitely stick out more – but again, the overall feeling, when I ignore that, is that it’s a decent enough game. So, let’s get into it…
The story is a bit of a jumble, IMO. Lots of things happen but don’t drive the story forward, in fact, many of them could be removed with negligible (if any) impact at all. There are several scenes that promise to be revisited later on but never are – including scenes that don’t really make much sense from a story-telling perspective, and are never revisited for clarification. There are also some scenes that
are explained, but the quality of the explanations really makes them seem like an afterthought.
The graphics are mostly okay, though the look of some of the girls is a bit inconsistent. One or two were a bit up and down throughout the game, while others maintained their look from start to finish. The lewd scenes were adequate but not much more than that. There were plenty of non-lewd animations in the game, but to be honest, they really didn’t work for me. I think they are intended to give the game a light-hearted feeling, many times they are specifically linked to humour, but they just didn’t resonate with me. Often, I actually thought they were cringeworthy, which means they completely missed the mark for me.
There’s a task system in the game which pops up every now and then, but the vast majority are not really things that you have any (or at least much) influence over. For instance, one of the first is to meet your friend Chris at your place, and as the story goes on, you meet him there – but it’s practically kinetic between those two points, so you can’t even go somewhere and miss the meet-up.
One main failing for me though, is the LI choice. You are free to fool around with any of the girls in the early part of the game, but then must make a choice of one (or two, in the case of the throuple). However, it’s far too early for most of the girls, as there hasn’t really been much (or even any?) opportunity to get to know them. So you’re effectively being made to make a choice based on very minimal information, and whoever you choose locks you out of content with everyone else for the rest of the game.
Overall, there are plenty of parts of this game that I think are a bit of a mess, but there are definitely some redeeming factors (even if the hottest girl in the game is barely a part of the game…). It tackles a subject you don’t generally see in this type of game, but maybe you don’t see it for a reason. If anything, I say play it for the talk around suicide, the impact people might have when they’re gone, and the emotional kick that content can have on a player (I’m not spoilering it, because it will be a trigger to some people and I won’t direct them to the game blindly), but otherwise, I don’t think it’s a high recommendation from a lewds perspective, not really from a characters perspective, and other than that topic, not for the story perspective either.
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