Got to chapter 6 before I found out about the survival stats. I was loving this game and super excited to leave a review, and while I still love the game's story, I have to critique the use of the survival system. The unbalanced game design is making me dislike a character/un-immersed in the story, and for the technical elements to ruin the story elements is a disservice.
The survival system forces you to baby Vane, a character I didn't even like at first to begin. I was really starting to love his character before finding out about the survival system. You can't even spend time with the other two characters for the best ending, you have no choice but to select Vane in order to max his stats. While this makes sense from a story standpoint because he's the weakest character, from a technical/gameplay standpoint it is completely unbalanced. It makes no sense seeing as how a lot of the bonding and character development happens in these options and yet I can't choose the character I want to have an actual ending with.
I really enjoy this story, I thought it was some quick game and was surprised by the beautiful experience, and yet this nosedived my excited reaction a bit. I cannot even finish it ATM because I have to read the long walkthrough word for word and go back and choose most options with Vane to max his stats. I'm force skipping through unread text that I would've went back and enjoyed on separate playthroughs, which to me is disheartening because the story is better than just being skipped past like that.
It's only disappointing that a system like this was chosen because it's taken me out of a game with such an amazing story. I'm only upset because I do care and really do enjoy your writing. I really admire your character development and smooth relationship build up; not all VNs pull that off quite this well, sometimes characters seem to trust/love way too easy. Beautiful lore and world-building as well; this is one of the longest visual novels I've played in a while and I'm enjoying the length and work you put in. It's really just an unbalanced system unfortunately.