Just finished the 0.1 release, review below!
Overall: Very promising first release. My first playthrough took about 3 hours, but I was taking it pretty leisurely. Definitely worth a play and excited for how the game plays out from here.
Pros:
- Good male models, really hard to make decent ones in HS2 and I like both the MC and his friend
- Banter with MCs friend is relatable and fun. There is a bit of info dumb at first, but it smooths out nicely to make them feel actually like friends. Lots of AVNs really fail at making the best friend character likable or non-cringe.
- Obviously the girls are well designed and good looking (if you are an HS2 enjoyer). I didn't find a single LI I didn't like the look of, which is rare for a game like this.
- We only get short intros with all the LIs except for Crystal, but the game does a good job of giving them a defined personality. Nothing that is going to shake up your expectations too much, but the LIs feel like real people.
- The world is interesting. I don't know much about pop groups like this so I am excited to see how the game uses that to its advantage to setup interesting and tense situations.
- All of the small things are really well done. The music player is nicely designed, songs pop up in the corner when they start playing, there are definitions for potentially confusing lingo in character dialogue, the photo book is nicely done etc. etc. These small touches really make it feel like the dev cares out the player experience.
Cons: No game is perfect and most of the things I didn't like have to do with setup.
- As mentioned above we only get really short intros with each girl. I feel like it was done well with the time given, but a little bit more time with each of them would have been nice. For example Rin has a longer conversation with the MC and I really liked that part of the game where they bonded.
- Even though the game has me interested, there wasn't a hint at the end of the episode as to what will be driving the plot. I was hoping by the end we would have a hint at what the main conflict in the story is. There are some potential hints (stalkers? relaunch concert? etc.), but I would have liked a bit more "Here is what Stella is going to be about" besides just a the life of a guy managing a pop group (because inevitably there is going to be conflict). I am confident we will find out more in 0.2 though!
- This isn't unique to Stella and I can't really fault the game as its a nice way to get "into the story" faster but there are some unbelievable coincidences / sequences. Like the MC getting the job of being a pop group manager at 22 from managing a cafe just because his friend's dad recommended him. HOWEVER, I'd rather we spend less time setting that up and more time with the girls, so I don't really take many points off for that, but worth noting.