Really the thing that I feel I appreciate here the most, beyond all other elements of what Friendsim does, is the way it's a goofy visual novel with the simultaneously lowest and highest stakes one could have. On one hand, you're in a constant tightrope where your character is likely to get killed through the most minute, stupid interactions possible, and yet, the entire game is based around largely low stakes, chill character interactions with the ultimate goal of just, making friends with a bunch of goofy characters. It's all just some goofy fun that makes for a mostly great vibe game, but it ends up being kinda muddled thanks to the wildly disparate quality of everything from route to route. It's kinda ridiculous putting a lot of sprites back to back and seeing just how terrible some of them look, but that's still not as distracting as the writing side of things.
While you've got a lot of routes hat feel pretty similar in vibe (in a good way) being just like I said, low stakes hangouts with quirky characters, there are some choices that entirely miss the mark. Of these, the biggest offenders are whenever things try delving further into the weird, overarching story that the game tries to establish, usually leading to a lot of boring expositional dialogue vaguely relating to timelines and fate and stuff, or they're a certain pair of routes in the last couple volumes, specifically those relating to Marvus and Lanque. Not only does the writing quality feel like a severe dip in places to the point where it feels like a poorly written fanfic, but they're oddly horny in a way that just, really, really doesn't vibe, especially when as said, most of this has been about making friends with others and nothing more. To have these two characters be inexplicably thirsted over by the protagonist is not only total whiplash from most of what else is going on, but it's made all the worse by the fact that it just feels weird and creepy in how it's framed. Still though, even with there being some tremendous dips in quality and a general sense of inconsistency, I still had a good time with this, and think that it was a wonderful chillout game for a bit of comfy fun.
While you've got a lot of routes hat feel pretty similar in vibe (in a good way) being just like I said, low stakes hangouts with quirky characters, there are some choices that entirely miss the mark. Of these, the biggest offenders are whenever things try delving further into the weird, overarching story that the game tries to establish, usually leading to a lot of boring expositional dialogue vaguely relating to timelines and fate and stuff, or they're a certain pair of routes in the last couple volumes, specifically those relating to Marvus and Lanque. Not only does the writing quality feel like a severe dip in places to the point where it feels like a poorly written fanfic, but they're oddly horny in a way that just, really, really doesn't vibe, especially when as said, most of this has been about making friends with others and nothing more. To have these two characters be inexplicably thirsted over by the protagonist is not only total whiplash from most of what else is going on, but it's made all the worse by the fact that it just feels weird and creepy in how it's framed. Still though, even with there being some tremendous dips in quality and a general sense of inconsistency, I still had a good time with this, and think that it was a wonderful chillout game for a bit of comfy fun.