The gameplay itself is fine, rewarding strategic thought and persistence. Some of the available choices and bonuses are questionable, though. You know what'll get the latina MILF to like you? Give her some maracas! And the Japanese teacher definitely appreciates your gift of chopsticks! The fairy is the worst part of it. Meeting the teacher and saying she doesn't merely have "yellow fever, it's more like a yellow plague"; then comes the "I love me some chocolate" immediately upon sighting the rise-and-grind Black flight attendant, too? I had to check the release year on this, and....2015? Really? I'd have believed 2005, but 2015?? I appreciate the variety of personalities the girls have, though the writing frequently feels one-dimensional even by this genre's standards, and Kyu in particular is just plain offputting. No idea if it gets better the further in you get; I am simply not willing to find out. There are a lot of things I enjoy challenging, but my own patience isn't one of them.
Cute characters, with unique writing along the lines of what I'd expect from the Death and Taxes team. Character customization was a little tedious, and having everything reset when I wanted to compare the same traits across M and F variants was annoying. A non-gendered option would be welcome, as well, but I don't know what impact race and gender might have in the full game. The swordcrafting reminds me a bit of the 3DS title Weapon Shop de Omasse...except the rhythm aspect of it is more difficult and less engaging, to be honest. Sharpening is also extremely finicky, especially as a trackball mouse user. I'm more excited by the accessory crafting, even though gluing and following blueprints was a bit unintuitive, and the inability to reposition an awkwardly-placed blueprint until the accessory's first phase was finished was frustrating. Creating something truly customized turned out to be a lot of fun despite those initial hiccups, and I was very pleased with the freedom decoration gave me. Gathering materials was also a fun little diversion. I'm hopeful there will eventually be controller support, because after about two hours in the demo, my hand really started to cramp up. Overall, though, I had fun, and look forward to seeing what else there is to do and see in the eventual full version.
