Paradise in the Academy

Review of Paradise in the Academy by Mikuya Version played: 1.4 Played till end of content: No Points I'll address: The lore, writing, characters, graphics (including animations), user experience Spoiler: The Lore The premise of this VN as far as I can see is the protagnist enrolling in an elite academy for the purpose of studying more about creative writing and gathering experience and inspirations for next project, an erotic novel. That premise does seem a bit weak if you just focus on gathering of experiences for an erotic novel but does stand solid if you push stronger for the improving to become a better author aspect. This academy, although set in modern japan is called Elite Royal Academy for whatever reason. As a little spoiler quite far in the beginning: for reasons unknown the protagonist is the sole male student in this whole institution and most of the characters initially introduced are part of a club, where living out their kinks and sharing their experiences is the main purpose. Something that made me pause and write this review was the sudden appearance of a kitsune girl without any tags hinting at. I know most mangas and animes don't feature fantasy as a tag when there is only a singular appearance but I feel off about it as well. Although the club revelation justifies a previous h-scene I feel somewhat weird about how this is served and presented, especially since the h-scenes are kinda heavy-handed for a more story-driven game. Tl;dr: A somewhat weak foundation for a plot line that is not supported by it's story development but rather only serves as justification to get some h-scenes Spoiler: The Writing The writing in the beginning falls in a somewhat uncanny valley between anime logic and non-anime logic. The pacing is generally weird and the way h-scenes appear is, simply put: sudden. Why is the pacing weird? You get to have normal conversations being pleasant to read and easy to follow and suddenly make a skip to a situation you only see in animes/mangas where the author leans heavily into tropes for some fan-service. Telling the story how the protagonist came to that situation (somewhat like a mini-flashback) is a valid way to explain plot developments but is not meant to used itty-bitty to invoke some slapstick humor. Furthermore: The amount of grammatical errors, especially putting a he and him instead of she and her is nerve-wrecking. I do feel conflicted stopping and dropping the game because I do see potential in the writing and plot in general, hoping for it to improve. The story so far leans more into hentai logic, which is sadly not up in my alley. Tl;dr: Shows promise if it were to either embrace it's anime/manga/hentai trope or swerve off it (slightly). Spoiler: The Visuals (including Animations) The colours are vibrant, characters are easily distinguishable and use of default koikatsu assets is done properly so far. The animations are heavy on symmetry but nevertheless still serve their purpose. There is not much out of the ordinary. The author tries to have a somewhat dynamic visual by advancing the scene while the player reads along. Imagine students making steps or moving after some 2-4 text messages. Although it is nice and improves on the game experience the dev needs to be wary of not making the characters in the background walk on the spot. What's nice is the amount of different facial expressions being shown, it does make the game and the characters feel more alive. Tl;dr: A good foundation. Aspiritations to elevate the experience can be seen but need to worked on in order to pull it off successfully. Spoiler: User Experience Oh boy. Let's start with the basics: Trying to reach the widest possible audience the game shouldn't start in spanish. Either give the player a choice in the beginning of choosing a language by placing the respective flags or let it by default start in english. A text box would be appreciated for better readiability as well as to increase the spacing between laters (kerning) by 1-2 px. The messages for the phone text messages shoud be displayed in english as well, at least when you play it in english instead of spanish. I didn't know what the protagonist wrote except for "Hi, how are you?" Overall: A somewhat solid foundation that needs to have 1-2 updates or revisions in order to make the game confidently stand in the 4* section. I hope the author gets to read this. I'll return to play the game and post and updates if any of the above points have been addressed/improved or new talking points arise. Edit: knocking down the review from 3* to 2* due to: - Writing did not improve rather it stagnates or gets worse at times - I entered the sandbox phase of the game. The navigation is atrocious and for the academy you have to navigate manually instead via the map - There are some heavy bugs: Entering map or affection overlay doesn't let you close it. You need to use the rollback function of renpy to exit those overlays.

It was a very enjoyable playthrough, with curvy character designs, nice color choices, great wardrobe variations that did not stick a character into the only wears one outfit motif and relaxing music. This blended to an overall soothing, yet sexy experience.