I had the wallet out ready to toss some cheddar at what looked to be a solid project. Then after reading about the current state of it going on 3+ years and the repeated longstanding issues that reviewers are saying are major negative aspects and the failure to address these I had to put it back in my pocket.
Alas, I couldn't speak to what I haven't seen first-hand so I grabbed the latest public release and was going to try and play about half of it for an impression. Holy thunder of WTF?! I can sum this project up simply as 5 to 7 hours (real hours, not game hours) of sitting there reading uninteresting dialog with Prof. Snape and a magical painting of yourself and a major case of magical blue balls.
Before I hit on what was bad, let's hit the good. Artwork is "chef's kiss" reminds me of the original PlayStation P&C games from back the day. Theme is great, 18+ VN of the HP Universe is a good choice. Humor is funny at first, meh as you go along, and absent from the latter half of what you can play; what you have is sold to build upon and fill the gaps though. Music was ok enough to not mute and there wasn't much in the way of SFX that you have to scramble for the headphones but mainly because of, you know it, the pacing, nothing to silence. That aside, audio's done well. The writing has a glimmer of being salvaged but at this time...
Now the bad...
We get it, you wanted to build up to better things as the reader gets further in but in order to substitute for the lack of what 95% of people are looking for you need a good story. The pacing you set requires a very, very good story and you're failing hard. The over-arching story is quickly buried and left forgotten under what come off as Visual Novel Fetch Quests. The restrictive linear design isn't complemented with appropriate feedback to let the reader know if there on the right track or a dead end. People don't like clicking and re-clicking through the same dialog trying to figure out what path you decided was the correct one and didn't bother to provide context as to why.
There's no way to ignore the fact that the only interactive H-Scene is with Professor McGonagall. Are you serious? It's so out of place that I'm left with the impression it was thrown in early on the in response to the reviewer feedback about your pacing as a "Here, you want an H-Scene? Here's your H-Scene!" and you even kind of nod to that in the name of the achievement awarded for playing the scene. I'm sure there's likely a niche community of Harry Potter GILF fans out there but WTH man really? Is the 2nd H-Scene going to be a bonus one with Dolores Umbridge?
Whatever prompted you to keep the chunk of content in after the part that was scrapped should never be listened to again. Having to pull a chunk for a rewrite is cool, shows you weren't going to push out something that for whatever reason wasn't working well but leaving in the content that comes later is a terrible idea. Worst of all you present the "Waifu Mechanic" only to immediately state "Yeah, she's your Waifu but she's gone during this part" and also don't mention that there is no next part so right now picking a Waifu is basically saying "Who do you NOT want to see for the rest of the game?"
I seriously just wanted to take a look at what I felt would've been about 50% of the game to get a feel for it but ended up dialog skipping all the way the the end of what's publicly released because 7+ hours in I felt like I was exposed to about 2% of what was in the game; which I found out was kind of the reality.
Soyna's a mess; I quickly realized you had to spam the match mini-game to make any real progress and that "leveling" her is just your restriction on what outfits can be purchased when. She's pretty much designed to be ignored.
The income system is a mess, you have it fighting for time with the stat building activities which are also a mess as I get no real feel for what the stat levels are expected to be until I'm presented with a 1-time chance to do something that requires a stat to be at a certain level that oh well, I don't have. No one wants to sit there training 2 stats and grading papers over and over to be able to afford 1 or 2 gifts that may or may not be worth buying. The train-grade loop is super boring.
Lastly and I'm not sure if this was a result of the dumped section of content but I did my play-though on normal settings and was very "clicky" on each screen trying to see what could be interacted with and when I got to the"end" I say that of the 4 main girls I only unlocked like 2 or 3 scenes! I thought maybe the others just weren't in but nope, after enabling cheats they're all in there. What happened here? I took my time and explored and only unlocked a couple?
On a side note, after enabling the cheats, the Halloween Event scene for Daphne crashes just as she goes to do what I'm assuming is a sex act. Crash said something about the Pixey Cage which isn't even in the room during that scene.
End of the day, I'd say bookmark this to check back on but not worth funding at this time. Until the development team stops with the "Sorry, not sorry." comments, comes up with a plan that addressed the massive pacing issue, and posts an in-depth article on the state of things and where it's going to go. I don't want to see this fade to vapor, truly do hope they unfuX0r this project with the quickness and I'll gladly throw the cheddar.