Something always happened that stopped me from playing until the end of the game whether its losing the data, updated translations or just getting the vanilla ending and not wanting to go to the next part of the game. I beat the game finally and unlocked the gallery understanding the context, so now I can actually review the game. No spoiler tags because with a yandere protagonist, you can expect a lot of things from the endings. This game is rather dark though...which is probably why I didn't want to go past the vanilla route.
Pros:
Remember, this game was made from the small portion of The Dangerous Road Home where you have to flee the kidnapper and one false move gets you kidnapped (which is literally the scenario of choosing to ambush her at night and chloroform her). To make an entire game based on that small scene with 2 minor endings is incredible. Retro is taking forever for their third game with a different cast and universe but if they can keep the writing quality as high as this one, then I'm sold.
Pros:
- The game is rather long and divided into two main parts. The game says there are three parts but the kidnapping phase is literally just two minutes depending on what you decide to do. The first part is time management and knowing what to do at what times. The second part is maintaining the status quo and eliminating anyone that could be a threat while also making sure you don’t get rid of people who could point to you as the culprit.
- The pure love route can be obtained without stalking or harassing Hazuki. While it’s always good to plan ahead in case the confession doesn’t go well, the game makes it pretty easy to win her affection over instead of going the yandere route where getting caught is more than likely.
- The game makes it clear that it is very easy to mess up part 1 by being a creep. These things are easy to notice as long as you don’t harass her in broad daylight, give her the marriage license or cum stain cloth and so on. This common sense and being normal to not go this route.
- It’s still possible to mess up in part 2 by making stupid decisions.
- Art is amazing.
- The story is rather realistic and doesn’t involve any supernatural beings. It’s literally about a stalker obsessed with his senpai and will do anything to have her even if the simple option of romancing her is right in front of him.
- Taking care of the dog in the park will result in the dog returning the favor for you. Dogs are always good.
- Endless mode is playable after making it to the end of part 3. This opens up more options and there are more opportunities to make money.
- Beating the game allows you to unlock the entire gallery so you don’t have to play through the other parts. Although, it does miss the point of understanding how we got to this point.
- There are NTR endings caused by the player’s stupidity.
- After beating the game, you can replay minigames that never lasted long in part 1, specifically the train molesting one and the random elevator one that is hard to get under the assumption you don’t ask Hazuki out to lunch.
- The Twisted Love is the inverse of the vanilla love ending and while I hate the re-use of the image, the filter change makes it more messed up because of how this scene was already obtainable without going through the plan.
- The Defiant Pregnancy is my favorite ending because Hazuki never breaks (and it's based on never letting her obedience get to a certain point while getting her pregnant). The nightmare is a perfect depiction of the horror of the situation.
- I don’t like how the game puts the pure love route under a bad ending when this is the best case scenario for Yokoshima and Hazuki. He may be a yandere, but by being kind to Hazuki, she already shows that she’s interested in you. Unless the implication of the ending is that the player will be subjected to NTR, there’s no problem with him supporting her dreams and letting her go. Yokoshima already thinks how insane his kidnapping plan is when confessing to her was actually easier than anything else.
- The writing quality drops after you make it to the training phase. I really did enjoy the first part of the game because it establishes so many characters with a variety of personalities, but the training phase literally has Yokoshima tune them all out because of his obsession.
- You are very limited in what you can do after you completely break Hazuki. You only have to look forward to a few endings whether or not you covered your tracks.
- There are some events in part 1 that feel completely random. I don’t know how Hazuki ends up finding the video camera in the bathroom in one playthrough but not in another. The game says it's based on her vigilance stats, but I think this is more of the player taking too long to remove the camera immediately after getting the film needed to give to the man in the coffee shop.
- While it’s not a requirement to fill in the Hazuki information journal, once you get to part 2, you can’t do anything with it. I feel more accomplished 100% a lot of it, but it requires talking to some NPCs multiple times to get different dialogue options or visiting them in different locations. The game doesn’t tell you how when your boss gives you the measurements, you only have one chance to look at them before you can’t get them again.
- I feel like a lot of the items you can buy in the sex store during the second part of the game are pretty pointless, not to mention expensive. By the time you can afford a lot of the stuff, you should have already broken Hazuki and it doesn’t change her captive picture. I would like there to have been muffled dialogue if you put a gag on her or her sensitivity go up if she was blindfolded.
- During part 2, you have the option of trafficking one of two girls who you could have assaulted in part 1. Logically, it makes sense to go after the runaway girl but the game lets you pick the annoying co-worker and that won’t end well even if the police can erase the evidence because two people disappearing in the office that you talked to would be suspicious. But according to the tutorial flame, you can get rid of the annoying co-worker without consequence. It just makes more sense to go after the student.
- The NTR endings are very forced. Your reward for playing endless mode and making it far into the audition is getting stabbed in the back and losing Hazuki. It’s karma for Yokoshima but at the same time, you really played through the entire game just to literally let that happen? At least don’t make the special audition sound like a cool thing only for it to be a scam.
- Hypnosis app is kind of pointless when Hazuki is the only one you’ll use it on. You should have been able to test it out on other women like in part 1 to see if there is no permanent damage. You also most likely already have her obedient when you get the app, so there’s no point in using it on someone who is already smitten with you. I would have preferred to use it on the annoying co-worker or the new co-worker to see how that would work.
Remember, this game was made from the small portion of The Dangerous Road Home where you have to flee the kidnapper and one false move gets you kidnapped (which is literally the scenario of choosing to ambush her at night and chloroform her). To make an entire game based on that small scene with 2 minor endings is incredible. Retro is taking forever for their third game with a different cast and universe but if they can keep the writing quality as high as this one, then I'm sold.