Yeah, two other devs have picked it up. I'm gonna keep my expectations low and see how things turn out, they'll probably need a few chapters until they really get into it. After all, Flynn needed some time as well as the first 2-3 chapters are nowhere near the level of the ones afterwards.
I keep getting a traceeback screen semi-regularly during the night, when it switches to the next day. It's not game-breaking because a quick rollback solves it, I just thought I should mention it!
The worst it has is the MC groping one of the girls' boobs (clothed) while she's sleeping but she tells him later that she doesn't mind. AFAIK, there is no way to avoid that scene.
As it's a non-harem game, will the other LIs still remain close friends with the MC even after you're on a specific route? Because a mistake I think many AVNs like this do is make the other LIs treat the MC basically like a stranger if you're not on their path. Which kinda becomes a disservice to the characters.
There are actually two other appearances from Companion of Darkness too. During the scene when the MC is introducing Clarissa to Sophie, you can see Eda and Clara from that game if you look closely in the background. Took me such a long time to notice!
Are there any plans for that imprisoned elf during the Syl'iath event in the future? It kinda felt like she was being set up to become important later in the story.
How do I make sure I get the correct save when I start a new game in season 2? For example, in my first playthrough I went with Rule B but in my second playthrough I went with my Companion name, and I want to continue on the latter, but I automatically get the former. And I can't load a specific save without getting a traceback screen.
Okay, how the hell did I actually miss Cia making an appearance during my first playthrough? I recognized all the other cameos, but even tho I'm pretty sure I played Companion of Darkness only a week or so earlier, it still didn't register! XD
Will there be a sort of "points indicator" in the game at some point? Like what AVNs like Eternum and MBIML have. Because I've tried to get all of Raiko's RP multiple times but I'm always at least 3-5 points off total. And when there are so many choices throughout the story, there's really no way to figure out which ones you chose wrong as you don't get any indication until the very end.
I would recommend Companion of Darkness if you enjoyed the story in those games. Just be aware that there's quite a bit of typos and poor grammar in the early stages as the dev isn't a native speaker, but it does improve eventually.
They're similar in the sense that they're both naturally kind and want to be helpful, and that they're sort of a "moral compass" for the MC. But other than that, they're very different.
The developer had some personal issues and had to move to his home country to find another job there. He just wasn't able to work on the game at the same time.
I think you can still find it on F95Zone, which I normally wouldn't recommend as it's basically a piracy site for AVNs, but seeing as it has been removed from all other platforms, it's the only place you can get it now.
Check the "Skip unseen text" box in the options and then you can just fast-skip through the whole thing with tab, just gotta remember to turn it off once you reach the end of v0.7.
I've had quite a resurgence when it comes to AVNs this year, as before this spring I hadn't really found any new ones that I liked since September 2021 when v0.1 of of Eternum was released. I just kinda stopped looking. But this year, I got back into it and found a couple that even challenged for my top 10.
But to likely end the year with the best one... Well, let's just say I didn't expect much based on the intro! But I went from "I was wrong, this is actually pretty good" to eventually realizing that this game doesn't just challenge for top 10, it challenges for top 3!
These kinds of AVNs are always hit or miss as they can sometimes focus too much on the corruption/domination aspect and forget to flesh out the characters and their dynamic as a result, but this one definitely managed to strike a good balance. Some character models look a bit weird (Esme in particular) but most of them are fine or great. And I suspect that many characters who have barely featured - such as the principal's daughter - will be more fleshed out in future updates.
Like many AVNs, the beginning was a bit slow as the characters and setting are established, but once the story kicks in, it's really well-paced. The only noticeable flaw towards the end is the excessive amount of LIs, same issue that plagues Ripples a bit as it makes it very hard for the narrative to give all of them enough focus and development.
Also, Clarissa 100 % best girl, and I loved the cameos from other games, particularly both of the Lucys!
As someone who has played quite a lot of AVNs, I'm genuinely surprised I've never heard about this one before because it quickly got into my top 10 list, which was particularly surprising considering it doesn't have any choices or other kinds of interactive aspects. While I usually prefer a bit more variety than just maledom, it does a very good job establishing a relatively healthy dynamic in that regard, with a few exceptions but they're so minor that they don't really matter. So it's not really a criticism by any means as that would be like criticising a horror movie for not being funny.
That being said, how much new content is usually added in every update? Because if it's just an hour or so I might wait until a couple more have been released as I prefer waiting longer for more content at once. But if it's 3+ hours it's definitely worth getting every new update.
3 out of 5 is still what I consider a good game. It's mainly a slow beginning that brings it down tbh, but it's far from the only AVN to suffer from that, and the fact that it's only v0.2 naturally means that many characters and storylines haven't gotten enough focus yet to bring the score up.
Most AVNs wouldn't have gotten higher than 3/5 until v0.4 or v0.5.
I will admit, initially I didn't expect much out of it as it seemed like a standard "MC was in an accident and has to rediscover his life" scenario that we've seen many times before. So I was happy when it became clear that it was not, and the story really picked up once it gets to the first school day. I'm now quite intrigued by the story - complete with personal theories and predictions - and the characters, and it seems like it's only going to keep getting better.
When I tried to replay v0.17 in anticipation for this update, the game for some reason hardlocked me out of Ashley's story at level 14 or somewhere around that. The event was stated as available in the menu but it wouldn't trigger regardless of what I did, and there were no "I should do X"-prompts as there usually is if you need to do something else, which I had never had an issue with before. I don't know if that was just a random bug, and if so, has it been fixed in v0.18? I mean, there's no point in getting the new update if I can't progress to the new content anyway.
MC taking his pants off in this beautiful, wholesome completely family-friendly game?? How dare you insinuate something like that... Next you'll be telling me there should be pre-marital hand-holding in this game!!
There are many different ways you could lose a path, but they normally come down to just one specific decision you made. Even if you want a blind gameplay without using the walkthrough, it should be pretty easy to figure out by just rewinding until you find the moment you lost it. And obviously, save-scumming helps too.
I agree, it's probably my only criticism of this game. Some of the MC's actions definitely fall into morally ambiguous at best and outright refusing to take no for an answer at worst. I have to fast-click through those scenes since the game is otherwise amazing.
I'm really sorry to hear that. Cancer is the devil, I've lost a few in my family to it as well. Don't rush anything just because you think you're expected to, take the time you need to recover, for both yourself and everyone else around you!
