(If you're here because of the "incest" tag, be aware that there is none. I don't know why this game is tagged with this, but there is no such content. That's totally fine with me, but be aware if you do care.)
After three weeks, I finally finished this one. Probably the longest AVN I ever played.
Since this is an AVN after all, the sex scenes need to be taken into account in my rating. They just aren't hot, with maybe two or three exceptions. And they were exceptions simply because the girl was actually wearing something sexy, like some fishnet stockings and high heels, or some seethrough top. The rest of the scenes consist of just a totally naked girl doing missionary or some other vanilla stuff. If your game is mostly vanilla sex, at least have the girls wear something spicy and kinky, dammit. "Strip naked and fuck" just doesn't do it.
No threesomes. There is one if the gallery, but no idea how to see it in the game itself. But even then, it's just one. Needless to say, there's no group sex at all other than just that one single threesome. For a game that bears the "harem" tag, this is quite disappointing. And even that one threesome is disappointing. It's basically just the MC having sex with one girl while the other just sits there.
No kinks or fetishes. Just plain old vanilla stuff. The girls spread their legs or bend over while the MC sticks it in, and the game moves on.
And no lesbian scenes either (again, with just one single exception.)
I started skipping through the sex scenes at some point because the plot was more fun. The thing is, I'm not sure how they could have been better considering the tone of the game. There is no porn plot whatsoever. It's normal, boring people, doing normal, boring things and having normal, boring sex. Not a single pervert in sight.
And finally, as usual in 99.99% of all AVNs, the MC suffers from OCS (Oversized Cock Syndrome,) with many sex scenes being about how big his dick is. It has always been annoying, but my brain has developed some kind of filter that makes it less annoying over time.
OK, so the porn in this porn game is the weak point. How about the overall story? Well, that's what justifies this game's high rating. It's quite well written (although not as well as some of the reviews claim,) and the plot progresses at a good pace. There's frequent changes in the surroundings as the characters try to survive by moving from one location to another. So it never gets boring. The characters, even though they're plain old boring normal people, are likable and have depth. Their backgrounds are established through lots of flashbacks. The title of the game itself is based on those flashbacks. Scenes that happened before the apocalypse start with the title "then", and scenes taking place after the apocalypse start with "now". The vast majority of the game consists of "now" scenes.
The renders (or rather screenshots, since this is using Honey Select rather than ray tracing) are quite good. I didn't even know Honey Select could do these environments. And there's a ton of them too. Probably thousands. It's still HS though, so don't expect realistic characters. They all have this weird 3D anime style to them, but after a couple hours I got used to it. Tons of animation too during sex scenes.
The ending is nothing special. Pretty much what you'd expect. This isn't a game with twists and turns or saving the world. Weirdly, this still makes it feel worthwhile.
Now, if the sex scenes were actually hot, this would have been a solid 5 star game. But, they are boring and this is an AVN after all, where both the porn and the story are important. Definitely not a game to fap to. Which makes me think that perhaps with some alterations it could stand on its own as a mainstream, non-porn VN.
