I read through the whole game. I even had my friend read through it too, and he and I shared similar opinions. Then, I told my sister I found the furry version of the Netflix movie Don’t Look Up, and she responds with, “Do you mean Chicken Little?” 😆
I later explained what I meant, and my family and friends didn’t care that I read a furry VN. So, there seems to be less of a stigma around this topic that was once regarded as taboo and is now more of a niche.
All in all, we’ve really come far as a society in terms of openness, acceptance, and freedom. Therefore, when this VN brought up societal issues and made references to pop culture from the real world, that took me out of the story.
I personally felt at times that the story relied too heavily on pop culture. I even noticed that there were lyrics and a remix of an actual song, which could be considered gray and troublesome in terms of legality.
Otherwise, I liked how you gave importance to the characters being anthropomorphic creatures in particular. It wasn’t just a gag. It meant something to the characters, their worlds, and their roots.
Narratively, I was confused at who was who in the beginning. This could have been fixed if each character was zoomed in when talking to only show them or if everybody else had a black silhouette to only show each character at a time in the beginning to give that clarity to the player.
The plot meandered, seemingly without purpose. The story eventually found its footing and stride at the candle shop and afterwards.
Yet, the beginning felt like unfocused filler that didn’t give me a clear message of what the theme or point of the story was. It didn’t help that the story brought all the cast of characters into the limelight without any clear distinction of who was speaking.
I felt like I was thrown into their relationship dynamic and their situation without being eased into it, not even getting a sense of who they were as characters until later.
Otherwise, I can see how the various characters represented apathy, lust, anger, and anxiety. That was well done.
I thought the fight scene could have used shorter and punchier sentences while the sex scene could have used more descriptive and straightforward language.
The fight scene dragged on, and the use of one CG made the fight scene more difficult to comprehend visually. If rough sketches of the fight were used, or if one CG of the characters battling it out was shown, then that would have gone a long way in following the fight at hand.
As for the sex scene, there could have been that tension, conflict, and vulnerability there between the characters opening up to one another but possibly resisting each other to give the scene more layers and nuance.
Artistically, the art had a lack of cohesion at times, ranging from detailed artwork to rough sketches, which threw me off. Due to the lack of character sprites or characters in a CG, I didn’t get an overall sense of the tone or positions of the characters during the moments that only had a background.
Musically, I was confused at the sudden stop of music, or sometimes there was no music in tense scenes, which confused me. I also thought the technique of cutting out the music during a tense scene was overused a bit much and didn’t give me that sense of dread, whereas the heart beat sound effects did.
Furthermore, I thought there was a conflicting and abrupt tonal shift in the beginning when Edgar came into picture. I think if there was more of a buildup there, it would have been less jarring for me, or if the music was off and led into silence, that could have been effective in not only setting the mood but foreshadowing it too.
As for the endings, I felt two of them came too abruptly, but I suppose that was the point. It would have been nicer to have a final sentence for each ending that encapsulated the mood or situation in its final moment instead of being whiplashed into an abrupt and unsatisfactory ending.
For characters who watched a lot of movies, I’m surprised they didn’t discuss end of the world movies as much. However, I noticed the callback of playing a video game at one of the endings, making the exposition feel important, after all. Yet, a lot of the beginning could have been cut out or shortened to get the plot moving.
I also felt the transition between the characters being in the lounge to the open mall came about suddenly. I thought they were at their crib at first and went to the mall. I suppose that was meant to be a plot twist.
For the end of the world, it seemed like all of the characters really focused on societal issues. They cared so much about the issues of the world that they forgot their own worlds they lived in and the people around them too.
I got a sense of everyone except for Nomi, yet I think that was the point. She was guarded, used humor as a wall, and ultimately wanted to retreat from everyone. Yet, because there was that lack of connection between her issues with society and how that related to her, her climatic moment came out of left field for me. Albeit, I could understand her struggle and how that would make her closed off. Yet, her story arc seemed more distant compared to the others.
Furthermore, all of the characters deemed the main character important or needed, as if they had a more special connection to him, when he was a blank slate of a nobody. Yet, even the main character was aware of his self-insert status too.
All in all, I pushed through the beginning that was all over the place and found stories in the rough by the end. Could the same stories be told without vocalizing their complaints about society, without making pop culture references, and without the world ending? I think so. Yet, you were going for a particular story, and it made me feel things in the end.
It just wouldn’t be the kind of visual novel I would create, and that’s okay. I do have visual novels on this profile here if you do want to check them out. Ultimately, I’m not the target demographic for this particular story, but I appreciate the talent and work put into this project. Good job!