[Review for Part 1]
The renders are amazing. The animations are good as well, but this looks like Koikatsu or a similar engine, so the animations are probably not the author's merit here.
One nice point is that there are tons of side events occurring around. It's interesting to see the story of these side characters advance. Though sometimes it's a bit hard to keep track or recognize who's who, as the game doesn't make it easy to recognize or follow these characters.
The story is brainless, as expected, full of plotholes and nonsenses. This and Inoda's "special unique skill" serves no purpose at all besides making Asuna pity him and inviting him to their party. Maybe this will be more explored in the next part, but even though it was said that he was "lucky" to get this skill, it had no impact in the story at all. Or was it supposed to be that invisibility skill? If so, that's just a common thief's skill, not something "unique".
The battles are not annoying, surprisingly. Kirito has an OP 27-hit combo skill that just melts everything and his HP and MP regenerates every turn, so the battles are pretty quick and there aren't a lot.
That said, the fact that we can't skip text, speed up animations, or fast-forward battles is a big minus. The walking speed also felt slow after a while. Fixing those things would make the game's flow much better.
My other grip is that Kirito has no business being the protagonist of this game. Maybe I'm just not the target audience, as I've seen in countless netorare stories where the cuckolded ML seems to find it more exciting not knowing/seeing everything.
But for me, seeing only tids and bits of the scenes made the game less enjoyable. The fragmented scenes felt like I was watching a Youtube shorts or Tiktok videos, it just shows you some out of context video without beginning or end, no connection. It feels lacking. In my eyes, it comes across as lazy storytelling. It's like those 10~20s short animation porn videos: "why are these characters having sex?", "how did they get here?", "what's their relationship?". For a lone, short video, it's fine not going into the details, but that's unforgivable for a game that plays almost like a visual novel. I'm willing to believe that this is a genuine subgenre, though.
In my opinion, Inoda should have been the protagonist. He's clearly (surely?) an OC and became a main character in the story, I can't find logical arguments to make sense him not being the protagonist. The game would have been much more engaging seeing things from his perspective. Watching Asuna's gradual fall, fully fleshed out and unfiltered. That would have been 10 times better. Instead, we're forced to watch Kirito play in the arcade with his other cuck friend while Asuna is blowing Inoda in the park... We're forced to help Kirito make a cup of ramen while Inoda is balls deep in Asuna on the other side of the wall.
The only merit of having Kirito as the protagonist is Suguha's side story, as Hebishima fits the mold of a typical netorare villain, and the plot follows the "Netorare Plot 101 Guide" almost step by step. However, even Suguha's side story feels secondary, with fewer events than the random encounters around town. Kirito could have served better as a deuteragonist, only taking center stage during these specific moments.
All in all, the strong point of the game is the renders. Every girl that appears is quite hot and the animation is nice, they're even voiced. But the scenes are lacking. Few, if any, are fully presented, showing from the build up to the climax. This may the cup of tea for some, though.
It took me around 6 hours to finish. It didn't feel like a chore—it was a nice ride, despite all the flaws. But you could just get a save file and watch all the scenes in the gallery room and you won't be losing a whole lot of context (there isn't a lot to begin with).
I STRONGLY adv anyone that does not care for the play style to give the rec room a try