Review for v0.4
It really feels like I need to write a review because, even though there're some annoying aspects, the overall quality of this game is really unexpectedly GOOD.
The title itself pretty much says it all: An ugly bastard turns back into a teenager and corrupts the woman of his past. You play as an ugly bastard in his fourties with no wife, no child, no stable income, and certainly no future, yet after some accidents you somehow travel back to your teenage years.
Even though this theme might have been a bit cliche in AVNs already, the story itself says otherwise. Before and after MC becomes a teenager again, the feeling of regret, loss, confusion, and dedication is conveyed really well especially in the Prologue and the first in-game day.
As MC starts to be accustomed to this new situation, he recollects his past memories and compares it with the present ones and finds out how many opportunities he've missed, how many people that once cared about him will slowly drift apart because of his neglect, cowardice, or mistakes. I think this is something that we as human beings are all able to relate to: what would we have done if we are bestowed with a second chance? Even though I'm still in my early twenties, it really makes me think about the past and some of the choices I should've made or not made, and I don't think there're too many AVNs that manages to make me have some retrospects in real life. Even though the "task" of seducing/ corrupting the LIs is still the main focus, I'm glad that the dev manages to keep MC's feeling of nostalgia and the determination of change intact, since this is one of the highlights of this game for me.
As can be seen in the thumbnail the LIs are divided into two groups: families and classmates, and even though this is still an early development and thus there ain't much contents in it, I really think the dev balances the screentime of each LIs and the interaction between MC and them pretty well, like it's natural that Stephanie will be the first and chief focus in the early stage, the family members are given relatively equal screentime since they live together with MC, and it's reasonable that Cathrine receives less contents than others since she's taken already.
For now there's only one actual sex scene but the buildup of it is realllllly satisfying, and both the dialogues and animation are done fantastically to make this scene special both for relationship and story progression.
Now there're some parts that I really cannot say I appreciate:
1. Typos, typos, typos everywhere. It's really distracting especially when you're reading an impressive story and somehow there're tons of typos that are all over the place. This is perhaps my biggest complaint of this game and the dev should seriously spend some time proofreading or hire somebody to do so.
2. The body configuration. The balloon breast is also all over the place to the point that only one LI doesn't have that but it's because she hasn't experienced proper physical development since she's a minor. Even though I'm a huge fan of big breast, I do wish there're some variety in terms of that. Also, there're some scenes in which MC's body isn't the same as he should have, like in the Stephanie sex scene he somehow becomes a muscle guy which is too absurd that it makes me laugh a little bit.
Overall, Twisted Memories is the first AVN I've played in 2023 that I could call "close to perfection". Even though you might not be a fan of Honey Select models, the story alone is already enough to get you engaged. Hope future updates can be as good as the current contents.