Superscout Review

So you’re poor with a job as a receptionist and hesitate to “boost” anybody because you will suffer financially, like if they give you a gift, food, or lend you a shirt. But there is one good side-effect: you have extra romantic appeal.

There are seven women in the prequel but only really four of them are romance options. Two of the “non-romance” options get barely any screen time. That said there is 5 hours first run through and another 2-3 to unlock the side paths videos. The way to unlock some side paths is unclear, which is annoying. And when going back through the storyline, I’m not sure how it’s saving progress because it seems to half work. Doesn’t seem to be a way to reset saved progress. That said, the quality of acting is very good. The game is actually surprisingly laugh-out-loud funny, it almost breaks the fourth wall a few times which is great. The first-person hand animations are hilarious sometimes in a slapstick kind of way.

Three of the four romance options link to this Scout ability, and they actually know about the deity. One romance develops late and steals the show. The fourth involves pretending to be a husband for your boss, and to give you an idea of how good the romance is, this one alone would be enough for one game. There is also a pretty great boxing fight scene with two of the romance options. While all romances are incomplete, it actually would not take much to conclude some of them because they feel 80% done. Maybe another hour for each character. Lin Jia and Ye Shu are the best, but Tang Xiaolan and Zhou Yang are not far behind. There is quite good emotion to their connection with you and the deity.

The translation is okay.. there are some incomprehensible words and sentences, some of the english text overlaps badly. Also the text scrolls very fast, so if your reading speed is slow (<250) you might have to pause a few times. Even a quick reader might have trouble focusing on the characters if they are reading.

Sadly the prequel drops away near the end. The card game is terrible because it is long and bizarre–they literally play act a meme (might be a Chinese cultural thing)–even though the actors are generally just being playful. The ending is pretty silly as well when they all get together. General rule of thumb is that any scene with more than three women takes away from the whole experience.

Because it’s a prequel it’s going to leave you without a feeling of conclusion, which is a pretty big problem for a romance experience. But the stuff that works here is good enough to overcome that. It’s just a good fun time with some heartfelt romance.