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I think that's one of the neat things about the story. It's not too over-the-top as some other AVNs. Sure, many are located in a fantasy or sci-fi setting, but having the plot take place in a somewhat ordinary world, with ordinary activities feels kinda nice and cosy :P

I really like the diversity of the personalities of the various characters. A lot of thought has been put into those and I don't just talk about the girls. The dynamics within the families are quite different. This is much closer to reality. Also each girl has essentially a different reason to be around you and why they like / love you. The only slightly unrealistic part is that most of them are ok with the harem relationship :) Not saying that something like that could not happen, but it would be quite rare. Though we read fictional stories because they're interesting and different, yet feel somewhat real.

:) Agree with Catherine. She has an amazing strong personality hidden behind her "royal" safety shell. If you also played Eternum (which you really should) Alex(andra) would be somewhat similar and is one of the reason she's usually under the top 3 (with Luna and Nova).

Some complain that Cosy Cafe doesn't really have much interaction. Though as a programmer and former game dev myself I even prefer the linear story. This lets the dev focus much more on the story. Harem Hotel in my opinion has overdone the "choices" you can make and as a result, bugs and plot errors are piling up as the development progresses which is kinda sad. AVNs with (too) many choices are almost required to play with an actual walk through guide, otherwise you miss important things. Too many optional branches also just increase the workload for the dev and reduces the actual content. So I'm 100% with Cosy's decision to make a linear plot.

To me an AVN lives between reading a book and watching a movie. It provides the best parts of both worlds :)

(ps: I said it already in another comment, specifically for Eternum, AVN now stands for Audio-Visual-Novel as it has literally 300+ music tracks. Just quickly checked, it's 231 + 29 + 51 == 311 a wopping 665MB in mp4 and ogg. Additionally it has 1014 sound effects)

Yes :) For me Catherine is one of the most interesting one besides Sarah. Both have quite some history of misery and wear a tough shell on the outside. Many think that people in "high society" have the best life, but in reality they are often victim of their own "status". Catherine has a natural mistrust towards everyone, especially those beneath her. Though on the inside she's a very determined and lovely girl. Sarah mainly fights her own insecurity. No wonders with a family like that.

If you like surprising turns and twists, I recommend Harem Hotel, Ripples and Lucky Paradox. But of course you can not miss out on Eternum. Eternum set new bars when it comes to AVNs. It's story as well as the perfectly used BGM is just next level. Just for Eternum I reinterpreted AVN as Audio-Visual-Novel. It has around 250+ very fitting music tracks. The story can be summarized by Ready Player One meets Matrix meets Harry Potter meets Mission Impossible :)

Harem Hotel is already a bit older and the writing style is, well, a bit more primitive. However the story has quite a few surprises I didn't see coming. Also some gut wrenching backstories just like Cosy Cafe or Eternum.. Overall once you played through them you can see quite a few parallels / common themes between them. Yet each is unique in their own way. HH is quite long and due to the day / week cycle style can be a bit grindy to progress, though still worh it. While the characters are quite diverse and complex, when it comes to their sexual preferences it gets a bit shallow. Though I'm mostly invested in the story anyways :)

I'm a patreon supporter for all of them ^^. At first I was only supporting 1 or 2, now I'm at 6. I really have to stop trying new ones. Many recommended Eternum and I always pushed it back since I don't have that much time at hand. Though it absolutely was worth it. The music alone is worth it. Caribdis has an excelent audio team. Even some of the AI generated tracks are great.

Yes, all considered the world is a horrible place :) Lin, the high elf queen, Maria, Felicity, Stoneface, Android, .... But there's hope :) We find alliences an friends in every corner or the world, but's it's not going to be easy.

Lin wouldn't want it before the world is a better place. Half-elves have it the worst.

Note that Lin's pizzas are all custom made and her own creation :) So don't try to put industry labels on them ;D It's even possible to make a pizza with one slice being different. There are actually industry made ones that have 4 different quadrants. So if this breaks your immersion, you may be paying too much attention to quite unimportant details :)

Nahh, there are actual humans with larger ones :) Also I do think that Autumn is a quite interesting character. I'm not religious at all, but I'm actually interested in what people believe and why. I think her character is a quite typical case and she has great potential to either turn away from her faith or at least turn against the bad actors which seems to lurk in the dark. I just hope it doesn't break her family, but Hazel seems to be much more fundamentalist than Autumn.

I don't think Lin's story will be concluded any time soon as she's an elf and as such is tied to the meta story and where it leads. Of course we don't know any details yet, but the world needs to change before she can have her peace of mind. But yes, we shouldn't go too much into detail here :)

Well, main story wise, no. However additional side content is possible to miss. But that's usually just small things. One thing I know for sure (because I played through 3 times now) is when Ashles took you to the clocktower, when her affection (I think it was affection, maybe another trait) wasn't high enough, you don't have a special option in your answers and miss a small extra scene. Those options usually have a different color. Since this scene is a one-time event, once you're through it, you can't do it again. So if the traits aren't high enough, you may miss some minor additional scenes. But storywise you don't need to worry.

I would recommend when you restart, use the small money cheat a couple of times so you don't start as a broke hotel manager :) Once you have the bar up and running, doing delivery jobs and the bowling challenge on the weekend will give you quite a boost and doesn't take too long. The garden is also great, but you have to be careful to not forget it when you focus on the story ;) Plants also require some of your love.

Yes, if anything the story has a lot of unexpected turns and surprises. The most unexpected thing was Maria for me. I really didn't see this comming and it almost broke me heart. I also look forward to "change the world". This is going to be huge and I guess Autumn and Hazel may be involved in some of that change.

The political stance of some characters isn't yet that clear to me, so that's also going to be interesting, especially Kali's dad and Cornwall.

It may be that the author who wrote that text may have had a stroke :) I hope he gets help.

100% is generally tricky. For example the Ashley clocktower scene has an additional option that you only get when you have I think her affection on 10+ or something like that. Since you get that scene just once, you need to have the stats ready when you get there. I think this is similar for a lot of other additional content. You probably would need to ignore a lot of story early on and just increase the stats in order to get ALL additional content.

That's one of the neat features of "The Headmaster" (also a AVN) that has an extra menu that lists literally all scenes and events so you know which you're missing and you can actually rewatch them. You can even sort them by event type or by character. Though this would be tricky for HH I think. HH is more of a linear story with certain plots running in parallel.

Exactly. I only discovered HH a few month ago and I played through it 3 times now ^^. I generally use the small money cheat code a couple of times right at the start, so I don't start as a broke hotel manager :P This gives a good headstart. Make sure you get the bar and the bar upgrades asap and do the delivery jobs and the bowling challenge on the weekend. You could "cheat" in the bowling challenge by simply going back a step when you get a bad result since it's mostly random. The only exception is when Moon is your contestant ^^. She's cheating as well and always wins, even when it ends in a tie ;)

I'm positive that the world will have a happy ending. Though the way is kinda blurry at this point, but exciting.

SPOILER (sort of)

I really feel bad for the elves but Maria's secret reveal hit really hard. It was the most unexpected turn of events for me and really shaked my view on the world. It's also a great life lesson to not hate on certain groups out of ignorance and lack of knowledge. Some day you may be on the receiving side.

Well, not exactly aliens since it was stated in various places that Elves, Faries and Humans did have a common ancestor. Though how those 3 major species have diverged that much is still unknown. I would also argue that elves and faries are probably closer related compared to humans, but maybe humans evolved out of elves? It would take a really long time of strict isolation for such a strong diversion. That includes the various elf races.

It's theoretically possible that a prior highly advanced civilization was responsible for spreading some "farming animals" across the various islands where they then evolved into the species we know now. That old civilization may have left the planet or simply went extinct. This may tie into the religious background (Gaius, the seeder, etc). But up to this point there isn't much known about the origin of the major species. So far we just know that they are related.

Runey often said that this will be a late game feature and we're far away from getting anywhere near the end :) So it will probably be years.