Opening to Love

Version 0.6 Opening to Love has a good overall story going as a visual novel, but its execution leaves some to be desired. Outdated animations, random placements of "Next" buttons at the top left hand corner during sex scenes, a sudden major branch point early in the game requiring players to select only one LI and a verbose narrative drags down this otherwise decent experience. Story You play the role of a 34 year-old IT guy working in a corporate office who decides to go into the dating scene through an app. Interestingly despite the game summary, the app plays very little role in the scheme of things with only two out of seven LIs met through it. The game starts off as an ordinary slice of life dating game where the MC meets various girls through the app, at work or outside. Things take a turn halfway through when a cyber heist become the central of what is essentially a crime and mystery plot. The pacing is a little weird and not thought through carefully - despite needing to choose a LI very early in the game, you don't really get to interact much with your chosen LI as time is still spread out evenly between all the ladies due to the highly interwoven plot. That being said, this cyber crime, high office corruption and a mysterious corporation tale is interesting enough to keep things going and adds some flare to what is otherwise a bland slice of life dating simulator. Game Mechanic Visual novel with choices, but the branching mechanic makes little sense IMO. There is a critical choice early in the game before any lewd scene whereby you need to select one LI and once done the rest of the NSFW content for the remaining six LIs will be off the menu. From a porn POV this is certainly not ideal as players effectively need to play the game from near start for seven times just to get access to all the scenes. From a dating simulator POV it is also out of the blue and destroys immersion, you are forced to make a selection without having an opportunity to interact with any of the LIs in any meaningful way. One minor but critical GUI irk is the lack of transparency setting for the dialogue box. It's near opaque and takes up a sizable chunk of the screen space and blocks out large critical areas during the sex scenes. Background / Character Renders Backgrounds consist of mostly typical AI generated office and home indoors adequate for story telling, but lacks the granularity like most other AI games. The seven LIs are lovingly designed with distinct visual appearance and up to mark in a blend of anime and western cartoon style. Only incongruence is Rose and Sarah who are supposed to be 45 and late 30ish respectively look way too young. Character Development There is some concerted effort to build up some depth into the personalities of the LIs, but the emphasis doesn't seem to be tailored according to your choice of LI. For e.g. if you go for Lucy, Jennifer or Fiona, you still inevitably end up having much more interactions with other LIs than these three. Because of the way the developer has wired the central plot around Penelope, the overall experience flows best when you select Penelope. If you choose to go with the other six LIs, you either end up with your LI receiving only average screen time no different from other girls or worse still, end up having less interaction with your selected LI. Sex Scenes The scenes are overall done well with sexy dialogue, heart pumping music, good renders, differentiated camera angles and sound effects. Only thing to point out is the animations are pretty outdated, reminds me of those done with I2V models and LORAs two years ago. These animations have very limited range of motions, higher than normal inconsistency and poor resolutions resulting in pixel noise. To reiterate two minor irritants :Firstly you need to repeat the game seven times as each run can only unlock 1 - 2 scenes of one single LI and secondly, for some unexplainable reason you need to click the left hand corner "Next" button at the start of every animation to move the dialogue. BGM and Sound Effects An adequate collection of generic modern tunes to fit the story, but no sound effects that I recall outside of NSFW scenes. Conclusion Opening to Love has a relatively sophisticated crime / mystery story that complements well with what is essentially a visual novel cum dating simulator. Unfortunately the game architecture is built on flimsy foundations and naturally anything that is layered on top no matter how good inevitably ends up shaky. There appears to be a lack of holistic planning when it comes to choice branches and the allocation of each LI's screen time which results in a paradox of being forced to choose only one LI early and yet not being able to draw focus on your chosen LI for the rest of the game.

version .6-what can i say there that hasn't been said in any of the other reviews? The renders are nice, the animations are vanilla and basic. The narrative is flowing and natural. It's the choices that really make the game hard since it's locks you in to that path and it doesn't even mean you get the girl. So it forces you to replay, or go from the save in all the different paths and that is just tiresome. Just because you sleep with a neighbor for one night, it shouldn't mean 3 women get knocked out of contention. For me that was the worst part of the game. Especially when that neighbor then moves off. It's not like the mc is in a relationship, so a one night stand shouldn't effect any of the others. Especially those on the dating app, you could message them back anytime, or even check the app when all the messages disappeared. I'm not completely done this play though, but am also getting annoyed by the choices, so an option might be to just rip the graphics and call it a day. Wish the dev luck.

[v0.6] ⠀⠀⠀This is very traditional dating sim style VN. First we are introduced to a cast of characters. Then we go onto a date with each of them while earning relationship points by picking correct dialogue choices. After dates we have a major choice to decide to which girl's message MC replies, which basically railroads us to a relationship with one of these women. There is some flexibility here, like you can choose when and how to lose your virginity, you can reject them which makes it possible to romance the childhood friend or remain single, and you can also break up later on, but essentially the choice you make when you reply to a message will lock you out of like 90% of all sexual content in the game. Not that there is a lot of sex to begin with, because right after getting into relationship (or not) the narrative shifts focus onto criminal drama/detective main plot with no erotic content. So this is not a porn game. Which is fine if you're looking for a thriller with a bit of romance, but if you came for porn - this is not it. The writing is good enough for what it is, but there is not enough content as of yet, unless you want to replay the novel a dozen or two times to experience all possibilities with every girl. Misc complaints: Blurry and jerky animation loops. These animations also feature almost no movement. Some erotic sfx sounds silly. Have to press "next" button multiple times to advance sexual scenes, I always found that irritating in AVNs. Background images are of a low quality with a bunch of artifacts.

Ai art is subpar as are any animations. Unfortunately i havent seen anything good worth mentioning yet, maybe the game will change for the better in the future, otherwise this is a pretty average Ai slideshow.

Very nice game overall, everything flows quite naturally. I enjoy the art and the different personnalities of the girls. The dialogues and scenes are quite well written and I really hope this game goes to its conclusion. Congrats to the dev.

RATING Art : 10/10 Story : 10/10 Mechanics : 10/10 MY OPINION ​ The game starts with you, an IT guy employed in an Accounting Office, getting a new cellphone from your best friend, who quickly tells you that she's worried about the fact that you never had a girlfriend nor a date, and pushes you to start having dates with other women to get yourself some romance . The game is well written. The character's design and scenarios are well done . The game UI is overall well polished and characteristic (which means, it wasn't copied from somewhere else). The devs surely did absolutely great on that matter. The story, from the little that we have seen so far, is also pretty interesting . You manage to go on dates, meet women in your daily routine, but nothing feels too off or out of "real expectations". Things flows normally, as they would if you were lucky enough in real life. Nothing really feels out of place, rushed or unnatural . And, honestly, that's a great thing, especially on Erogames. Regarding the mechanics, it's hard to say. I usually open this rating on machanics because there are games that goes beyond the usual visual novel mechanics, some of them bringing up minigames, or a more complex route system. This one follows the usual standard visual novel mechanics, which is a good thing. Traditional is good , and it fits the aspect of the game itself, so it's natural. Overall, pretty good game. Keep up with the good work, devs.

This is a really nice little gem! The AI art is well done, consistent, and everyone is unique in their own way. The personalities are fleshed out, the MC acts like a real human being with real human doubts, and the story supports him in his endeavor to start dating! It's a little unbelievable at times for how women suddenly throw themselves at him, but that's the power of being a protagonist. It's a really nice little story that makes the reader feel good after reading it. I would personally like an option to skip the quick-time events,but I applaud the effort to make this more game-like. Overall I love how this is started, where this is going, and I'll be keeping an eye out for updates eagerly.

One of the better AI games. The writing is honest, casual, and pretty good. Some of the scenarios could use work... the 50 year old personal trainer looks like 20 The story is interesting; it's a decent start with a lot of options. The AI art is gorgeous and stays consistent. The characters all have the same AI Style but look unique enough. The only thing I disliked was the cringe-quick-time "games" where you had to press buttons quickly or need to press space with the correct timing. They distract from the story and, more importantly, the actual sex scenes. How can I enjoy the content if I'm forced to play a 25-year-old Newgrounds-style flash game garbage? Just scrap that shit. Anyway, it's worth a play.