Guilty Pleasure

I would have to say that Guilty Pleasure is probably the smallest step away a visual novel game can be before it is classed as just a kinetic visual novel. That does not automatically mean it’s bad, far from it. I have played many great kinetic visual novels over the years. Anyway, this is a high-school drama kind of story and it has had frequent mini updates since it was launched to move the story along. As far as I can tell, the current version out there (as I write this) is not the final version so there is probably more to come to the story.

High School Never Ends!

If you get that Bowling For Soup reference me and you are officially punk rocking kindred spirits! The plot of Guilty Pleasure I think starts off pretty strongly. We play like your average everyday high school dude who is just about to graduate. You get roped into helping your buddy throw the big graduation party, but this whole thing has kind of awakened these feelings you have for someone, someone that perhaps you should not have feelings for.

Not Quite American Pie Or American Beauty

After the first 15 to 20 minutes, I was sure that Guilty Pleasure was going to be a game for me. I have always gotten a kick out of the gross out high school style comedies ever since I was in high school myself. However, this is going for a more serious kind of story, but at the same time, it really lacks the dramatic chops to make it happen. I feel like they had a great premise at the start, but then kind of got lost in how to tell the story they wanted to tell. After the first update, I must admit that I was pretty darn lost with what was going on!

Summer Loving!

The quality of the graphics in Guilty Pleasure are excellent. I really think that we are living in a golden age when it comes to renders in adult games. These characters look great and they do not look so young that it is creepy. They have more realistic proportions, but at the same time, they all have rocking bodies. Speaking of rocking, this game has some great animated sex scenes. I did not come across a ton of sex scenes while I was playing, but the ones I did were very well done.

Counting The Choices

I really do think that Guilty Pleasure is as close to being a kinetic visual novel as you can get without technically being called one. You do get to make a few choices, but I can count on one hand the number of times it happened. I also never really felt like the choices I was making had a massive impact on the story or if they did, I certainly never felt like they did.

Pros:

• The premise of the story is pretty cool
• There are some interesting characters
• The game has some excellent character renders
• It is still being updated

Cons:

• The story loses momentum very quickly
• There is a lack of choices and the ones you do make do not feel like they matter all that much