Reviewing up until Chapter 2
TL;DR: The writer breaks the established rules of this game's universe multiple times for the sake of plot-armor, the graphic is barely basic HS2, MC is dumb, most characters are bland and forgettable
Major spoilers ahead
I won't do the usual Pros and Cons list, because this game managed to achieve something that i thought was impossible: Destroy his own Pros and right from the start even. So yeah you're about to read a long list of Cons, you've been warned,
Let's start with the Plot: Before the Big Bang, there were beings that decided to call themselves The Dark Ones, how many of them are there? Unknown. Ultimately, a considerable amount of of them end up on earth and decided to rule over it...until humans decided to fight back(when this happens? The game doesn't tell you, but not knowing when it happens is important to call out an important issue later) and won...but the Dark Ones managed to hide themselves from historians and make everyone forget about them...so far sounds linear and a decent plot, right?
Here comes the flaw: The Dark Ones are described like all-powerful beings, described as gods or other mythical beings from mythology and folklore...and yet humans managed to defeat them...how? No idea but let's just say that a Dark Ones doesn't get hurt by automatic rifles shooting bullets enhanced with a Dark One's powers...so how random humans with random weapons defeat them is unknown
Noel(which at this point is our lore-exposition girl) in chapter 1 explains how Dark Ones and humans need each other, calling it a symbiotic relationship like Spiders and Frogs(i had to look it up on internet...apparently Amazonian Spiders and Frogs, do have a mutual relationship, frogs eats small preys like ants and by doing so they protect the spider's eggs, and spiders protect the frogs from bigger spiders and other animals...i feel dumb and bored already, there are at least 5 more common examples of symbiosis that the average person knows...but let's move on)...problem is...that it's wrong. The writer breaks such rule continuously, from having Noel (and later Eda) interacting with human-society, to doing anything really, like protecting MC in different ways.
Noel even talk about these rules...but it's not an issue, breaking such rules turns you into a Feral...which at first is described like "becoming animal-like", but later in Chapter 2 we learn that Eda had a decent-ish life when she was a feral herself(healed by Noel), so being a feral is only a matter of "if i'm lucky i'll find a strong Dark One that can heal my condition" and even then, such condition is not that tragic, Eda had a place where to live, she had easy access to human food(why tho? Considering that Dark Ones eat human-feelings) and human emotions(which is their actual food) and she was smart enough to be aware of herself. Being Healed from being Feral, even allow you to break other rules like the "no interact with humans"-rule, but also how past Dark Ones conquered earth then? It's never explained(so far) when these rules were made, so anything is possible really...
I'll keep it short but these rules are broken constantly when you actually read and understand the plot, Noel doesn't need MC at all aside for having an emotion-based meal.
Now about the character: Never read a serious story with such a dumb MC, i swear to god this guy is not even a blank slate for a self-insert MC. This guy sees his best-friend being sexually molested by a bully that hates MC and want his revenge, and MC gets so mad that asks Noel to give him powers, you may think "Cool, MC is someone who fights back hard", and yes he rips apart the rapist, it's a gore-ish scene, very brutal, classic "Frieza kills Krillin" from DBZ, and let's forget for a moment that his "awakening as a Companion" is so powerful that everyone who is associated with Dark Ones felt his presence, the issue is at the end of the day when Noel and MC talks about what MC did, and MC admits that he was mentally lucid enough to actually understand that Noel's idea of just giving him a body enhancement power and beat the shit out of the guy is the best thing to do, but he refused because he really wanted to kill the guy, which he did, and now has to live with the fact that the bully's brother(which is associated with a strong Dark One) is on the hunt for him, and everyone in town felt his presence, and they want him dead(bc there is some sort of implied competition similar to a Battle Royal, where the winner gets unlimited powers or something, no clue it's not explained aside from "Companions along with their specific Dark Ones hunt each other for more power") but my point is that MC wasn't in some sort of berserk-mode, no he is an actual psychopath who wanted to feed on his murderous impulses and desires...only to whine about the consequences.
Now a mention of honour to MC's powers and how not use them: MC later ends up hunted by another Companion, and if you expect him to snap the guy's neck and go home, you'll be mistaken, MC throws a bunch of stuff with his telekinesis (apparently it's his actual power, special ability or whatever along with body enhancement), somehow Noel eats the powers of the enemy's Dark Ones and win the fight(until now there was a rule about Dark Ones not interacting directly with each other, another one rule that just got broken i guess), and now MC uses his telekinesis the smart way, by grabbing the guy and if you make a choice, either MC or Noel(through controlling MC's body) make the guy's head explode and go home like nothing happens.
Other characters? i spoke enough about Noel, she is there mostly for exposition and having a meal based on MC's emotions, Amy? Is barely present, Claire? Same, Emma? Same, Clara has a good story, i thought at first that her arc would be facing the trauma of almost being raped and then seeing her rapist exploding right in front of her eyes while basically bathing in his blood because of MC's actions or being the Prime Suspect of the bully's death, but nope, Eda appears later that very same night, she becomes Clara's Dark One, and she is better than ever with no consequences or mental scars (at least up until the end of chapter 2), what about Jackie? She appears at the beginning of chapter 1, she is annoying and awful, then in chapter 2 we have a short moment when she tells her backstory of being poor but also liking expensive clothes (so much that she gave the bully a handjob, in exchange for the whopping amount of 6000 dollars, and initially the bully wanted sex, Jackie talked him down so much that he accepted a HJ while she was still all dressed-up...not even a naked HJ, so yeah i pity the bully now). The rest of the characters? Aside Matt, none of them seemed important anytime soon...well Matt (which is the bully's brother) is so relevant and powerful that MC had to skip town with Clara, yes Matt is a good companion with an even stronger Dark One, so their potential is insane, and he knows MC's identity, so MC had to hide by leaving the town.
In this whole thing i can't believe that with a near-infinite universe around them, countless liveable planets and possibly and an also countless amount of them having sentient life(i hope), the Dark Ones went on Earth to do...whatever they were doing back then. I mean what the odds? Even more when you include that the top5(or top10) of the strongest Dark Ones are all in the same bloody city at the same time. And you know how the dev could fix this? By saying that the Dark Ones were born on Earth and not in the darkness that was the universe before the Big Bang...but that can't be one, because the strongest Dark One(Noel's sister) is described to be so powerful that she can undo everything another Dark One can do to her, Noel says that she is fundamental as fundamental that in this universe 1+1=2, the dark ones literally removed her from existence and 5 minutes later she was back with no significant issues. Talk about being overpowered...
The graphic is basic, even rough around the edges even by HS2 standards, but the worst part of it is the lack of a black dialogue box. This is the ultimate proof of a dev that doesn't play his own game, or he would have added a warning about it, because i swear the white text when a bright scene is going on, it's just pure pain for the eyes (one scene had the text over one of those pedestrian crossing lines, you couldn't read half of the text).
The overall writing is bland, and it really feels like the dev is making stuff up as he goes breaking his own established rules just to save MC, the grammar isn't perfect(needs proofreading tho) but it's understandable, although it doesn't help the understanding of the plot, the sound is basic at best, nothing to complain or praise about, the lighting could be fixed and some scenes feels filler-ish like when MC didn't know what Caps Lock is and had to be explained to him, not even the NSFW-scenes can save this game as they're very basic like the rest of the game, kinda uninspired, feel like a cheap reward for the incredible achievement of getting so far in the game without quitting.
Ultimately this game is just bad, the whole premise of nearly-divine beings living among humans was intriguing, but the poor execution ruined it. I wish the dev to play his own creation and check the flaws in his plot.
