I said this in my review but it's worth repeating for the comments:
This game is legitimately great and I believe the author should be allowed to round up the people who whined about the yuri and hunt them for sport
(for legal reasons, this is a hyperbolic joke. obviously somebody else would do the rounding up)
This is legitimately just a flat-out fun game to play by traditional standards, but when you tack on the NSFW side AND the two-person development team, it becomes a genuinely incredible project.
Also, I haven't gotten this many blue balls in a video game since playing Peggle, I'm mad but I give you a begrudging 10/10 no notes lmao
I sent this as a rating, but I feel strongly enough about it to post as its own comment. If you don't want an opinionated review, don't click "read more."
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Aside from the h-game angle, which I have basically nothing negative to say about (it's either excellent or clearly still being worked on), this is a surprisingly robust translation of Poke gameplay into the Ren'Py engine, but there are still a couple nagging issues holding it back. Obviously some things aren't feasible, since this is already an ambitious project as-is, but some are, and those are what I have to talk about.
These are the main things that keep me from wanting to play the game without cheats; I really do want to play this game as intended, but these things just can't be overlooked, and I have to use the cheat mode to not be actively frustrated or drained while playing because of them.
Mainly, it's just the lack of exp. share. Switch training isn't fun in a normal Poke game, and doing it in a slower engine without button controls is significantly less fun. If you really wanted to be a purist to the earlier Poke games, having it be an item only one 'mon can use would be fine, but I think the modern version that applies to the whole team is just better for this format. I'd also like for experience to be dynamic like it is in Poke - leveling up after beating each 'mon rather than at the end of the battle - but I'm also not a Ren'Py expert and this could be a much harder request than I think it is, so feel free to ignore it.
Next, I think the base exp gain should be bumped up a little. I understand wanting to be faithful to the source material, but Ren'Py runs slower than even the slowest Poke games (because it needs to, I assume), so since making the game faster isn't an option, increasing the reward so the player still gets the same result from the same amount of time invested seems like a fair compromise.
I also think the dating sim aspect could be ramped up a bit, but since that isn't based on anything and I'm already suggesting speeding up other parts of the game, I'm fine with that staying as is.
Other than those (somewhat significant) gripes, this is an incredibly impressive project that you should feel proud of. I'm excited to see where this goes from here.
Why are you so aggressively determined to ruin my sleep schedule by being one of the best character writers I've ever seen, period, let alone for 18+ visual novels I play before bed?
Between this and A New Dawn, you're one of a scarce few writers that makes me feel like Ren'Py can be pushed beyond the limits of what it seems like on the tin. I look forward to playing your games so much that I unironically dropped a reflexive "Let's gooooo!" OUT LOUD when I saw the update pop up in my feed. THAT'S how good this shit is.
12/10 keep going
Fun fact: I have never played Tetris before the minigame in this VN. I booted up the game because I already knew it was gold, and my save was at the minigame.
I just spent three hours learning how to actually play Tetris because I wanted to see more of the godlike dialogue writing in this game. 11/10
Already left a 5 star review, but in case anyone's debating playing this and scrolled down to the comments to see what people think:
No matter how good you think this game is, it is astronomically better. It has no right to be as good as it is. I picked this up a few days ago looking for something to jack off to and now I'm legitimately invested in the outcome of this story and I would die for these characters. AND I have something to jack off to.
You know how people will say "_______ is better than sex" to joke about how absolutely incredible something is? Yeah, no jokes here, this game is better than sex.
