Gakuen Love

There's really not much to say, but I'll try and cover all the bases. This is clearly an amateur project made by a first time writer in a language they don't speak confidently. But that doesn't excuse shoddy renders, base assets, and a nothing story. The main problem is that there's just a lack of care. I don't feel any passion from the writing. It's all just serviceable. Sterile and utilitarian. I can think of no better example besides the character Eileen inexplicably becoming Ellen after four minutes of reading. That kind of mistake could be a translation issue, but it never switches back in the 20-30 minutes of what I played. That tells me that this character doesn't even stick out much to the writer, that they couldn't even be asked to remember what her name was. Continuing this point, the dialogue is jilted as well. Your sister repeatedly calls you "my brother", rather than anything a normal English speaking native would use to refer to their sibling by. Again, I suspect this is a translation issue. But what's not a translation issue is how many unnecessary sentences are added to cap off a scene. Girl: "Let us do thing." MC: "Yes, we should do." Girl: "That's good!" MC: "Okay!" I don't know about you, but I've seen better dialogue from Oblivion NPCs. And this happened in multiple conversations. Similarly, entire scenes are pointless. My favourite example is when MC takes a piss, so he can remark that he is "growing larger as of late". Thank god our H-game protagonist has a big member. I was worried for a second there. On a more serious note, the pointlessness of choices does have me worried. Sometimes a choice will lead to an extra scene, other times it changes literally nothing, wasting both player and developer's time. What would be nice is having a choice in pursuing a girl or not. Or at least, getting some character development before they flash and fuck you? Because currently, every girl wants to fuck MC upon first sight, and occasionally on first mention. Them all being unreasonably horny for MC is one thing, but by the third unavoidable and unprompted sex scene, I threw the towel in. There is no "teasing" before "things get steamy", as the note on the first page would have you believe. This is fast-fap, and it's not even good at that. If I wanted to see stock koikatsu renders without personalities bumpin' 'n' grindin' on it, I'd just play Koikatsu unmodded. While not a deal breaker for me, it may be for you, and why this is a one star not two. The character models are all default, with a few sliders changed so they aren't literally default. The sex scenes are all stock as well. No custom animations or even SFX. There's nothing here to make anyone want to play this over any other ren'py Koikatsu game. Or put another way, the porn is not even good. Easy skip recommendation.

I ended up with the bad ending, so keep that in mind. Overall, this is an interesting game. The characters are engaging, and the story has some very interesting twists later on. At first, it seems like a "regular" dating sim, but later on the twist from change of perspective from the MC to another character and back again. Multiple promising LIs, although on the downside, some are forced, you don't have a choice. That said, they do add to the story later on in it. I was invested in the story up to the end. I know I can just start from an earlier save point, but I disagreed with the lead up to that end. However, it was not an illogical or irrational path that lead there, the devs wrote well, more life experience directed me one way, the story went another. It wasn't a bad bad end/game over, just one of differing opinions. Players who make follow the path past that point I think will continue to have a good gaming experience. I had a good experience and hope those who play this game will as well.

Honestly, it's a bit boring at first, but if you have a little patience, the game will be VERY good. This is probably due to the fact that the developers have evolved a lot throughout the project, of course. The characters are very interesting and have a good story. I think it's worth a chance. 9/10