This VN was such a fun and thrilling action flick! For me it was the author's long awaited return to form a la Night Time Dreading Fever. The slicey lifey low stakes transformation fluff stories are fine, but a bit too light on the plot for my taste. I always preferred Hollow's more unhinged takes on action and adventure.

The writing was fast paced and chaotic, but in a good way. The story starts fast and never loses steam. Seeing multiple perspectives of characters who are all in competition with each other on a wild goose chase was used well to reveal information and build some tense situations where the reader knows more than the characters. It was uneven since one of the POV characters gets most of the love but... well I guess we might as well get to that.

Sep is a type of character with so much high energy that he paints my main impression of the writing and game overall. Luckily, I happen to like Sep A LOT. I could see him being written as annoying or the author's favourite Mary Sue, but instead he ends up carrying this entire story. He's a pretty unconventional protagonist and his many, many quirks make him endearing and intriguing. While I do have a sneaking suspicion that he really is the author's favourite, he definitely ended up being mine.

Presentation wise, I enjoyed some of the little tricks the VN pulled. There's some neat little sprite positioning for some gags, the the way Sep reading emotions is represented, and the fact that the author and sprite artist bothered to make the eyepatch symmetrical whenever Sep turns.

The cliffhanger and "to be concluded" at the end did sting. I was very hyped and invested by that time, and the action nonsense escalated to a whole new level. I am looking forward to the ending with a lot of anticipation and (im)patience!

"More than just Gold" is a fun treasure hunting action thrill ride. This one is definitely giving action flick vibes along the lines of Indiana Jones, Uncharted, and 007, but with an interesting twist of just casually throwing in some magic powers just for the heck of it. The plot and action sequences with the main buck character Vincent were really well done and paced. He's got this rugged every-man treasure hunter vibe that makes you want to root for him and his 'noble thief' motivation. This is contrasted with, what I want to describe as the "manic pixie dream fox-boy" character that is Sep, and his aloof and carefree nature. I think it's interesting to have the majority of the POV be from Sep, in this way, because I really dislike his characterization. The pacing immediately stops and this becomes almost a psychological thriller, but from the killer's point of view. He comes across as misunderstanding normal societal conventions at first, but then it's revealed that he actually deeply understands these conventions, he just doesn't care about them, which leads me to think he's got a cognitive dissonance about his own actions and thoughts. While I think that it's fine that a character like that exists, the story is appears to be trying to paint Sep as the 'good guy' while all this is happening, thus the narrative starts to fight with itself on just what kind of tone it should have. The plot itself is also not complete, so maybe this was all in service of providing an arc for Sep to have? At least I should hope so and its not just some kind of power fantasy character. The inclusion of magic into the plot also feels weird when there's text in-story about how power-dynamic changing the concept of magic is, yet the story is willing to make that leap into the absurd. All that being said, the plot is easily followed, characters are distinct, and the presentation is serviceable, with enough new art pieces and sprites to become immersed into the story. The slight change in how you can respond in the plot is a nice touch, especially for a linear novel. Though, I hope that the rest of the novel is able to figure out what kind of tone and thematic through-line it wants to portray, whether it just wants to be a light-hearted adventure flick, or a more character driven introspective thriller.