Review for Paradise Lust 2 v0.3.0e:
Overall: 3.5/5 - This game is simply a continuation of Paradise Lust. Just as with other movies/games/etc., the sequel needs to be better than the original in order to garner reviews that are at least as good. Paradise Lust 2 is off to a decent start, but it's just more of the same art and gameplay.
Story: 3/5 - The story is set a few months after the events of Paradise Lust. The theme seems to be the MC and his harem of fashion models are starting a porn studio in addition to running the island resort. This made me roll my eyes, but it's early, so I can only hope the story improves.
Writing: 4/5 - The writing is good. It still uses terms and slang that are going to cause it to become dated too quickly, and it's sometimes way too verbose, but it's still engaging and it uses proper English.
Renders/Art: 3/5 - Similar to the original, the art is good, but the art in the regular renders don't always match the animated scenes like they should. There's also the cheap impression from most of the scenes being sprites over a generic background instead of models actually posed with the background. Note that some scenes are actually posed, but they are rare.
Animations: 4.5/5 - The animations go well with the art style, and the idle animations are really nice and help take away some of the cheapness of using sprites on a generic background.
Content: 4/5 - There's a decent amount of content and lewd content. I'm actually surprised that there isn't a bunch of reused content, and that's a good thing. Content quality is the same as the original game.
Gameplay: 3/5 - The gameplay isn't really mature, yet. There's some walking around trying to find things, and some of the more rudimentary minigames carried over from the original game, like fishing, removing vines, matching flowers, and digging through junk, but they're kind of lame. Like the original, there are a lot of choices that have no effect other than to change the dialogue of characters talking with the MC.
Sound: 3.5/5 - The generic background music is average. Ambient sounds are mostly good. Some sound effects (e.g., walking between areas) are just annoying.
Bugs: 3/5 - There are quite a few small bugs I found in the game. Nothing game-breaking, but they break immersion.
Overall: 3.5/5 - This game is simply a continuation of Paradise Lust. Just as with other movies/games/etc., the sequel needs to be better than the original in order to garner reviews that are at least as good. Paradise Lust 2 is off to a decent start, but it's just more of the same art and gameplay.
Story: 3/5 - The story is set a few months after the events of Paradise Lust. The theme seems to be the MC and his harem of fashion models are starting a porn studio in addition to running the island resort. This made me roll my eyes, but it's early, so I can only hope the story improves.
Writing: 4/5 - The writing is good. It still uses terms and slang that are going to cause it to become dated too quickly, and it's sometimes way too verbose, but it's still engaging and it uses proper English.
Renders/Art: 3/5 - Similar to the original, the art is good, but the art in the regular renders don't always match the animated scenes like they should. There's also the cheap impression from most of the scenes being sprites over a generic background instead of models actually posed with the background. Note that some scenes are actually posed, but they are rare.
Animations: 4.5/5 - The animations go well with the art style, and the idle animations are really nice and help take away some of the cheapness of using sprites on a generic background.
Content: 4/5 - There's a decent amount of content and lewd content. I'm actually surprised that there isn't a bunch of reused content, and that's a good thing. Content quality is the same as the original game.
Gameplay: 3/5 - The gameplay isn't really mature, yet. There's some walking around trying to find things, and some of the more rudimentary minigames carried over from the original game, like fishing, removing vines, matching flowers, and digging through junk, but they're kind of lame. Like the original, there are a lot of choices that have no effect other than to change the dialogue of characters talking with the MC.
Sound: 3.5/5 - The generic background music is average. Ambient sounds are mostly good. Some sound effects (e.g., walking between areas) are just annoying.
Bugs: 3/5 - There are quite a few small bugs I found in the game. Nothing game-breaking, but they break immersion.
- When talking to Olga working at the front desk, her clothing changes from resort uniform to pink cocktail dress and back.
- After the "date" with Emi, when talking to her in her room, her clothing changes from Kimono to bikini.
- There's a task to discuss Paradise Lust with Maria, but the dialogue option for the task wasn't available until much later. This happened with several quest tasks. It seems like there were other dependencies that should've been listed in the quest.
- During the task "Find an investor for Paradise Lust", MC can go to Ryoko and she will tell him to help with Emi first, even before that quest has started.
- When moving to or from the "Balcony", the render stutters. Looks like two slightly different renders are being used or maybe the same render but one is shifted a little. One is displayed for a fraction of a second, then the other is displayed. The stutter behavior stopped after the dinner date with Olga.
- Game currently lets MC chat with some girls to improve relationship, but... it doesn't appear to actually do anything.
- This game looks for saves from the original game and carries over some info, such as MC name. Nice touch.
- Text speed on its fastest setting is too slow. Why can't this just be instant? [Edit: this actually can be made to instant by unchecking the "scroll text" option.]
- At one point, the generator breaks down and Olga indicates she is overwhelmed with guests complaining about the lack of hot water. There are literally only 2 guests on the entire island. If there are actually more guests, but they aren't important, it would make the story more believable to see other guests in the background of some renders or something.