Headcanon: The story and the characters' behavior make much more sense if you imagine the setting to be a high-school, but that's kind of super illegal. And I'm actually happy to see game protagonists in their 30s and beyond, so I'm not about to complain.
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"Bweeeeh Sophie is a bad person," Yes. Yes she is. The plot requires that she's not just a hapless victim, but a deeply selfish, broken individual. However, the story has several plot holes that really substract from it. Zack (and Brooks) are exactly as evil as each route requires, which is weird because most of the endings are branched way too late in terms of characterization. Ending 2 feels like canon by virtue of being the most fleshed out; by contrast Ending 3 feels like a 'what if' and 4-6 are too rushed.
That said, let me sing Ending 2's praises for a second. It is GREAT. It pissed off so many people. I read the novel a second time without skips to reach that climax. What a journey. Long as fuck? A cheating slice of life until everything finally crashes down in the last minute? Yes, yes. But holy shit. Holy shit.
I hope the choices are improved in FUNS, because in this one they are few, too late to influence the story organically and don't feel that relevant overall. If you go through Felix's Chart, he basically makes the same choice (Check Drive/Don't Check) FOUR times during his POV. That's bad planning.
And Sophie, oh poor Sophie. Poor Sophie with her chronic Kronk Speech Syndrome. The Sophie who repeats the same observation in short sentences three times in a row, with each corresponding click. Sophie's obsession with repetition as emphasis. That Sophie.
Those two are my main gripes with TTP, but the rest is honestly great. This truly feels like the work that cements the developers' style. A transitional period. There are experiments that hit and miss, an evolving artstyle and animation techniques. I have mixed feelings about recommending this novel because:
Pro: The scenes hit 10x times harder if you read the 5 million words that set them up beforehand.
Con: That's a fuck ton of words and people have things to do and places to go, you know.
It's not bad, certainly not as bad as people have bitched about in the thread. Give it a try if you have a lot of time and love the setting, but if NTR is a passing kink there are other, more condensed stories that scratch the itch just fine.
---
"Bweeeeh Sophie is a bad person," Yes. Yes she is. The plot requires that she's not just a hapless victim, but a deeply selfish, broken individual. However, the story has several plot holes that really substract from it. Zack (and Brooks) are exactly as evil as each route requires, which is weird because most of the endings are branched way too late in terms of characterization. Ending 2 feels like canon by virtue of being the most fleshed out; by contrast Ending 3 feels like a 'what if' and 4-6 are too rushed.
That said, let me sing Ending 2's praises for a second. It is GREAT. It pissed off so many people. I read the novel a second time without skips to reach that climax. What a journey. Long as fuck? A cheating slice of life until everything finally crashes down in the last minute? Yes, yes. But holy shit. Holy shit.
I hope the choices are improved in FUNS, because in this one they are few, too late to influence the story organically and don't feel that relevant overall. If you go through Felix's Chart, he basically makes the same choice (Check Drive/Don't Check) FOUR times during his POV. That's bad planning.
And Sophie, oh poor Sophie. Poor Sophie with her chronic Kronk Speech Syndrome. The Sophie who repeats the same observation in short sentences three times in a row, with each corresponding click. Sophie's obsession with repetition as emphasis. That Sophie.
Those two are my main gripes with TTP, but the rest is honestly great. This truly feels like the work that cements the developers' style. A transitional period. There are experiments that hit and miss, an evolving artstyle and animation techniques. I have mixed feelings about recommending this novel because:
Pro: The scenes hit 10x times harder if you read the 5 million words that set them up beforehand.
Con: That's a fuck ton of words and people have things to do and places to go, you know.
It's not bad, certainly not as bad as people have bitched about in the thread. Give it a try if you have a lot of time and love the setting, but if NTR is a passing kink there are other, more condensed stories that scratch the itch just fine.