Club Velvet Rose: Midnight Bliss

The main couple gets duped by their slimy neighbors, so the king of false bravado Hugo (the MC perspective) takes his wife Hazel to a swingers club. The main girl is a cheap WalMart clone of Anne, à la The Adventurous Couple. The writing is rife with broken English and misspellings, and the character motivations see-saw from conversations about love and support to selfish infidelity. Spoiler: Actual Ending 1 Curtains. I'm nervous about how this might affect our relationship, so let's make a pact to stay together for the whole night, and leave together at the end. I promise that no matter what happens tonight we will do everything together, listen to each other, and have fun without any arguments. If you help me scratch my itch, I'm going to make sure you get yours too! ... After agreeing to a foursome with the sleazebag neighbors because Hazel complains about every other available bull in the club: I believed this was a place for hidden affairs, but after what just happened, it's really a place where dreams come true! ...followed by: You left to grab a drink so I got naked in the bath with Carter and we started making out. When you mentioned walking in on me doing that made you feel uncomfortable, I decided to spend the next few weeks cheating with him. Now that you've come home early from work and caught us, I want a divorce! Fin. I can't understate how trashy Hazel is as a partner. It's revealed she's been cheating on Hugo from the very beginning of the story, roping him into the swingers club stuff as a night "for him" to "get even" (her words, not actions) and to disclose an affair she's been carrying on with the neighbors in a safe environment. She's hoping it will be with leverage, which makes the "honest Hugo" run almost a comedy. In some endings she never tells him about her cheating, even with plenty of opportunity. This VN is a series of checklist tasks with disappointing payoffs. Hugo needs to be consoled about premature ejaculation and shrinkage, everyone has weird burned-leather-skin dongs, none of the bulls (or even Hazel) respect Hugo's wishes because everyone's busy scheming, the couple talks at length about their devotion to each other and club behavior ideals then doesn't follow their own advice... etc. etc. I must have picked a uniquely awful set of choices in my first few runs. Light and fun sharing stories are my favorite genre, but I felt like this was a waste of time. Advertising makes it seem like the author was shooting for a complex and empowering netorase love story, but I can't suffer more time with Hazel and the rest of this cast to find which path has it. To sell this as a story where the couple will "navigate a delicate balance of trust, passion, and personal growth" is a bad joke.

I enjoyed this one. Models were well done, nice variety of characters. Animations were ok and pretty rare but the plot and choices made up for it. Hazel definitely looks nearly identical to Anne from The Adventurous Couple which is a plus in my book.