Hi, I've just finished playing the latest version of the game and would like to give my thoughts on it. Spoilers will follow, so if you haven't gotten to the end of Day 18, please ignore the following, thanks.
I have to say, in short, I was very shocked. Before Chapter 3 came out, I thought the Hunters would show up and take our Scrivener's love interest hostage or imprisoned, the Admiral seems to be the perfect type of character who wants to be hated by the public, who is corrupt and only interested in money or power. I was very disappointed when the Elder was killed, but I'm not sure if the Admiral was aiming for the Scrivener or the Elder, or maybe the bullet was meant for the Scrivener, but when the Scrivener's love interest it, the bullet ends up on the Elder instead, or maybe the Elder pushes the Scrivener and sacrifices himself. It is also true that if the love interest had not gone out to look for the Mandragora, perhaps the Hunters would not have reached the village, things may have gone differently. However, the fact remains that the death of the Elder also marks the beginning of the change, something necessary to move forward in the story, also because trying to make other choices only gets endings that are not real endings but rather Game Over, so it also makes you understand that the player must make specific choices and that there are no alternatives, if you want to get a real ending.
Anyway, this situation where everyone has to recover from the Elder's death is very similar to something that happened to a friend of mine. Basically, his mother died, but he managed to move on, tried to be happy like she would have wanted, he has his friends to comfort him and he's okay now, or at least he's doing okay. I can't imagine what it's like for someone who has no friends or anyone to comfort him. Our protagonist's love interest can decide not to be alone.
When I saw that the Housekeeper was still crying in the Elder's room I started to think that in the next chapter he might do something evil, since he can't seem to move on. I also imagined that Ridge, in his route, would move into the Elder's house, since it wouldn't make sense to leave it empty and his stay at Joseph's house was only temporary.
Now I would like to move on to some criticism, but please do not think badly and think before you say something.
When I saw that the trial to clear the protagonist's love interest was a series of Ace Attony-style minigames, I found it downright cringe-worthy, especially because the characters were way too theatrical. But then I thought that they did it because both the Monster Hunter series and the Ace Attony series are both from Capcom and maybe some of the developers really like the Ace Attony series.
One thing I didn't like was that on Day 14, due to circumstances, we couldn't see what was happening, during the day the protagonist is "silenced" by Grano and during the night he is given a summary. I would have liked to see the scene in detail.
Another criticism is also about the character sprites. When the protagonist's love interests, in their respective paths, go to the Elder's tomb, only Ridge, Koku and Runan have facial expressions that show that they are mentally broken, while Leo, Jin and Joseph have their usual expressions. I would like to point out that only when we find Runan does he have tears in his eyes, but after that, even if the game says so, said tears in his eyes are no longer there. Lastly, regarding the sprites, the character sprite gallery should be updated.
It's been months since February 19, 2023 and now my priority towards the game has changed. A lot of stuff has been added to the story, subplots, more characters, love interest backgrounds and main character evolutions have been added. At first it seemed like a gay video game that tried to fulfill sexual fantasies about Monster Hunter monsters. The main plot you needed to know is that there was this Scrivener who was assigned to find the village and he finds out that it is inhabited by True Wyverians, aka humanoid looking monsters, that's it. His goal was that, but the player didn't care at all, he preferred to focus on spending his days with the protagonist's six love interests. I'm interested in the story, I'm interested in new characters, new ships that don't necessarily involve the Scrivener, I'm interested in other characters and above all in the evolution that the plot is taking. I'm not the kind of person who immediately ships the first characters he sees, but you will understand that this might not be the kind of erotic video game that gives the usual kind of treat that gives fans to drive them crazy. So please guys, please, don't hate me for this thing, maybe I'm not completely into it as I was before. I remind you that I just wrote this review and so we are in the period in which this game is incomplete. So, let's say that at this moment it might not give me anything, but in reality perhaps later on as the story goes on we will see some changes that maybe don't seem like it but could make sense in the ending. There is no need for you to put "I don't like" now and write in the comments "No, you didn't understand anything!", I understood and I saw it and there is no need for you to tell me, I'll just leave you this thing: Ok, the inventiveness is only from my point of view, but the game is still incomplete.
And that was all I had to say about this third chapter. I am curious to know how the story will continue. I, like many of you, have theories about what will happen and if we want we can talk about them in the comments. Now we just have to wait for the continuation of the story to see how the various paths of our Scrivener will continue.
Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time.