So I finished my first playthrough of the game, so here are my thoughts.
I’ll go with the good things first because we seriously need more optimism at the moment.
1.) The concept. I’m not too fond of romance stories but the war-torn setting is very unique and immediately makes it stand out amongst the other romance stories. I just feel like the whole war wasn’t well developed though because I am quite a sucker for good world-building.
2.) The writing. So far, the descriptions and dialogue are usually on point, they’re usually decent or average at worst. Although there a few missing quotation marks and all that, the descriptions are detailed but not overwhelming, and the dialogue suits the characters.
The story is also looking good so far and the most of the choices feel like they matter. Keep it up.
Alright, those are my commendations. However, I have one criticism.
The characters.
Whenever I look at the characters, I can’t help but think “Hey I feel like I saw this person before.” Most of the characters feel like a rehash of certain character archetype. This isn’t an inherently bad thing, but the problem is that most of them don’t do anything to make themselves stand out. Of course, this may be invalid because you may be developing themas I write this, but this is something to take note of while you write your story.
Emil/Emma and Ren/Robin are rather decent characters though. Emil/Emma make themselves stand out of the “energetic younger sibling archetype” because they’re literally the sibling of the player. Ren/Robin, while I don’t like them, the whole gambler aspect makes them somewhat unique and they do have some potential.
The two worst offenders to me are Vee, Raven and Levi (I haven’t played through the game to set them to different genders.) Levi and Vee don’t do anything and feel completely forgetable, plain and simple. Raven feels completely out of place and look like they’re just in the story purely for fanservice. I’m sorry if this segment sounded a bit harsh.
Again, you may be developing these characters further as you write, but I seriously hope for these characters to be improved. You don’t have to rework their meeting scenes or anything, you can just develop them more in future interactions.
I wish you well, and good luck with your story. Godspeed.