This is basically a 3DCG game. All the sex scenes are recorded 3DCG. All the dialogue scenes are 3DCG. The only time that it is a 3D game is when you aren't interacting with anyone and are running around in a weird walking/running animation. And all the good looking female characters are always highlighted in a white glow whenever you approach them, which makes it difficult to appreciate them.
I'm not done playing version 0.3 yet, but this game was dreadfully boring for most of the game. All I could think about was how much I just wanted to finish the current version, uninstall it, and never play it again. I thought that the only thing that this game had going for it is that it is a 3D game because there aren't too many 3D games out there with WASD movement and realistic type models. But I hung in there and I started hating the game less after the marketplace minigame and the feeling of desperation and urgency. So I will give this game three stars. But even after I started like the game a little, I was taking breaks every few minutes to go into another program window because I was bored and wanted to get some work done.
There are some problems with the game window's size and position, and sound settings that annoyed me. In other Unreal Engine games, I can resize my bordered window to a custom size that I want it will stay there. But not this game. It kept repositioning and resizing my window every damn time that I pressed the Esc button, which is a lot because I like to save games a lot. I tried editing the Unreal config files, but that didn't help. Special K didn't even work until I used a hidden elevated command, and even then the elevated command is not the greatest hack and doesn't work perfectly like I want. The game doesn't remember the background music sound level either. I set mine to 4, but anytime I start the game it plays at the max level 10. I then have to go to Options and I will see that it is set to 4, just like it should be. So I press the Back button and that's when the background music sound level drops to 4. It's a pain to have to do that every time that I start the game.
In the tutorial section, I was annoyed by the really bad graphics. The grass was too bright, too ugly green, too tall, and not realistic looking. It looked like someone took a carpet texture, tinted it a strong green, put the texture on repeat, but made the texture overly big. Real grass blades aren't that tall. This tutorial area should have better landscaped grass because it is fenced in by fancy fencing. But the grass made it look like you were standing out in the wilderness. Strangely, there was a similar texture that was used later in the game and it looked fine. But I don't think that it was the same grass and I think that it looked better because there was better environmental lighting. The whole area and environment was way too bright in the tutorial. From the back, the player character looked like he had a glowing aura.
I also want to take a moment to complain about some other game graphics. I don't get why developers want to make entire objects, doors, and characters outlined in a glow. It doesn't look good that way. How can you be immersed into a game that is supposed to look like real life when every single important thing has to have a white outline around it? I'd rather see a tiny icon, like a square with the letter E in it, or some small glowing icon that indicates that a person or object can be interacted with than see the entire person(s) and objects highlighted. I don't hate how the MC looks like, but his outfit is a bit annoying. It looks like he is wearing a nurse gown top with pink pajama shorts. In addition to his fruity clothes that don't even match that well, he has a really awful standing stance and the animations for when he walks, runs, and jumps are equally bad. The sounds that he makes when he walks, runs, and jumps aren't good either. Oh, and the mirrors are done wrong. You can see a distorted image of the player in the mirror, but if you are facing the mirror you see the back of the character in the mirror and if your back is facing the mirror you see the character's face in the mirror. It's backwards. Later, when you are in the Melody Studio house, the camera is so close to the ceiling that it often clips through.
Thankfully, after the tutorial, all the other areas looked great. They weren't overly bright. Everything looked realistic, great even. I am kinda amazed with how big the world is. But it feels pretty empty. The streets stretch for miles, there are lots of buildings, lots of beach sand. But it looks like someone just threw down a bunch of assets and created one giant generic sandbox and didn't do much else. It looks low effort. But the developer did make some effort to put in some detail here and there. Like I noticed the company's offices had "closed" tape across them to indicate that the section is no longer being used because the employees are gone. I just wish that the game had more detail. For instance, all the empty motel rooms have the same two or three suitcases that are the same color and are in the same exact locations. In real life, you wouldn't encounter something like that. It couldn't hurt to remove some suitcases from some of the rooms or position them differently and maybe change the colors. Some empty accessible houses had the exact same bed and bed blankets in all of the rooms. I think that it would have been better to tint some of the blankets a different color. A little more detail could have made the game seem less empty and less artificial. Less like a sandbox full of placeholders and more like an island with inhabitants. Also, the FOV seems a big wide for me. Most gamers prefer a wide FOV, but it is also true that most games have a narrower FOV seting by default. If you want a high FOV, give players a FOV slider in the Options menu.
I didn't care for the yacht sex scene at the beginning of the game. It was recorded 3DCG. If I was super, super desperate for a fap, then maybe just maybe I could get the deed done. But since there are thousands of porn games on F95, millions of webcam sex models on the internet, and millions of porn videos out there, I'm never going to fap to this game because it isn't fapworthy enough. All of the dialogue scenes are 3DCG too, which I guess is okay. Sometimes annoying, sometimes not.
I was often annoyed by the short dialogue since the beginning of the game. It seemed to be so hasty, short, and lacking any realism, emotion, or depth. But other times I felt like the dialogue was decent and interesting enough to keep me going. It just need polished a lot more. There are a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes.
I feel like this game need more polish, a lot more polish. Better dialogue. Narrower FOV. Better standing pose. Better walking and running and jumping animations. Better walking and running and jumping sounds. Better clothes. No character highlights. Window not resizing and repositioning every time we press the Esc key.. Background sound settings always immediately being applied on game start. Better lighting in some areas. Make the game have a less empty feeling.
The best part of the game might be the minigames. The gym one wasn't that fun, but it did make the game interesting for a bit. The marketplace minigame was fun. I am also liking the commercial shoot because there are a lot of people in one place, and it is less empty feeling. Whereas before, there were very few characters and they were very far apart. Actually, that might be why I liked the gym and marketplace too. Because there were more people. The interactions with the gym people were boring though because they were just static in one place and only gave you one line of dialogue. But in the marketplace, you actually interacted with them and gave them the items that they wanted.
UPDATE: I played the end of 0.3.1 content and I am going to uninstall the game and not play it again. It's not worth it for the sex scenes. The sex scenes are just 3DCG garbage. As for the story and dialogue, the grammar and spelling is too poor to really enjoy and the graphics aren't good enough to immerse me. It's a good attempt, but it fails as an adult sex game. If you were to take the adult element out of this game and make it completely PG it wouldn't be any worse. Would still be a game I don't care much about. On the other hand, someone else could take the same graphics and take out the nudity and change the dialogue and scenes some and make a really good non-adult game that might really hook people. But this. It's mediocre. Barely passing. I will still give it a generous three stars even though it feels like a one or two star game.
