Update Two Hundred and Eighty-Four: 3 March 2019

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Are you for real, guys, two bait and switch games in a row?

Unfortunately, AIdol isn’t really about falling in love with a robot idol, much to my disappointment. In fact, said idol (Aiko) has VERY little actual screentime in the game! It’s a more personal journey about the main character (Hana) overcoming her shyness and helping Aiko from afar by intervening in some business trouble and making friends along the way.

Which… isn’t… bad, although a good two thirds of the plot threads in the game aren’t really compelling to me. It’s just not what drew me to this. It’s an interesting angle, to be sure—for once, people working at a megacorp aren’t seen as being completely evil, and this game is a big celebration of, like, idol culture and conventions and stuff, which is… cute…

But do I really care about two of the employees having a tryst when one is engaged to someone else? About the ultimate “main antagonist”’s daughter trying to be an idol? About the wacky friends Hana makes? God, saying it out loud comes off as VERY uncharitable, but I just felt like there was a glass wall between me and what was happening—almost certainly because I was waiting for something that never came.

It’s hard to judge it on its merits beyond that. It’s fine, just without a real spark. The art is cute, though the artist has a tic of having thing highlights of white in the corners of the character’s mouths, which is meant to be like lip gloss or something probably but instead just looks like spit has accumulated there that they’ve neglected to wipe off. The UI is cute but there’s SO much slow transitions between menu screens or even pulling the menu up…

Gah, I’m just going to be crotchety about this. I was really hoping for something else.

Next up: Oh man, this VN looks to be VERY short.

See you… probably later today!