Animal Lover

[got_quiet]

Name: Animal Lover
Status: Complete
Site: https://trainwreckstudios.itch.io/animal-lover
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: F/M
Description: Animal is a double entendre. The game is kind of about toxic masculinity and forgiveness.

Animal lover is an otome game, so F/M, where 6 guys have been cursed by a witch, and the MC is the only person who seems to be able to temporarily turn them back by kissing them.  You run around the first part of the game trying to find as many animals who are actually guys that you can, and then the latter part is figuring out how to permanently undo the curse and keep them human forever. Each guy was cursed at a different time. The eldest is Edmund, who is an actual prince from many hundreds of years ago. The rest of them come from America in the 20th and 21st centuries, including a guy from the 50s, 80s, 90s, and then one from very recently. They all have stories and personalities that are tied to those times, which is a neat way to provide variety.

 

Story wise the game is alright. It engages with slightly grayer morality than it might first appear, because every one of the LI's got cursed because they did something sexist and shitty to a witch, pushing her past her tolerance for their behavior. And while you can choose to forgive or not, it's by forgiving that you get successful romances and good ends. This raises the question of whether or not it's your place to forgive them for something they did to someone else, or whether or not they are really sorry for what they did when only if you successfully romance a guy will they come clean about their behavior and express genuine remorse. They also all have some sort of excuse, usually outside pressure or a compulsion to perform some sort of toxic masculinity in front of other guys. The witch who cursed them, Aadara, is framed as a villain, but tbh if I had the power to turn a guy who was trapping me in a room demanding I date him into a dog I'd do it too.

Generally this game is very weak when it comes to choice mechanics. The plotting is linear and there is not much deviation ever. The individual romances are triggered in a relatively lazy manner. You just need to agree with the guy you're going for whenever you have the chance, and the chances you are given are typically superficial and removed from any plot relevant decisions. They mostly happen during a truth or dare game that doesn't advance the plot. Choices made that are not tied in some way to the guys are straight up inconsequential. If you pick the one the game doesn't want you to, the game will simply tell you that you can't -actually- do that and you will end up forced into option two anyway. Occasionally a choice will get you a little aside before it puts you back on track, but generally, almost all of the choices felt meaningless. For example, you can choose to have toast or not for breakfast. You can choose to complain about something, but if you choose not to you let slip your complaint anyway, and so on and so forth. Even at the very end, you can decide to tell Aadara that you think she's a bitch for what she did or not, but if you choose no, she will press you and you will admit that yes, you think she is a bitch after all. It feels like the game doesn't want to consider that the player hasn't come to the conclusions it wants them to. I think the game misses out on a chance to go much harder on taking Aadara's side. Playing it was a little uncomfortable because of this, because it does feel at times that you are letting the LIs off the hook, and Aadara is right when she accuses you of helping just because you got suckered into the LI's hotness and sob stories.


 

When the choices do matter, aka when you need to prefer a guy over another, I think you need to be pretty consistent with it, because the opportunity to make clear your preference doesn't happen often. If you do it right you get two extra scenes, one date and one epilogue. The guy you romanced will also confess to you what they actually did to get cursed, and if you forgive them you get the good end. However, there is an exception. There is apparently a canonical LI, aka, a guy that gets more content than the rest. In my first run through Kyle got a scene all by himself even though I hadn't done anything special with him. This led me to wonder if the other guys also would get little moments where their stories were explored more, but they don't. He also is the only LI where you can have either a good end or bad end romance. None of the other guys have this extra layer, although Edmund comes close by virtue of being the first guy you find.

The first time I played I think I just got lucky and was able to romance Edmund, which is a pretty sweet romance, and his transgression is probably the least bad of the bunch, mainly because he's a medieval prince and his remorse felt a little more legitimate. His romance also felt the most natural because he's the first guy you run into, and you spend a little more time with him alone throughout the game because of this.

Running the game a second time was a bit of a pain. The game engine is RenPy but it's been modified to be less convenient. You can't scroll back, so you have to live with all choices unless you've saved. (Since the choices don't typically matter this isn't terrible, unless you fuck up in the 4 places or so it does matter romance wise) The skip button in the UI isn't a fast forward button but just literally warps you to the next choice, but only after forcing you to confirm every time. It feels very clunky, and when I thought that was the only option I wasn't planning on going all routes because it would feel too tedious, but the tab button still works as a traditional fast forward,  so I did end up playing through every route anyway. Since the choice system is simplistic it wasn't hard to rush through and grab the bonus scenes for each guy.


 

The art and sound is decent. Everyone looks fine and there is good emote range. The music is thematic and not jarring. The writing is fine but sometimes is shaky with pulling off the conceit of a bunch of people coming from different eras. While there are a number of jokes and references to guys from the 50s and 80s speaking weird and learning about modern life they aren't consistent and everyone's manner of speaking is ultimately ultra modern 2017 language. The guy from the 1950s for example says things like "whatever" and "cool." It's lampshaded somewhat by saying that even though they were animals they were exposed to the language around them, which alright, even though they had no concept of just how much time had passed for them.

 

I would say that this was a firmly OK game. It doesn't do anything particularly badly, but it also doesn't take too much advantage of a VN's strengths. Playing it was also a little weird, because Aadara's argument for why the LIs should be cursed to live out an eternity as hamsters and ferrets was pretty strong. If you romance a guy he is able to express real remorse for his behavior, but it still feels kind of weird to be okay with them after having only known them for a little while. Did any of these guys really learn their lesson? The game ends before I'm able to say.