Whew.
This gonna be a long and confusing review, wherein I rate this game a deserved 5/5, gush over its many virtues and then explain why I won't ever play it (or any future releases/complete versions) again.
Haha, yeah it's a bit of mess.
So I have two purposes for this review. The first is just to add to the chorus of voices extolling the virtues of this game, so if you're in need of more of that when making up whether to give this game a try, then read the first bit.
The second is hopefully provide a favour in advance for anyone who happens to be like me and is trying to decide if this game is worth a try. By "someone like me" I mean the kind of person who likes to play these kinds of games because you like connecting with characters, sharing their experiences as they go through the story, but tend to find the bad shit that happens more emotionally draining than the good shit is rewarding, and/or you tend to get overly, irrationally* anxious or worried about what bad shit might happen to the characters you like. So if you're that kind of person and want to know what someone who might be kinda like you thinks of this game, then you might want to read the second part (or both, haha!)
*irrational here meaning you feel this way even though you don't want to, and know you shouldn't - e.g. if you're watching a G-rated show and one of the characters has a kinda creepy seeming uncle, you might think it's irrational to worry that there's going to be any explicit or implicit indication that the uncle rapes their niece/nephew; it feels irrational *not* because you're feeling emotional about what might happen to a person who doesn't actually exist, but because you're worried about something happening despite knowing that what you're worried about falls entirely outside the genre conventions of the show you're watching)
So, first part:
1)
As is maybe obvious from the 5 star rating, I am a pretty big fan of this game. My signature won't show on this comment, but just know that it contains a gif of Bailey, who is one of the girls in this game (and is my subjective best girl despite knowing that the GF is, objectively, the best girl in the game). One of the first things you might pick up from reading comments here and there is that there are a *lot* of people in this game. Including those that you can bump uglies with and those who are just part of the plot. I saw a lot of comments complaining about keeping all the names straight, but honestly I never really had the problem despite only playing the game twice. I don't know, I think it's honestly a part of the games charm that I can remember the names of all the characters I liked despite playing this a few weeks ago now. Bailey the best girl, Zoe and her charming slutty charms, Shauna and her game nerdiness, Rachel's hard-ass hotness, Natalie and her girl next door charms, the cuteness that is Rainn without her makeup, Kimmy's hard knock life, Willow the bitch with a maybe heart of gold, Megan and her closeted BF Damien, the surprisingly ballsy Emiko, Harp the cool coach, Sophie the weirdo who doesn't seem to sleep at night, and so on and on.
So many of the characters in this game are both great and well characterised despite their short screen time. And even more impressively, they're characterised as characters with more than one dimension (yes I know there's an irony in saying that right after pairing a whole bunch of names with a single trait; that was just me exercising my memory of the characters, the game doesn't represent the characters as being just those traits I mentioned
For the more lewd among us there's also plenty of sex, and the sex is all well animated and pretty damn hot. The story is also a breath of fresh air. I know it can easily come across as the pinnacle of wish fulfillment; you play as a guy who's great at basketball but also really down to earth and charming and handsome and helpful and kind and so on. But at least for me it was great to play an MC who is both not a bit of a sleazeball and who fits with my natural impulse to play these kinds of games in a way where I'm trying to make everyone happy. And it does have a kind of realism in that the MC comes across as someone who believably wants to be helpful and supportive, he just so happens to also have the resources available to provide more help than most people could.
So yeah; great art, lovely character designs, a fairly compelling story with the usual highs and lows that people tend to like, a likeable and (to me at least) relatable MC who's both not a pushover and not a sleazeball.
A pretty great game all round and a definite 5/5 in my book.
...and now the second part, and why I likely won't ever play this game I really like again
:
2)
Ok trying to keep this short and relatively spoiler free. The main antagonist and provider of drammatic tension in this game is this fucking asshole named Ryker. No spoilers that he's an asshole and the antagonist of your character because by the time you find out who Ryker is he's in the process of being exactly the asshole I describe.
Now one of the ways the game provides the conflict and tension most people feel are necessary in their stories is by having Ryker try and threaten you and the people you care about unless you follow along with his plans (I say most people cause I don't feel it's necessary, but I'm also obviously in the very small minority and I don't expect people to write stories to cater to my tastes). And as is probably obvious from the preamble I wrote regarding who this section might be useful for, I have a bit of a hard time keeping my knowledge of what's likely to happen in a story separate from what I irrationally worry might happen. I'm pretty sure the dev has mentioned somewhere in this thread that they won't be including a lot of the negative stuff that I steer very clear of in games like this. NTR and the like. But even though I understand that this Ryker dude isn't likely to actually physically harm or rape or whatever any of the characters...I can't help the anxious worry that I get when playing the game after it became clear that the dramatic stakes were going to come, at least in part, from Ryker and his threats.
And I mean, this is a kinda hard thing to unpack. When I play these kinds of games I both am and am not the protagonist. It's made clear that the protagonist isn't a 1-to-1 stand-in for the player given you can't pick how he responds moment-to-moment. He's essentially a person with a variety of possible paths through his life, and you pick which ones you want to see. Or which one you want to be "canon" in your mind. But even understanding that, I can't help but translate myself directly into his context, and his context directly onto me. So when Ryker's threatening these people both MC and myself have an attachment to, even though I know that the conventions of the story that the author seems to want to tell mean that nothing is likely to happen that will really threaten the fantasy of protecting everyone you love from any real risk or hardship, that's not exactly a "protection" I can apply to myself. I am, when playing the game, vicariously threatened by a man who represents those people in the real world who threaten others by threatening harm to those they care about. And in my real world I don't have narrative guarantees to ensure that nothing bad will happen. So having to play the game in the shadow of Ryker's threats means I end up playing in the shadow of my own anxiety about real people in my real world who can and do harm, rape, kill etc. people's loved ones to force compliance with their demands, and often the people being threatened have no real recourse, because threats are rarely crimes and whatever "justice" follows a crime doesn't undo the damage that's been done, or bring back what's been lost. Which means I essentially can't play the game, because every happy moment feels hollow and "false" in the shadow of what could be taken away at any time. And the lack of any actual follow through on threats doesn't lessen my anxiety, it just makes the game feel more false to me. Like it's introduced something that would "obviously" end badly but has just decided not to allow things to follow their "natural" course out of contrivance.
And so the realistic nature of the story, the characters, and the threat, work against me; the connections I've made to the characters mean I'm too irrationally worried about what "would" happen to them, and how powerless I would be to help them, to play the game.
Which suuuuuucks. Cause in cause I haven't made it clear, I like most every other part of this damn game!
And obviously for most people this is a ridiculous degree of extrapolation and is probably to some degree unhealthy.
And as a depressed person who struggles not to fixate on everything negative, I would agree with you (to an extent
). It's why I didn't give this game a lower mark, or try and hold my hang-ups against the devs. These are obviously my problems and mine alone.
But I guess I also try and avoid assuming that I am the only person in the world who thinks and feels at least somewhat like I do. So I write this second part for anyone who comes after me who relates to stories the way I describe, so that they might have fair warning about what the game involves before they get into it, should they still want to give it a try. Cause all of my many compliments still apply; if you don't have my hang-ups it's totally a game you should play if it sounds at all up your alley. And even if you do it's probably worth trying just because it can be so much fun and maybe this Ryker asshole won't bother you as much as he bothered me.
But hopefully this ends up being useful to at least one other person trying to make their mind up on this game. I know I'd have appreciated knowing this kind of stuff before I started
