I just wonder what you people find so objectionable... in what way is the story so bad?
The Amnesia trope is present in SO MANY AVNs, this is not the first. The Domestic set up, and the Damsel in Distress element, as well as the College thing, as ALL staples of the Genre too.
I wonder, genuinely, what you people expect?
I have never found this game unplayable at all, and I have played 100s of AVNs.
Probably partially because it is so recycled, but the day to day dialogue feels very low effort and generally scattered as if it's impossible to use words larger than 5 letters for someone lol
I think it is absolutely possible, the genre isn't an excuse. Particularly, play Companions of Darkness- it has incredible reputation for its story and was great IMO, that or maybe Cross Realms (which I think should frankly go to JUST story and not AVN because of what it is / makes itself to be).
I have played both. Companion has WAY TOO LITTLE sex for an AVN, and WAY WAY too little for an AVN THAT LONG, sorry. Cross Realms, indeed, SHOULD just become a VN, and drop the Adult parts, because they really do nothing, in fact, in my review for the game, I say JUST THIS.
But you have made my point. Games which focus on a realistic, deep, well written narrative.... ALWAYS fail, in regards to their Adult content, just like Companion of Darkness and Cross Realms, unless the MC or the world having a heavy sexual/sexualized nature is written in CORE to the story... because such stories DO NOT lend themselves to copious amounts of wild Sex.
Sorry, I prefer my AVNs DO have COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF WILD SEX. For that, I will take some tropes, and some simplistic dialogue, and bat shit cray cray prepositions and tenuous associations and logic. If those things are need for the MC to bang his mother, sister (legal) daughter, and his doctor, and lawyer, and (female) best friend, and neighbour, and neighbours daughter, and best friends mother..... whilst on spaceships careening out of control towards blackhole ... wormhole... that will take him to the land of the Space Elves.... where he must fuck the Elf Sorceress Queen in a Sex battle to the death, to save the world from Demoness that has fallen in love with him and been R-wording him most the game.....because you CANNOT have that happen, without some tropes, simplistic dialogue, crazy unrealistic premises.
But for ME, THAT is MUCH better than some 'narratively realistic and sophisticated immersive story'...... that does not GIVE ME ELF ORGIES and let me bang everyone in my household.. and on my block... multiple times in a week.
Um. No, I can comprehend just fine, sir.
But that is NOT the point of AVNs. The key is the A bit.
There's plenty of great games which just use the VN format. Once you add the A bit, you are stuck either narratively, in regards to the adult content, or stuck in regards to narrative strength. They tend, as I just explained, to not be conducive to each other.
A strong narrative, often means the story finds ways to juts ease in the adult content naturally, and logically, dictated by the story...... but that often means paltry amounts of adult content, often done poorly, without the focus and care it should have.
A game with a lot of adult content, covering all kinds of fetishes and taboos, by necessity often has to have some fairly absurd, at the least, writing, often times some unbelievable crazy premises, and tenuous associations and logic.... otherwise the scene cannot be set for that intense BDSM Orgy that is a thing in the game... along with many others.
About the ONLY games which do both naturally, are games where the sexual nature of the MC, or the ultra sexualized nature of the world, are CORE traits not only to the character and world, but the main story plot itself. BUT, that is VERY limiting.
So, what side should the AVN author fall on?
It is an A VN, not a VN... the game is meant to be an adult game, with adult content. Adult content at the expense of narrative strength ALWAYS WINS as far as I am concerned.
Maybe you are playing the wrong kind of games? Perhaps you should seek more mainstream VN format games.
