Is it me or is this game just really boring? None of the lewd scenes are really that satisfying, kind of like they were all an afterthought. Idk, im sure a lot of work went into this, and I like the idea, but im just bored with the execution. Nothing really feels weighty, hard to describe the vibes I get from a game. Not throwing shade, im a picky bitch to satisfy lol
Although I like the game, I've played other games and can try to approximate the reason why the sex art feels like a dud here.
To me, I'm satisfied with a "paper doll" system (easily-modifiable bodies) to the degree that I can forgive a character feeling "flat and bland" if I like a character's identity and backstory enough that their visual depiction is compensated for by the kinky subtext of their history and unique persona.
However, the consequence of an easily-modifiable paper doll system is that art needs to be very uniform and fit into place for a lot of customization, which reduces the number of positions due to the number of art assets being functionally smaller for duplicating more-or-less a generic human body's specific customizations. So sex doesn't happen in some positions or at some angles, and depending on how rigid it all feels, it is not so lifelike and looks robotic.
On the other side of the pond, one character (who might not even look very great) otherwise has no variety in their look to choose from. You get a single character, which hurts audience taste preferences by how much they jive with the one protagonist's look. However this person has a ton of art, with lots of poses, and even flourishes like clothing and skin deformation, in-depth face expressions, really top-notch voice acting since one voice actor was kept onboard to do so much unique stuff for one single character. This character feels really lively!
Somewhere midway, there's the middle spectrum - a group of unique people. The development effort budget is still the same, so it's a mix of benefits and problems of the 2 extremes: you have more characters to appeal to the audience, but they're not so amazing. Voice acting's pretty alright, though each character feels uncannily shallow. Each character has unique poses, but none of them have
all of the poses. You get a wider variety of personality to experience, but players may still feel like they lost the chance for something unique they'd
really love instead of something that feels just good enough. So here you get more variety and more depth than paper doll clones, but weaker personalization. And maybe the character you really like is so shallow they effectively don't exist.
If I had to estimate what attributes you're trying to balance in development by choosing one of these 3 character focuses, you're balancing story, art, and player-ownership. You want characters you can love, art that feels amazing, voice acting that feels emotive, and player compatibility that makes players feel like they can solve any problem the exact way they want to, with the cool flourish they want, with a character that matches who they want to see and experience.
How I feel about this game depends on my mentality towards these aspects. The versatile self really loves making a new playthrough feel like a new person and new game. The art lover self feels happy with the colors and shapes but dissatisfied with a certain sterileness of what choice sacrifices where lack-of-choice feasts. The visceral self really enjoys gaming the traits and interactable stuff to loot and thrive, though I wish the sex art had that sexy oomph and flourish, and sometimes being a townie feels boring compared to being an adventurer or fighter, if only because of the slower pace.
This game's alright. Most things take a lot of work though some generic stuff is actually low-effort, like blood type. If you had enough time and talent you could do it all, but
time is money, so the less money to be made from spending time on this the less anyone would want to work on it. Hiring a partner is stupid risky too, they need to have high motivation and tight focus to make the time and money loss result in progress worth those costs.
