My friend and I just finished playing the Waltz route and we were disappointed. This feels like a continuation of the good end of the route rather than its own story/a sequel, and as a result it was pretty boring because nothing really happened. Because of this + the shorter runtime, the game was not worth $10 IMO.
Viewing post in Cinderella Phenomenon: Evermore comments
Really? I mean, i even think the game is way cheaper than it should be. Have you played visual novels from bigger companies? Like Otomate? Each one of their games costs, at least $25. Besides all, what jennyxxfasho said it's true. Evermore was never meant to be a complete sequel, it was just a Fan Disk, which meant, a little extension on the epilogue from the first game.
I just finished the complete game and i gotta say i'm more than happy with the development each of the routes got. I really hope you can see everything from another perspective, and enjoy and appreciate the work that Dicesuki has put on this visual novel.
Good explanation, ickyvickytorial. Others finding the game who are not familiar with the genre or with fan disks in particular would benefit from understanding this. The review above would also be helpful for them to know what to expect from this individual fan disk. (It is not inherent to "extended epilogue" that a game be uninteresting, so there is still value in sharing this experience.)
That said, it takes an undue amount of bad faith to assume the reviewer would play through the entirety of the first Cinderella Phenomenon and buy the second game if they did not appreciate or weren't impressed with Dicesuki initially. People have high expectations if they were previously impressed. With that in mind, it is just another review (as for the interpersonal approach to the game devs that many of us seem to have- I find it very kind, but there is no moral imperative to adopt that in favor of a vender-consumer mindset. As such, we do not need to judge people for using the latter. I noticed a similar response to Anime_4_life's super innocuous and supportive comment below. I did not expect that the other fans would be so defensive, and toward someone clearly enamored with the game). I am glad that you and others found value in the game and found meaning in the experience.
You're right that it was much shorter and didn't have much of an arc - I would've loved to see more happen in the routes with some of the subplots introduced in the previous game, like Lucette's relationship with her father, or more of a focus on the Tenebrarum and magic (I haven't played all the routes though, so maybe other routes have more). But, Evermore does specifically say it's not a full sequel - it's marketed as a fandisk, so there's no point in expecting it to be something it's not. Since it's still in development, maybe the devs might add more, which would be awesome, but they also might not.
Also...we got Cinderella Phenomenon for FREE. I would gladly have paid $20 for it, so the $10 I paid for Evermore feels like I'm paying the devs back for the amazing job they did on CP.
I found it boring too. I know all about fandisks and all that, but I found myself not caring about which ending I got or what happened in them. I’ve been playing I otome games for over a decade and I’ve purchased extended epilogues and have read translations of materials that extend the epilogue, so I do know what I’m talking about. I’ve read much more interesting after stories before. Even in the middle of the route I signed and said “this is so boring” . I only managed to get through two routes. It didn’t meet the high standard that I had in the original game, so I was very disappointed. I won’t say it’s a bad game, but I didn’t think it was worth the money I paid for it. Disappointed.
That sounds quite reasonable. I thought that the same amount of writing (and art) could be reworked to be much more interesting. I found it a bit boring seeing everyone fawn over each other for 6 chapters when the original game had so much more character. I'm not really a fan of the genre but that game proved itself to be more than what it seemed at first glance. It's good to hear that other fan disks have done more to expand the material in these games!