While incredibly short, to the point of being able to finish it leisurely within 45 minutes, I actually enjoyed DareSora's first part enough to be looking forward to the other, upcoming episodes.

It does rather well presenting the reader with a mystery, building up drama and then rushing straight to the lunatic conclusion, which offers more questions, some hints, and insane "fun", competently voice acted. The premise and execution certainly have me intrigued and I didn't have any trouble just breezing through it in one sitting, without getting distracted. The pacing generally works out well, especially seeing how this could be viewed as a prologue episode to the VN.

Where it falls a tad short is with its characterizations of three of the four club members, only two plus one of which you are able to meet on a single playthrough, due to start-of-game-randomization. There simply isn't enough time to develop these three characters properly, especially since they prove little more than hangers-on in the group scenes, where the focus is firmly on the protagonist and Mio, the guaranteed character. With only a single choice in the novel, you'll only be able to elaborate a little more on one of the three secondary characters per playthrough, although save/load shenanigans are possible, as these choices do not appear to influence the story beyond the impressions the scenes will give the reader.

On the flipside, I thought Mio was rather well-developed and I took a liking to her almost immediately. Her role in the novel going forward is going to be interesting to follow. In that sense, I felt it easy to relate to the protagonist's views. Generally, though, I wish that the other characters had been constructed a little more like Mio's role, at least in terms of building familiarity and depth of relationships, especially since the story flashes ahead and skips a few days at one point - time which could have been used to fill in exactly the kind of scenes that would have benefitted the cast.

But then again, the brief nature of the story as a whole, with its relative lack of excess fat, mirrors the opening scene quite clearly. It strips the story of meandering scenes, skips chances for boredom, and reaches its twist with fanfares. I can applaud the author's intent here.

Looking at the main menu / banner art, I am certainly hopeful for future episodes to realize more of DareSora's inherent potential. I'll be keeping my eyes and ears open for further releases. As it stands, with only this first, very brief episode, though, I can't say that I didn't get my money's worth out of it, or that I didn't feel satisfied by the way the story was delivered. While I certainly have questions and would be somewhat upset if they decided to not release any more than this, it'd have more to do with the story's potential being snuffed, rather than dissatisfaction with the first episode. Just realize what you're in for and take it on it's own merits.

While incredibly short, to the point of being able to finish it leisurely within 45 minutes, I actually enjoyed DareSora's first part enough to be looking forward to the other, upcoming episodes. It does rather well presenting the reader with a mystery, building up drama and then rushing straight to the lunatic conclusion, which offers more questions, some hints, and insane "fun", competently voice acted. The premise and execution certainly have me intrigued and I didn't have any trouble just breezing through it in one sitting, without getting distracted. The pacing generally works out well, especially seeing how this could be viewed as a prologue episode to the VN. Where it falls a tad short is with its characterizations of three of the four club members, only two plus one of which you are able to meet on a single playthrough, due to start-of-game-randomization. There simply isn't enough time to develop these three characters properly, especially since they prove little more than hangers-on in the group scenes, where the focus is firmly on the protagonist and Mio, the guaranteed character. With only a single choice in the novel, you'll only be able to elaborate a little more on one of the three secondary characters per playthrough, although save/load shenanigans are possible, as these choices do not appear to influence the story beyond the impressions the scenes will give the reader. On the flipside, I thought Mio was rather well-developed and I took a liking to her almost immediately. Her role in the novel going forward is going to be interesting to follow. In that sense, I felt it easy to relate to the protagonist's views. Generally, though, I wish that the other characters had been constructed a little more like Mio's role, at least in terms of building familiarity and depth of relationships, especially since the story flashes ahead and skips a few days at one point - time which could have been used to fill in exactly the kind of scenes that would have benefitted the cast. But then again, the brief nature of the story as a whole, with its relative lack of excess fat, mirrors the opening scene quite clearly. It strips the story of meandering scenes, skips chances for boredom, and reaches its twist with fanfares. I can applaud the author's intent here. Looking at the main menu / banner art, I am certainly hopeful for future episodes to realize more of DareSora's inherent potential. I'll be keeping my eyes and ears open for further releases. As it stands, with only this first, very brief episode, though, I can't say that I didn't get my money's worth out of it, or that I didn't feel satisfied by the way the story was delivered. While I certainly have questions and would be somewhat upset if they decided to not release any more than this, it'd have more to do with the story's potential being snuffed, rather than dissatisfaction with the first episode. Just realize what you're in for and take it on it's own merits.