I finally gave your visual novel a whirl! It looked pretty interesting, so I decided to give it a try!
First off, I would love to say the presentation of this is absolutely gorgeous. I love how most of it is NVL-style, but it's on the side, so it does not obscure any imagery. I love how blog entries are shown in classic green text on one monitor, and screenshots from the game in questions are on another. The credit sequence was also neat with your little comments on multiple titles.
Onto the game itself...
The blog entries were really neat, especially since they focused on actual games. I am very interested in the history of visual novels, and quite like the early pixel aesthetics some of those old titles had, so it was nice to get a glimpse into some titles that will probably be impossible for most people (including myself) to play. I liked the discussion of two sides of the coin, being extremely creative and absurd storytelling (which I'd honestly love to see more of again even in the OELVN community) and your basic, run-of-the-mill dating sims which, if written right, isn't all that bad. I also loved how you showed some love for Higurashi! And even touched upon amateur VNs, and how often a lot of people nowadays may shy away from that. It's something I, again, notice in the current OELVN community as opposed to when I first got into Ren'Py and many pieces. There's something I feel cannot be matched by amateur art with passion in the story that carries it, perhaps that is the niche I personally favor haha. So that part really got to me as someone going back to my old favorites, as well as digging through the Ren'Ai archives for interesting pieces.
The atmosphere and story itself feels really heavy. Whilst the narrator's love for visual novels, especially obscure titles, is rather cool and interesting, his complete obsession with them to the point it consumes his very being feels rather sad. And it only feels sadder as what slowly unfolds to reveal how he got into his NEET state in the first place. I feel visual novels are definitely a wonderful and immersive storytelling medium, it's why I play and make them, but I must appreciate how you show the dark side of it. How one may get sucked in all too much. It's not so much that VNs automatically pose that risk, but rather the circumstance one might go through which drives someone to seclude themselves in the hobby. For our narrator, its visual novels, particularly the classics, it can be entirely something different for someone else.
Now onto some spoilers.....
The mysterious "spirit" that morphs into various characters, but more particular, our narrator's favorite heroine just became more ominous and shadier by the minute. At first, I thought she was a mere hallucination, an attempt from his subconscious to maybe even save him and encourage him to look for real love, and experience life outside, to make new memories, and heal from what caused him to be a recluse in the first place. Then she became a temptress, telling him to renounce his life so they could be "one" for eternity and I knew this wasn't going to end well. I had hope, in his narration before the choice, the dream, that ultimately sealed his doom that maybe.... just maybe he would change his mind, realize it was all a trap, and live. But instead, he fell to her temptation, felt instant regret fornicating with her, saw her true demonic nature, and we have a soul stealing text on the screen "Ending 1/1: Bad End" knowing there is no way to change this poor recluse's fate. That he was driven to suicide, be that some kind of demon or his own depression catching up to him, perhaps a culmination of both. A cautionary tale if one's love for a normally harmless storytelling medium turns into obsession and, quite frankly, like a "god" of sorts considering his eerily lit room was a shrine lol. That's what I personally took away from it.
Overall, I really enjoyed the visual novel, it's amazing visual presentation, like the way it was done almost made me forget this was made on the Ren'Py engine (it's amazing how far its come in how you can customize presentation). It was also neat to learn things about the PC-98 and what is merely a handful of old school VNs. Also during description of the denpa genre, that one sudden glitch legit scared me hahaha. I think my only major complain is some of the sexual descriptions that sometimes got a bit more explicit than I was expecting. I know it added to the narrative in what a sad state our narrator was in, but it was a bit much and probably adding a bit of warning to your game's page would be nice, but aside from that I did fully enjoy the game and looking into a bit of the dark side of loving the VN medium. I don't know how you managed for the game to be both a love letter to visual novels whilst also exploring the possible detriment of it consuming your life, but you sir managed to do both and do it exceedingly well, both visually and narratively. You explored why visual novels are so enticing and an amazing way to tell stories and what happens if certain circumstances causes you to seek all your comfort and safety from it in the most unhealthy of ways possible. Perhaps I am looking too much into it, but I walked away with both a greater appreciation of the genre as well as with a good lesson and demonstration of not letting it, or anything for that matter, lead you into a rabbit hole of despair.
Great for a first piece, good luck on your future projects as well! ^^