3XXX: NAKED HUMAN BOMBS

I liked this game a lot more on the second replay, but I still have gripes. I feel conflicted writing this review, though! Part of my complaint is that a lot of this is just a blatant wish fulfillment thing, but that's also kind of the point of the entire work!! I think what I want to complain about is the way that the quality of the work sometimes gets compromised in service of the fantasy. For some reason, I felt compelled to write a long and rambling stream-of-consciousness response to the work:

First of all, I was expecting a very different story based on the prologue, and it threw me for a loop a bit. I think I only got a lot of what I got out of this on the second play-through because once I knew what was going on, everything becomes a lot more meaningful and doesn't just feel gratuitous. I don't know how you would fix this, but more foreshadowing from the start might have helped. When it was my first play-through, I felt like the first part really set up this dark noir mystery vibe where the hardened detective is investigating deaths, and now the protagonist has suddenly become a (Spoiler - click to show)bit of a ditz and her only concern is clothes and how cute she is.

(Minor aside: (Spoiler - click to show)I don't necessarily like that the drugs de-aged the protagonist and made her more attractive as well. Can't put my finger on why, but I would REALLY want this to turn her into a middle-aged woman and keep her eye bags and all.) It's also completely contradictory that she's supposed to be buying clothes to REDUCE incidents, but then the shopping scene options are like. Maid uniform! Select which appealing bra type you want! Red high heels! Sex it up!
One thing I like here is that each option for even clothing choices reveals a new dimension of this world and is often hilarious (particular shout-out to the nun stuff).

Act II starts, and the characters just sit down and loredump about how the 2000s used to be so sexually liberated, but all these historical changes have happened since. It's way clunkier than the first act IMO. We then get a scene between (Spoiler - click to show) protag and love interest, which does serve to establish some of the love interest's repressions and issues, and is pretty good as a sex scene. But! I still just get the feeling that Ollie is sort of just this ideal perfect wish-fulfillment boyfriend! He goes immediately from sobbing because Taura is on top of him to being super into guiding her verbally through it, and always saying the perfect thing at the right time. The narration gets more "tell-not-show"-y about Ollie here too.

The scene after this is excellent. I love that the uncensoring affects the characters and the narration at the same time, and there's a sense of relaxation and catharsis here. The essay scene is simply peak. The option which talks more about how she used to revel in punishing rebels of society is GREAT. This is my favorite part by far.

In Act III, I particularly love that he frames the reforms as being a national security concern. PEAK centrist. I still think that a lot of this is overly explain-y. I would want to see more discussion between characters about what they think about Bradbury's ideas instead of just having an entire paragraph summarizing the content of his speech! The last scene is pretty good, but I do have the logistical gripe of: how on EARTH would she intuit that he would even be into the final act??? If it's a guess, that's a pretty risky one!!!

The epilogue is beautiful and touching. I would also like to stress that everything I have said here is with respect to the author and in the hope that they write more in the future.