All right, since you are requesting constructive criticism, I will do my best as I play through!
First impressions, menu screen seemed fine, though it was a little confusing to start the game for the first time and be presented with a dialogue to chosoe a route, but only one route is available. I would suggest for the first play, the player be shown one button they can click, and then greyed out buttons with ??? which would let the player know that there are future routes to unlock. I mean, I figured out that there must be future routes that unlock after the first one, but you could clue the player in more obviously and then it wouldn't seem to weird to be presented with a dialogue box that only has one option.
After that, starting to play through the route, I liked the ideas being presented. The whole dream thing was very interesting to me. Some of the writing was a little awkward. For example, sometimes this would happen:
Boy
Something the character said!
He said, menacing his blade.
I'm not sure that having "he said" after a line of dialogue works in visual novel format, because we already know the character said it. I would instead suggest taking out the "he said" part and just mention the character doing the action before or after the speech line.
You also have a lot of sentences that start with "and." There's that whole "don't start a sentence with a conjunction thing," but most people agree that rule isn't correct. Starting a sentence with "and" or "but" or "or" is perfectly acceptable. But, I think using it so often is a bit overkill, especially since using a conjunction gives it a certain emphasis. Using that emphasis so frequently diminishes the effect, in my opinion, and there are some instances where you can just eliminate the use of "and" at the beginning of the sentence completely. Not all of them -- don't sacrifice your own writing voice! -- but cutting down on it a bit could improve the flow for the reader.
It is a very long time in the beginning of the game for the player to be sitting in darkness. It made me start to wonder if maybe the graphics weren't loaded in the right place. Perhaps you could put in a background that's just a bit of light in darkness or something like that, just so the player knows all is well. Or maybe have a white silhouette sprite of the boy? That would still enable you to keep the mysteriousness you seem to be going for while reassuring the player the game loaded correctly.
There were some occasions where punctuation use didn't seem quite right. For example, "In this world, a vast world of people. There is a group of special people who are known as Mages." That seems like one sentence that's been broken into two. There was another stray period a little further on: "I still remember the sweet sensation. of the vanilla treat coating my small tongue." And I think "I close my eyes falling into a slumber" needs a comma in it. Just stuff like that where you need a good, solid proofreading pass. Alas, I don't have time to proofread, so I'll constrain my notes about punctuation stuff from this point on, just know that in general, there are some issues of that nature throughout.
It was surprising to finally see a character sprite! You might want to put some preview art in your post to show that the game has character sprites. Honestly, I half-expected the game was text only from the fact there weren't character sprites in your first post. More people would be inclined to play seeing that the game does have art in it.
When Reika first appears, her voiced line repeats forever! Something isn't right there. I had to save and load to stop the loop. But when I did that, it just started looping her next bit of voiced dialogue: "You mean you don't remember me?" Then I got to her next voiced line which ended the loop for the second bit of voice, but then that bit looped... Your voice actress is very pleasing to listen to, but I think anyone will go insane listening to the dialogue constantly loop!
I tried the save/load thing to stop the "Okay, you were spaced out there" from looping but even though I was well past that point, it kept looping.
When Reika appears the second time, after the mailbox, there's no new voiced dialogue... but maybe that's because the "spaced out" dialogue won't stop looping?
... Oh my gosh, did Reika just kill a dude? She and Yuuji seem to very much under-react to her having just plated a hole in a guy's chest...
Nami is very creepy when she shows up! I like that.
I cast a spell at Nicole, and it says it's an illusion spell, and that somehow it traps her? I wouldn't expect an illusion spell to do that... An illusion of black metal chains would just be an illusion, wouldn't it? But it secures her as if it were real. Does illusion mean something different in this world? Ohh, so it was just explained that once you know it's an illusion, the spell is useless. I still don't really understand that. So illusion magic is solid unless the person knows it's illusion magic, and then it's no longer solid? Or it's solid, but once you know it's illusion, you can just cast "dispel illusion" to counter any illusion spell? I guess that makes sense! Maybe offering a bit of explanation about the mechanics or illusion would be good because the player is an illusion mage.
The "spaced out" dialogue is still looping throughout this, by the way.
Seeing the standings,
two mages are dead already...
The standings must have names, otherwise Yuuji wouldn't know his number, but then
Nicole asks Yuuji to help take down mages #1 and #16. Yuuji is #1! Of course I rejected her offer, why would I help her kill me??
I guess that was wrong, 'cause that punted me to the main menu. So I died? Maybe a screen that informs the player they just died. It was really abrupt. Although why
Yuuji decided to go for a walk alone when he's being targeted for death by a bunch of powerful mages...
So, I just started over since I died, and then this time I tried
ignoring the letter, then Kai showed up and stabbed me to death.
In this game, if you choose wrong, you just die? So, there's only ever one correct choice from the options presented? I don't particularly love that, but it does mean the game should be pretty easy to beat if I just save at each choice option, and if I die, I reload. Let's do that.
Just confirmed this is the case by trying a few other alternate choices. It's a little weird to think that I'm supposed to
agree to help Nicole kill me,
but I'll go with it. I realize adding a "you've been killed" screen does enable the player to roll back and re-choose, but given that the option is save and reload anyway, I think it should be allowed. It would save the the step of constantly having to save and reload, and the net result would be the same. (I go back and choose the other option.)
I'm now being given the option to suppress pain with illusion magic... Yeah, I think I really need clarification on what illusion magic is in this universe because it seems as varied as regular magic.
It occurs to me suddenly that this is really like Hunger Games in its premise. But if Yuuji keeps trying to work with everyone he meets instead of anyone dying... how is this going to work?
After they decide
to go see the mythical dragon and Yuuji ends up with that vision of Nami, I think there needs to be some sort of explanation or effect, because I thought that was a literal scene transition and that Yuuji and the girls went to find the dragon in the forest, but it turned out if was just a dream or a vision or whatnot. How did Yuuji get home after going into a trance or whatever happened?
I am confused at this point.
Yuuji goes to the base and passes through a forest? What forest?
The one in the vision? But wasn't that just a dream or vision?
Now Reika is talking about illusion magic not being real, just being a mental trick, so I'm back to being confused about how it was able to restrain Nicole earlier.
It suddenly occurs to me, Nicole talks about mages needing to be secret
when Yuuji does magic for his friend, but what about Kai's corpse??
Wasn't that just left on the street?
Nami just appeared to play.
I understands the background are whatever you can get, but I'd try and find a different background for this scene, the bench seems really humongous compared to the size of Nami's sprite. I wouldn't mind having an option when Nami offers
to make Yuuji a doll,
even if it leads to a death ending, because as the player I would like the choice of saying yes just to see what would happen!
The whole "cute girl competing in mage wars comes to Nami's house" thing is beginning to get a bit cliche...
So Nami really did
kill six mages.
That means 13 mages are accounted for now. (The 4 girls, Yuuji, Vic, 6
guys killed by Nami,
and 1 unknown dead from the TV.) And here's Alex, bringing the number to 14! Then Yuuji says they have all the mages accounted for, which can't be right. Then they say they have all accounted for except one. Did I miss a death somewhere? Because that only brings the count to 15/16, doesn't it?
Oh wow, Izaki is a mage!
That was a surprise! Why aren't any of the girls helping during this fight!?? They're just standing around watching Yuuji get pummeled!
Oh, finally.
Geez. I think
Izaki's death
would have a bit more impact if Yuuji and Izaki had another scene before this point. Maybe Yuuji confides in Izaki about the mage wars and all his hopes and fears? That could help set up
Izaki's refusal to join Yuuji's cause
more as well.
Returning inside, Marianna's sprite is awkwardly covering Nicole's.
Grandpa's sprite looks so young... Again, I get you're using what you can, but looking for an older sprite would be good. Someone somewhere must have a free old person sprite you can use. Also, predicting it now,
grandpa is the sponsor.
I was right! At least it wasn't
the dad,
that would have been too cliche. I do wonder then, why
Kai was able to kill Yuuji in the timeline where I ignored the mail.
So I just finished first route playthrough and unlocked a new route,
Bitter Memories
! It took me an hour, including the time I was writing all this commentary. Overall, I think there's some interesting stuff here. I don't love the fact that the choices all feel illusory, like it's a kinetic novel masquerading as a regular VN, because choosing the wrong thing kills you. I'm guessing a few of the choices I made could impact the endgame, as in who you can end up with?
I'll start another play, but with less commentary this time.
I am wondering though,
Nicole said someone important to her was sick, didn't she? But if she can't get to the promised land, then that person must have died, no?
Maybe I missed something in the ending that explained what happened to that person...
I'll post with further thoughts after I get through again! I did generally like the story and cast, even if I found it the story to be a bit too harem-oriented for my personal tastes.
