This was a pretty rough game, but I think someone really cared about the topics this game tried to tackle—however, there were too many topics. This is a game that is playable, enjoyable, and can be a great time depending on the person. It was a good time for me... for about the first two to three hours. (SPOILERS AHEAD!!!)
This game is a BL visual novel with a steampunk aesthetic. It's not of the steampunk genre, it is purely aesthetic. The plot deals with space travel, planet terraforming and colonialization, extraterrestrial life, genocide, quid pro quo sexual harassment, immigration, veteran affairs, and probably more but I skipped a lot towards the end. These are not topics typically associated with the steampunk subgenre. This game could've easily been sci-fi and nothing about the plot would change. As I was playing, I wondered if the creators were inspired heavily by Voltron: Legendary Defender, but painted their game over with a streampunk brush to avoid copyright infringement. (Biel might as well be Keith's twin, and Alaya? Altea? I mean, come on.) This is also apparently a world that alternated from ours. For example, they have God, Christmas, World War II, Coca-Cola, Nintendo, Konami. But suddenly having this steampunk aesthetic in their present doesn't really feel fitting. Usually, steampunk is associated with the Victorian era or the Wild West era, so it's just really jarring to suddenly hear about Mario and Kirby out of nowhere.
The characters were fine, but could've used more. I only played Biel's route. It was kind of hard to gauge why the characters make the certain decisions that they did. For example, Tirs kept saying Biel was "cold and distant," but we didn't get to see very many examples of that. On the contrary, I interpreted Biel's character as introverted and socially anxious, but Tirs wasn't getting that and that made me very frustrated with him.
In terms of story, I felt that characters were also an issue. There were too many, way too many for a three-romancable-option visual novel. They ate up so much of the time that could've been used developing the protagonist and the three love interests. The three on the research team, Quim, Zoe, and Ren, were nice, but didn't influence the main plotline that much. The four on Marc's "heist" team, Roy, Nur, Akira, and Bru, were, in my opinion, unnecessary. The outcomes of the first two missions are wholly dependent on Tirs's actions. (Plus, the missions were, frankly, kind of lame. They need to change a shipping label, but break in without knowing what computer it's on? They need to hack into a computer, but unless you're a deep-lore gamer of real-life games that exist in OUR universe, i.e. Nintendo and Konami, then you likely couldn't have figured out the password without a guide. What the heck??) I ended up skipping all scenes that didn't have Biel in it.
Speaking of plot, it peeves the ♥♥♥♥ out of me that I HAVE to accept Marc's offer of casual sex in order to avoid the bad ending that has Tirs framed for their crimes. That's straight-up quid pro quo sexual harassment (and I have no idea if they actually address this in the story cuz I skipped all the non-Biel parts lol) and yet, Marc is one of the love interest options. (Do they actually address this? I'm a completionist, so maybe I'll come back to this review after I see his ending.)
(EDIT: I completed Marc's ending and I have to say I'm disappointed, so much so that I had to change to "not recommended." Hey, guys! Marc might've abused his power as an authority figure to solicit sex from his students and will frame Tirs for his crimes if you choose to refuse his advances, but don't worry, he's a good guy because he doesn't wanna commit alien genocide! I guess they're trying to make Marc and morally gray character who does the wrong things for the right reasons, but they don't address his terrible actions, they excuse it with "he's a good guy because he doesn't wanna commit alien genocide" and reward his bad behavior with a happy, romance good ending with Tirs. Tirs is a good guy, he doesn't need to be hooked in with sex and blackmail in order to make sure he doesn't go through with the alien genocide. It would've made more sense for Marc to hook in a higher authority figure with blackmail to prevent the space launch since there is an oft-mentioned group that is against Marc and don't care about what happens to the aliens. Sure, Marc does get arrested and convicted in other endings, but I personally didn't think that was enough. He's STILL a romanceable option anyway. It would be more appropriate if he were straight-up just the villain. I guess they wanted to mix up the twinky cast with a more "daddy" option, but... not the teacher, please?)
The art was fine. I love the art of the four main characters. However, everything else looked to have been drawn by different artists of different skills, which is fine, but it didn't feel consistent. Almost all the other characters had a different style than the main characters. The backgrounds didn't sell the steampunk genre either, not even the aesthetic, with some being very modern-looking with a gear or an airship in the background, or with others being straight-up textured photographs. (One background straight-up looks like an airport bathroom.) Also, I wish the main characters had more expressions. They all seemed to have only three: regular, mad, and blushing. Not enough to convey their different tones of conversation.
Last thing, real quick, is that the explicit scenes were pretty hot. However, the art, well, it's just a matter of opinion that I wasn't super fond of it. It was hot, but it's in a specific kind of style that's just not my cup of tea. (Also, there were some perspective and anatomy stuff that really drew me out of it.)
Anyway, I give this game a solid 3 out of 5. It's playable, it's enjoyable, and it's gay. This is my first review (hell yeah) and II wanna see what this studio puts out next~! It's all learning and growth~! (If you made it this far, follow me on Twitch @onlyonGraceXM, please, thank you, bye XD)
