EDIT: Realized what bothers me: the narrative treats people as tools. The people in the story are not written as people. It feels so sociopathic to be placed in the role of a person who sees everyone around them as tools to advance their own life, to be used in any way they choose. And I mean "good" and "bad" paths, the writing is uniform throughout. It seems to reflect the author's view on the world, since the author seems incapable of discerning a difference regardless of which path you choose.
I don't appreciate how women are written about. Too much focus on their looks, for one. One of the first descriptions of any character, if you select female childhood friend, is of the 12-year-old child, "her blue eyes carrying a promise of future beauty." You don't need to be looking at a 12-year-old and pondering whether you'll find her beautiful (read: sexually attractive) as an adult. That reads like a child groomer. It's weird. It's gross. You don't wanna, idk, tell me about this character's... CHARACTER? Their thoughts, their habits, their history with MC? Nothing? You have a stat notification "relationship improved with ____ " when you select flirt/romance choices, but you don't have a separate stat for friendship. If it's a character of your sexual preference, then they only exist to tickle your pickle and that's it. That's it. All "romancing" prompts include "hand her a flower" (that option shows up repeatedly as the only romancing/relationship-improving option. Are we 5 years old? And braindead? ONLY THAT, repeatedly throughout the story, with every character?) "Kiss her" "go to her tent at night" "spend the night with her" as if it's a one-sided decision. Did you consider writing them like they're human and you can talk to them and have a relationship? Have you considered writing the choice options like "ASK if she wants a kiss"? "Lean in and kiss her" was available as an option for one of the FIRST interactions in the story with childhood friend, and there's nothing written to the scene other than "you lean in and kiss their lips." CONSENT??? Not even a "you lean in and bring your face close, and then they lean in and seal the kiss"? Nothing, really? And then of course because this is a male fantasy, "oh heehee I liked it". I don't want to imagine I'm someone who forces my will on other people or someone who views others as sexy mannequins. In case it's relevant, I was playing with MC set to "female" and romance preferences set to "interested in women."
The writing, all paths, reads like someone obsessed with power and status, like a narcissist or a self-important Tory nightmare who resents that other people want rights. It's really really exhausting. You can hate this review, but I'm not writing it for you if you do. If you've lived with people like this and found yourself ground down by their selfishness and dismissiveness toward the humanity of others, be forewarned, this book won't be a vacation from that life.
More points: starting the story by unironically gushing about how one suit of clothes costs "the worth in gold of a month of food for an entire poor family in the village" is just embarrassing. Wow, that's really amazing of you, you're so cool. Now that I'm realizing it, the entire concept of the books being "I'm The Chosen, I'm the lost heir, I'm the most important person on earth, it's all about me, I'm so important" really is in lockstep with the worldview woven into how the narrative is written. 'You're the heir to the throne' is an extremely common story trope, but instead have a sociopath with zero empathy write it. This author seems to genuinely regret that they can't enslave several cities worth of people in order to live as a king above them, wear clothes the cost of a month's labor every day, and throw away the lives of those around them to suit themselves best. There's a scene where it's described in orgasmic detail the arterial blood spewing from a man's neck as he dies to save MC, with some words thrown in there about "oh no it's so sad he like died for me", but the way it's written it's like MC/narrator is edging to this. Far from being sad, the tone and framing is very much so from the perspective of someone thoroughly enjoying this bloodshed. It's jarring and it's bad writing if you're supposed to be having the "choice" to play as a "good" MC, you know, someone who views other people's lives as valuable. The writing of this game is the world through the eyes of a narcissist who genuinely believes they are more important than everyone else, that they are more special and more amazing than everyone else, that they are the only one with feelings and everyone around them is a tool for their use. More than a narcissist, is this person a psychopath? The "good" paths have you use people. The "bad" paths have you use people. The "bad" paths are just more overt. That's it. The "good/bad" meter is extremely reminiscent of how dark triad/narcissists/psychopaths budget what they can get away with in terms of their social reputation. There is zero remorse, empathy, or any expression in the writing that the author, narrator, MC, anyone involved in this has any concept of WHY evil is evil. It's just "will this make me look bad and lose credit in eyes of others? Will I be able to get away with less after this?" This author seemingly CAN'T WRITE from the perspective of an ethical person with morals and who adheres to those morals for a reason. Simply cannot express through their writing the character of someone who cares about others. Anyway! I hate being in the head of a narcissist, so I regret every page turn I spent on this.
Aside from the disappointing storywriting, it feels like it's not clear what choices will enhance what stats/abilities you have. Perhaps I'm not fully versed in the typical stats divisions in choice books, but it felt overly complicated. There are two separate categories of stats, seemingly with no clear distinction between them. It's like "here are your skills" and "here are skills, category two, including some of the same skills but re-labeled with synonyms." You pick an option that boosts the stat of synonym #1 in skill group #1, and it doesn't boost the value of synonym #2 in skill group #2? It's difficult to accurately predict what effects your choices would have, the writing doesn't feel precise and consistent in what behaviors correlate to what stats. If it's going to be that fussy, then just write the stat change values on the choices themselves.
Also, you have to min-max so hard to even be good at one thing that you just feel frustrated. Being evil seems more rewarding on average, which is depressing, uninteresting, and uncreative, and lends more weight to the impression that this is just a narcissist/psychopath's fantasy that we're being dragged through.
I'm annoyed I paid any money for this. @the author, please go to a therapist. I'm scared for the people around you.
