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So, I'm going to raise some issues I had with the game, but I want to keep in mind that, overall, I liked the characters and the story.

The first is kind of on me in that I don't get why anyone likes stat raising visual novels. For me they ALWAYS devolve into me just finding a guide and following it to the letter which, at that point, it may as well have been a kinetic visual novel with no choices at all. But to the point of this specific visual novel, what is the point of over half the stats in the game? From what I can tell the only stats that REALLY matter are art basics and to a lesser extent colour theory, and on the social side confidence, eloquence and persuasion. That leaves a huge amount of skills that you may need one or two points in for the best ending, but end up being almost completely unused.

Now, I don't like to offer criticism without offering some form of solution. I think, rather than requiring an arbitrary number in certain skill categories for the best ending (according to the guide it is art basics 40, colour 20, all art skills +3, and confidence +25) instead require a total of 70 across any art skills and 25 across any social skills. That way your character would feel a little more unique in their art style and social approach. You could even have small snippets of dialogue from the art dealer depending on what the highest art skill is, highlighting your character's specific approach to art.

Secondly, I kept hitting an error message in many of my runs that completely stopped the game dead. And not a Renpy error page but an error written into the text of the game. "Test, a ver donde leches esta el error". It completely stopped all forward progress and rolling back didn't change it. Errors happen, but it is still frustrating to have a run through completely bricked because of it.

The writing isn't perfect English, but in all honesty I actually think it's a little charming. As if the characters are all actually speaking French and it's being translated a little loosely for the reader.

Onto the good. Despite their flaws I actually really liked all of the characters, which is rare for a VN. Usually there is one clear favourite, but I think I liked all of them about the same The setting as well is great, and I really got caught up in the post WW2 new wave of art and philosophy. I'm not familiar enough with the time period to say how accurate the portrayal is, but as a setting it is very good. The 18+ scenes are also very well written. In some games they can come across as a bit cringey (and entirely impractical) but these felt very realistic and well thought out.

The art style and character design is great. Emile is my favourite, but all of the love interests are well designed, and even the side characters have great character design.

All in all, I'd say it is well worth the price, but I really hope the dev does some bug fixes to make the game a bit smoother and maybe adjusts the stat raising mechanics a bit.