Primarily, I think Since November bites off more than it can chew with a 4-route (!) structure spread over what is ultimately not a whole lot of words. In its hurry, the prose has to do a lot of blunt explaining about who everyone is and what they're feeling, and all the dramatic turns and moments when characters suddenly start to yell feel too abrupt even when excused with "the world is ending so everyone is losing their minds". The device of the apocalypse happening just as the narrative reaches whatever point it's been building towards comes off as kind of a convenience. While I get that it's the theme, I feel not allowing the reader to linger in the mood for just a bit longer robs the finales of their impact – and always concluding on the most appropriate beat doesn't convey the unforgiving, brutal nature of it all.
There's a sense of hollowness to the VN in general. The schematic nature of the endings only really makes it apparent how little there is to the characters beyond standing in for their respective ways to think about the world. As for the calamity itself, it's sketched so vaguely that you get the sense of the characters discussing the concept of the apocalypse, not living through one. So much of the imagery falls flat – going outside is hyped as this big thing, but when they do that, there's... basically nothing interesting? It feels like the main characters are the only people alive (aside from a single NPC inexplicably in need of food despite the world appearing to consist of lootable malls and grocery stores), but if I'm not missing something, I don't believe how that came to be is alluded to? The story is just not material or textured enough to convey the horrors it's gesturing towards; society seems to have fallen apart in the precise way that would allow this specific scenario to happen. I guess I maybe think the outside section was a mistake, and the VN should have committed fully to being set in an abstract dreamscape if its worldbuilding ambition ended there.
On a more technical level, the writing is solid enough, though there are a lot of editorial nitpicks you could make. Comma usage is sometimes messy ("I’m fighting for my life, here on this stolen couch."), and the same goes for tense ("Huffing, the goat is shaking the controller around as if he expects it to do something.") and pronouns ("Beside him was a stack of unsold Blu-ray’s. The shadows made him menacing." repeats "him" twice when the referent is already a little unclear by that point). The descriptions can also get pretty repetitive; I get that "the glow [of the television]" is pointing to a certain 2024 movie, but there's no need to repeat it like 6 times.
Now that I mention it, I kind of feel like the game is in danger of drowning in its referentiality at times. There's a lot of listing pop culture detritus, namedropping philosophers, and reiterating social media discourse, but little of it feels consequential besides successfully characterizing a couple of the characters as feeling pretty online. It also makes the references to other furry visual novels feel even more tacky and jarring – all the other stuff is situating the story in a specific real-world context, so it suddenly being suggested that FVNs exist as mass media in this setting just took me out. The central John Green quote is also just kind of... deeply weird in its context?
While a lot of the art is super good, I feel like you can see echoes of the narrative issues in the writing. The combination of not using sprites, how stylized everything is, and the colors and the lighting being so stark in general makes getting a good look at the characters a rare treat. It's a visual medium – I guess some of how distant the cast feels comes down to the limited visual language the game is operating with. Every time there was a straightforward background, I wished it had some sprites to go with it to give the reader an easier time orienting themselves into what the characters are feeling and saying.
Since November: less than the sum of it parts. There are too many conversations that circle around grand statements concerning all of human existence and too little dramatization of the story presently happening with these characters, the thing that would give the game emotional resonance. Trying to cover so much ground is a bold move, but I think it forces the storytelling of the finished product into a mode that's too utilitarian and mechanical for its own good.