Disclaimer: I also played the DLC, but it doesn't have much to offer. Too short and bland.
It's inevitable to find vns with interesting premise, but subpar execution. Especially on Kickstarter. And I backed this one.
Trouble Comes Twice is what happens when a developer has a favorite. It's not always noticeable from the get-go, but a certain character may be forgiven for being rude, harsh and obnoxious far too easily by the rest of the cast. It's even worse when it's a protagonist.
Hazel is that protagonist. She's the "girl boss" in the worst possible way. She sees herself above everyone: family, friends, strangers. Often snarky and sarcastic, she only cares about herself. She does get a few moments of self-reflection, but it's not enough. She has no character development and imo only has one believable romance option. More on that later.
Jace lives in a shadow of his sister, in more ways than one. From writing standpoint, he can be rude and unlikable but not nearly as bad as Hazel. From content stand point, his routes are more surface level. It's like his routes are just teasers for characters and their true conflicts, besides one. On a positive side, he gets character development: learning to accept oneself is never too easy.
The love interests/routes:
Zoe is the best love interest in the game. Why?
Her relationship and potential romance with both twins is believably. She's the only one who even tries to stand up to Hazel and her dynamic with Jace is fine.
Her CGs are of consistent quality for this game's standards. She has an arc(mostly seen in Hazel's version) and none of her endings were questionable. A pleasant character overall.
Stephanie is the most balanced love interest. Or the most forgettable. You choose.
Her development is predictable, but was nice to see. Both versions of her route developed similarly, with no highs or lows. I honestly don't think there's a good reason to choose her over other love interests because she doesn't have a strong personality to stand out. But she's cute, and that's enough for some people.
Adrian was the reason I backed this game. I'm a huge sucker for "childhood friends to lovers", and his puppy crush for Jace was so obvious. I'm vanilla af, sue me.
But the Hazel version of his route is the worst route of the game, both in terms of writing and art. They had negative chemistry with each other even by the end of the route and CGs looked flat and hideous. I had to stall the game for a while because it pissed me off so bad.
Thankfully, Jace version is much better. Nothing new, but a good execution of the trope. My only criticism is there should've been more.
Cameron got the shortest end of the stick for different reasons.
His sprite looks good, but in CGs he often looked like a different person. Jace version was the worst offender, I had to click to skip the scene and read it from the backlog just so I can avoid those horrible CGs. It's my first time doing that in a visual novel.
His writing was weird. Hazel's version was frustrating to read because their relationship barely developed, but there were good scenes that showed more of his sensitive side and his backstory was emotionally gripping.
Jace's version had better execution of romance, but lacked any insight on his behavior and personality. A shame, really.
I love "jock with a heart of gold" types, but the writers clearly had no idea what to do with him.
Forth wall breaks
Who thought this was a good idea? It was ok during MC selection, but it broke the pacing and tension for the rest of the game. The sibling banter wasn't funny, it was annoying and repetitive.
Ending variations
Good idea on paper. Too bad Dramatic endings were strange and best and downright terrible at worst. I wish they were cut out altogether and we got longer Romantic endings instead.
Character design/CGs
Character designs caught my eye back when I first saw the promo art. Everyone had distict identity and I could tell their personalities from designs alone. Good stuff.
Sadly the CGs aren't nearly as good. They were drawn by different artists and suffered from boring composition, weird proportions and overall blandness. Whoever okay'ed them should've known better.
The chibi CGs were cute, but I'd rather have better quality for main CGs.
Music/SFX
Both were forgettable, but inoffensive.
UI
It's a Ren'py game and works fine. But why did the devs change hotkeys for save/load and backlog? My muscle memory was confused.
Conclusion
For a character focused game, Trouble Comes Twice only cared about one of them: Hazel. The rest were either okay(Zoe, Stephanie) or had notable quality dips(Jace, Adrian, Cameron). Wouldn't recommend it unless you think obnoxious female characters = empowerment.
