Firstly, the elephant in the room: Yes. This game utilizes AI in various facets of the game. It was to the point that I wasn't entirely sure if ANY part of the game was touched by the dev or if it was purely made from AI Engines, which is... troublesome, to say the least.
The art had NOTICEABLE AI elements to it. I feel like the writing tried to cover up some of the image mishaps with crazy excuses. For example: Windows being holograms to the outside. So, even if it was nighttime & there was daylight seeping through the windows ... It's ALL GOOD, because it's just a hologram! The dialogue was sometimes too wordy or over-explained things & the narrative itself felt extremely chaotic:
- Girls were introduced & then thrown away.
- No explanation for how long Protagonist was in 1992. Only that we ended up at a Science Camp & are now suddenly in a relationship with one of the girls.
- No explanation about the EOU. Just LOTS of exposition & then an "Initiation Video"
- Any human can become a Star Human?
- The family is Japanese but lives in Germany and also lives forever.
I have no problem with creators utilizing AI as a tool to workshop their ideas, but when it is pawned off as a full game or series - even free - it's not something I can support.
So, while I thought some ideas were cool...
- Like using various mediums to break up the typical visual novel aesthetic:
→ Pixel art for the City Fighter minigame
→ Old American horror film for the initiation video
And, even though I had a good laugh playing through this, the game was a huge turn-off for me. Even without a team or with English being your first language, I felt like a lot of the mistakes could be caught easily with a little QA. The Quantity felt like more of a priority here (MORE chapters, MORE routes, MORE everything) than the actual Quality of the game.
For my full initial reaction to the game, you can find my VOD here (timestamps available):