Alright, so here are my thoughts on this update. Before I start, I'll just say Spoilers Ahead because I never learned how the spoiler tag works ;-;.
I think this update was very.....nice. I love the new villainess(es) that showed up in this section. I'm ngl, Karen is my favorite villainess by far (she's literally everything I want in a villainess.) She seems to be a mixture of Khulan and Yvonne if you ask me, which I'm totally down for. Also, this is just a theory, but what if Karen and Eliza are sisters? They just don't get along at all, which would explain the extreme difference in personalities. They do look pretty similar, and I think they both have a mole on their face, sooooo.....
But back to the actual update. There's plenty to do this time around, which I like, and I kinda understand what was up with the delays. I still think this could have come out maybe a month earlier though, at the least. I actually enjoyed how the story came up near the end, and found myself at the edge of my seat like I was watching some anime when "Roxy" appeared.
So, story and content wise, nice!
Things I'm not ok with though....
Karen seems to be very situational, which is admittedly a nice dynamic imo. It makes her seem like an actual character, instead of just......sitting on her throne. Just another small opinion, but I feel that with these recent updates, Bo Wei and Koda have been aiming to make this game more of a.......well, game! With porn/h-games, people more often than not just want to see the scenes and put the game second, which honestly sucks. But I understand it, they want what was advertised. So when Bo wei and Koda begin to make these changes and updates to make the game more of a game, people will naturally get upset when something that makes a game more of a game gets in the way of the porn.
But that's a big reason why games like CoC and TiTS are as good and popular as they are! They're actual games! Not saying this isn't but y'know what I mean. So, I say to Bo and Koda, keep up with these changes, but just be careful with how big you decide to make a change, because otherwise getting those scenes we want won't feel immersive and more like a chore, as some people have stated with this update.
I don't appreciate Karen being a total cocktease once you beat her -_-. Just a personal gripe, but like, I really liked her and don't want to wait until much later just to see her again ;-;. But, I will say that I like the sorta rivalry between Karen and Ethan, with him promising her he'll be stronger the next time they meet and will beat her. I, again, felt like I was watching an anime.
I personally feel the mid-ending is the best course of action/most canon one. Only because I think it opens the door to a bunch of character development available for Ethan. Up until that point, he's managed to succeed in his endeavors, so a failure like that would bring him down and allow him to motivate himself in his future feats. I understand that he's a simple character so that the player can feel more connected to him, instead of being a completely unique character that makes the player feel separated from him as they play. Kinda like Link: Simple, and to the point.
But, because Ethan is his own character, I wouldn't mind seeing at least a little bit more development for him. Like, when he's licking the dirt off of Karen's boot,(also, the dirt on the sole was a nice touch, as for the most part shoes have appeared clean even though they're supposedly dirty) Ethan flashes back to what Master Roman taught him, which is a nice touch! I want some more flashbacks like that!
Also don't like how once you complete the floor, there's nothing there for you to do except speak with the monks if you saved them. It felt like Bo was saying, "Fuck you, you don't get to enjoy this just yet. Better luck next time."
Also don't like Rose. Just personal. I prefer the more mature look that Bo does. And she betrays Ethan and kills that one monk, so now I just wanna suplex her.
But yeah, that's about it. So to conclude, I'd say this update was pretty innovative and groundbreaking for ToT, as it introduced some new mechanics, brought the story that I had almost forgotten about back up and made it interesting again, and it introduced the OBJECTIVELY BEST GIRL NOT UP FOR DEBATE DON'T @ME(Karen btw ^.^). But it also turned some people off with some changes and I think the devs need to be a little more careful when making these....."game-making" additions.
