(Very minor and vague spoilers unrelated to any mystery, character, or plot stuff)
I really enjoyed this game. I only have really one major criticism that I felt actively detracted from the experience and that is that all of the action scenes save for one are really bad, and the one not bad one is just serviceable. Good thing, it's the one that actually needs to land for the story to land and the others can be brushed off as gag scenes, but the thing is they are gag scenes which are used to overcome actual problems in certain routes.
It was kind of funny the first time when the fight scene got solved by porno mags but then it happens every. single. time. after.
That's not to even mention how it severely stretches believability how certain individuals can just beat dozens of enemies armed with rifles with nothing more than a melee weapon. Even if there is an attempt to justify their strength, it doesn't work as an actual action scene.
Every single action scene I had to basically go "ok, I guess their budget/time schedule couldn't be used to make these action scenes actually good so they had to resort to making do with what they had time/money for." Because it FEELS in these scenes like they were trying to get around the limitations of what they were working with. IDK the context of the studio or anything like that, but that's the only explanation that makes sense to me otherwise I really want to know what creative director would OK "Lets make all of our action scenes terrible, unbelievable jokes." It took me out of it every time.
Even the serviceable action scene has one problem that I disliked that felt like they were trying to skert by their engine limitations, but it was forgivable in the grand scheme of things.
Besides that, the characters, atmosphere, comedy, is all good. The mystery is fantastic and seeing it all come together the way it does throughout a playthrough is great.
One thing that limited the story from being 9/10 or 10/10 to me was that the main theme of the game isn't particularly complex or interesting. It's done well enough, but this game is definitely not as concerned with having interesting themes than it is having an engaging mystery and lovable characters that you care about. Which is the opposite of what sci fi traditionally is.
Another thing related to platforms, IDK if it's like this on all systems, but the Switch port performance was pretty bad for a visual novel. They have this thing where previous scenes are played in the current scene to remind you of previous events, and it takes time to load every time. Usually this is like -0.5-2 seconds, but for certain scenes characters will stop talking for what feels like 10 seconds before the scene loads and says "damn I really ate fruity pebbles for breakfast" like you didn't already know that. Sometimes the scene isn't even reminding you of anything and it's just showing a location people are talking about. And the loading screens in general can cause the flow of certain scenes to feel off. Probably/hopefully a problem limited to the switch version.
Overall great Visual Novel.
I really enjoyed this game. I only have really one major criticism that I felt actively detracted from the experience and that is that all of the action scenes save for one are really bad, and the one not bad one is just serviceable. Good thing, it's the one that actually needs to land for the story to land and the others can be brushed off as gag scenes, but the thing is they are gag scenes which are used to overcome actual problems in certain routes.
It was kind of funny the first time when the fight scene got solved by porno mags but then it happens every. single. time. after.
That's not to even mention how it severely stretches believability how certain individuals can just beat dozens of enemies armed with rifles with nothing more than a melee weapon. Even if there is an attempt to justify their strength, it doesn't work as an actual action scene.
Every single action scene I had to basically go "ok, I guess their budget/time schedule couldn't be used to make these action scenes actually good so they had to resort to making do with what they had time/money for." Because it FEELS in these scenes like they were trying to get around the limitations of what they were working with. IDK the context of the studio or anything like that, but that's the only explanation that makes sense to me otherwise I really want to know what creative director would OK "Lets make all of our action scenes terrible, unbelievable jokes." It took me out of it every time.
Even the serviceable action scene has one problem that I disliked that felt like they were trying to skert by their engine limitations, but it was forgivable in the grand scheme of things.
Besides that, the characters, atmosphere, comedy, is all good. The mystery is fantastic and seeing it all come together the way it does throughout a playthrough is great.
One thing that limited the story from being 9/10 or 10/10 to me was that the main theme of the game isn't particularly complex or interesting. It's done well enough, but this game is definitely not as concerned with having interesting themes than it is having an engaging mystery and lovable characters that you care about. Which is the opposite of what sci fi traditionally is.
Another thing related to platforms, IDK if it's like this on all systems, but the Switch port performance was pretty bad for a visual novel. They have this thing where previous scenes are played in the current scene to remind you of previous events, and it takes time to load every time. Usually this is like -0.5-2 seconds, but for certain scenes characters will stop talking for what feels like 10 seconds before the scene loads and says "damn I really ate fruity pebbles for breakfast" like you didn't already know that. Sometimes the scene isn't even reminding you of anything and it's just showing a location people are talking about. And the loading screens in general can cause the flow of certain scenes to feel off. Probably/hopefully a problem limited to the switch version.
Overall great Visual Novel.