(vv. 0.22.78, 27.84)
Uh, it has its strengths but it has a lot of flaws. I'm going to acknowledge right away that Uni has not too much CGs (some of the sex scenes are text only), for some reason has music and SFX only in the main menu, and it's quite short (most paths have very limited number of major dates/events). I'm not going to hold it against the game too much, since it's not finished.
The gameplay is pretty monotonous and passive. The day is divided in three standard periods, but you are always required to attend school, then work, then you have free time with nothing to do except infrequent homework or wander the city in hopes to get a random event to advance sidequests. The game won't allow any deviation from this routine, you just go through the motions. Click on the door to the living room, click on the door to the outside, click on school location, proceed through school subroutine, click on your workplace, proceed through work subroutine and so on. This is not enough for me to give a convincing illusion of agency in a game, especially when you're not able to initiate any events on your own. Like, your character has a phone and can get texts, but you can't call anyone and ask them on a date. Neither can you decide that today at school you want to hang out with this character in particular. You have no agency. Basically, you're clicking through the mandatory part of your daily routine, waiting for evening to come so you can try to fish for a random sidestory event, if the RNG deigns you worthy, of course. I think this false façade of a dating sandbox sim actually exaggerates your passiveness, instead of hiding it, plus it ads grind, which is never a plus. This lack of agency thematically fits one particular storyline where the main character has an extremely passive role (Matt route), but for every other path, no. This game is really a VN, for some reason forced into the skin of a dating sim instead of just delivering you a narrative without any extra busywork.
So about that narrative then... The technical side of writing is solid, not too flowery yet pretty descriptive. Maybe could be just a bit more flowery. Anyway, it's good; sex scenes are hot, some of them are very good. I think this is probably the best thing the game has to offer, for what it's worth. However the underlying logic and plot are... lacking.
NB: there be some spoilers.
So the positive thing about storylines in Uni is that there's a decent amount of branching and interconnections. Say you choose to date a certain nerd and you pick the Cheerleading Club. In this case there will be an event when your nerd comes to your cheerleading practice (which makes the implication that there can be similar events like nerd bf + nerd club. It could be funny to see some kind of nerddom explosion). That's the good part, albeit it's far from perfect; some glaring inconsistencies can crop up here and there.
The bad part is when your whole relationship and personality hinges on some pretty inconsequential choices. So there's this character that has a 'sub' and 'dom' routes and you have some interactions where you can be assertive or not. The problem is, most of these don't actually matter. And to give some perspective one of the choices is to tell that your parents died or not. Pretty big deal, right? NOPE, it means jack shit, zero branching! Likewise there isn't a compound dom-sub score for this character. Instead, there comes a point in the story when you more or less go out on a date, and THEN you have 3 choices and only these three choices decide how the branching goes (which food to order, really?) And the worst part, if you don't lean super hard either way this route appears to end abruptly. At least it did for me until I figured it out from external sources. So the character is pliable enough to be sub or dom but plain vanilla is too much to ask? This is the kind of internal logic that makes a game insufferable without a walkthrough.
I'm going to offer one last example that is clubs. So I've mentioned that club choice offers extra events for certain story-lines. What I haven't mentioned is that the club choice is mandatory (the headmaster says so) and that it permanently alters MC's personality. Join the 'nerd club'? Enjoy MC stammering and blushing for the rest of the game, even when her corruption is 100 out of possible 100. That's so sad on multiple levels. If the club choice is mandatory there must be a I don't give a fuck Club that doesn't alter your personality and lets corruption take care of stammering or lack thereof (if you didn't take the hint that's my favourite club). I think I get the logic behind this. This choice is more of a retroactive personality test, as in only an outgoing girl is going to choose a cheerleading club. Except this is not how it works, is it? Maybe a girl chooses cheerleading exactly because she's not very confident and wants to improve that. And ideally corruption must be taken into account. Overall, this little quirk of dialogue writing is disheartening to see. So much effort wasted in a counterproductive way when there are some obvious improvements begging to be made.
So, IDK, I think this is 6/10 or something like that. I don't like meaningless choices, and choices that have disproportionally large impact. I hope it gets better but won't hold my breath.
Uh, it has its strengths but it has a lot of flaws. I'm going to acknowledge right away that Uni has not too much CGs (some of the sex scenes are text only), for some reason has music and SFX only in the main menu, and it's quite short (most paths have very limited number of major dates/events). I'm not going to hold it against the game too much, since it's not finished.
The gameplay is pretty monotonous and passive. The day is divided in three standard periods, but you are always required to attend school, then work, then you have free time with nothing to do except infrequent homework or wander the city in hopes to get a random event to advance sidequests. The game won't allow any deviation from this routine, you just go through the motions. Click on the door to the living room, click on the door to the outside, click on school location, proceed through school subroutine, click on your workplace, proceed through work subroutine and so on. This is not enough for me to give a convincing illusion of agency in a game, especially when you're not able to initiate any events on your own. Like, your character has a phone and can get texts, but you can't call anyone and ask them on a date. Neither can you decide that today at school you want to hang out with this character in particular. You have no agency. Basically, you're clicking through the mandatory part of your daily routine, waiting for evening to come so you can try to fish for a random sidestory event, if the RNG deigns you worthy, of course. I think this false façade of a dating sandbox sim actually exaggerates your passiveness, instead of hiding it, plus it ads grind, which is never a plus. This lack of agency thematically fits one particular storyline where the main character has an extremely passive role (Matt route), but for every other path, no. This game is really a VN, for some reason forced into the skin of a dating sim instead of just delivering you a narrative without any extra busywork.
So about that narrative then... The technical side of writing is solid, not too flowery yet pretty descriptive. Maybe could be just a bit more flowery. Anyway, it's good; sex scenes are hot, some of them are very good. I think this is probably the best thing the game has to offer, for what it's worth. However the underlying logic and plot are... lacking.
NB: there be some spoilers.
So the positive thing about storylines in Uni is that there's a decent amount of branching and interconnections. Say you choose to date a certain nerd and you pick the Cheerleading Club. In this case there will be an event when your nerd comes to your cheerleading practice (which makes the implication that there can be similar events like nerd bf + nerd club. It could be funny to see some kind of nerddom explosion). That's the good part, albeit it's far from perfect; some glaring inconsistencies can crop up here and there.
The bad part is when your whole relationship and personality hinges on some pretty inconsequential choices. So there's this character that has a 'sub' and 'dom' routes and you have some interactions where you can be assertive or not. The problem is, most of these don't actually matter. And to give some perspective one of the choices is to tell that your parents died or not. Pretty big deal, right? NOPE, it means jack shit, zero branching! Likewise there isn't a compound dom-sub score for this character. Instead, there comes a point in the story when you more or less go out on a date, and THEN you have 3 choices and only these three choices decide how the branching goes (which food to order, really?) And the worst part, if you don't lean super hard either way this route appears to end abruptly. At least it did for me until I figured it out from external sources. So the character is pliable enough to be sub or dom but plain vanilla is too much to ask? This is the kind of internal logic that makes a game insufferable without a walkthrough.
I'm going to offer one last example that is clubs. So I've mentioned that club choice offers extra events for certain story-lines. What I haven't mentioned is that the club choice is mandatory (the headmaster says so) and that it permanently alters MC's personality. Join the 'nerd club'? Enjoy MC stammering and blushing for the rest of the game, even when her corruption is 100 out of possible 100. That's so sad on multiple levels. If the club choice is mandatory there must be a I don't give a fuck Club that doesn't alter your personality and lets corruption take care of stammering or lack thereof (if you didn't take the hint that's my favourite club). I think I get the logic behind this. This choice is more of a retroactive personality test, as in only an outgoing girl is going to choose a cheerleading club. Except this is not how it works, is it? Maybe a girl chooses cheerleading exactly because she's not very confident and wants to improve that. And ideally corruption must be taken into account. Overall, this little quirk of dialogue writing is disheartening to see. So much effort wasted in a counterproductive way when there are some obvious improvements begging to be made.
So, IDK, I think this is 6/10 or something like that. I don't like meaningless choices, and choices that have disproportionally large impact. I hope it gets better but won't hold my breath.