Really solid start, enjoyed my time with it a lot! The characterisation/writing for the most part was pretty strong, my gripes with it so far is that some characters dont really have a defined personality
obviously this gripe is probably just a result of having spent so little time with the cast so far but a first meeting/impression usually gives the audience a pretty strong idea of how the cast 'normally' acts.
apart from that i think most of the 'hooks' set up so far do a really good job getting the audience intrigued and giving the motivation to actually want to find the truth. Plus a LOT of things are set up early on which i really like as well.
My only other concern is just the age of the characters? as in i really cant place a comfortable age on any of them. jake has to be ATLEAST 31, most likely older, this also means the rest of the cast is also very late 20s/early 30s which i just cant see them as. idk, i just think the 15 year gap is a little bigger than how all the characters act like it is as the last time (presumably) all of them saw eachother was the rear end of puberty and now they are nearing-middle-aged adults with like... mortgages and 9-5s n stuff...
I didn't get the sense they were that old. I figured Jake as being around 28, which would have made him 13 in 2002. That would make the others around 24-26 now if I was reading correctly.
But I do agree that this friend group seems slightly older than a lot of other VN friend groups. Once the individual routes start it'll be great to explore what each of them is doing with their careers.
ah ok, that makes sense. i just thought none of the cast were in contact after the exodus? zeke knows that jake cut off his parents after he was 16 which insinuates that they were still in contact/hanging out at that age (zeke being 14 at the time as there is a two year age gap)? or am i wrong in thinking the cast didnt talk at all after the exodus. apologies for the interrogation about the dates, im just a very maths brained person