Man of the House Review (Torcha09)
I've got 7 hours so far across two play sessions. So far, I've seen 2 BJ scenes with random one off girls who are not the focus of the game and have bare minimum context, not satisfying, and no progress past that is possible with them.
Each 3.5 hour session can be roughly broken down as follows:
50 minutes reading/looking at character art in dialogue, 50 minutes mulling over decisions and deciding what to do next, 110 minutes clicking through repetitive actions.
Having a majority of gameplay time spent on repetitive actions is not ideal, and feels like a huge waste of time. And let me clarify, when I say repetitive, I mean you repeat the same exact steps, over, and over. From menus, with no variation. I literally had to go to sleep, wake at 8AM 5 times in a row to see the exact scene 5 times, gain 5 relationship points for the same girl, and then do the same thing, different parameters, 5 times.
For me, games like this that are purposeful excessive grind make it so that I feel less aroused and more...impatient. I feel like I want to rush everything, and then when I do finally get some morsels of content, I'm not invested because I'm ultimately stressed out. For that reason, I really cannot recommend this, unless you have a plethora of time to waste and don't get annoyed by repetitive and unrewarding gameplay. There is some decent writing and fun interactions, as well as good 3d renders to be had. A lot of people seem to rate this game highly. But those people either have way too much time on their hands, haven't played any better games for real reference, or cheated. I personally like to play games the way they were designed, but this one is just...taxing.
One thing is done particularly well here, the loop of eating/sleeping/etc and time management is well executed to the point that it feels kinda like a "one more turn" game, where you can't help but try to get through one more day to see if you make a little more progress, like a Civilization game or similar strategy. But as I said, the fun and reward are very sparse here, and I'm sure I'll unlock most/all of the really sexy stuff at the very end of the game/grind.
What I would love to see here is the ability to really focus on girls that go quicker, or some girls who are early game, and others who are late game, and that it only takes a few hours to see most of their content. Humor or actually fun minigames could also go a long way here. If you want to see a game that is much more respectful of your time, includes fun little minigames, and overall has a similar delivery as far as sexy 3d is concerned, I'd say to check out Hack and Stalk 2. Not sure it's on steam or not...