Lobster is the new

 Oh no... it's a romance visual novel LOL

Since getting into tarot and its history (along with other cartomancy practices), I decided to download the app The Arcana to finally try out since it's a story kinda based on the marjor arcana archetypes. It's been a good several years since I last played a VN romance game, that being Mystic Messenger, though I didn't end up making it through all the way to that one (I loved the novelty of the chat, but staying up to ungodly hours just to get unique dialogue was a nope from me).

I like the multiple routes you have to pick from, love the diversity and that they didn't feel the need to make it strictly heteronormative between both the player (apprentice?) character, the romanceable characters, and the romanceable character's relationships with each other when you pick certain routes.

I also had the good luck in timing of getting into the game last weekend, steadily playing during the workweek (I was happy enough to wait for my keys to refill during my work hours so I could go through a chunk of story morning and night), and then this past weekend was a special infinite key limited time event! Could be a good or bad thing, having to binge through Nadia's route and trying to get through Julian's route now. 

I finished Asra's route first and I figured I'd like him as my favorite character, but to be honest his story route was a bit too vanilla/disjointed for some reason? I thought with the established history of Some kind of romantic relationship that there would be more of the yearning, learning to trust one another again trepidation--a lot of the stuff I expected to happen in this route happened in Julian's route and it frustrated me LOL.

One of the things that bothered me at first was how the paid responses for Asra's routes were mostly ones I feel the apprentice would respond with, but lacking the coins I would usually not pick them--and if the question preceding that choice happened with a flirty tone, and you essentially reject Asra's hint, he basically goes on without a reaction? I think there was one late-game line he throws out about being a fan of delayed-gratification and I was like whoa, you are way too horny for when we are still in the surrounded by danger and murder-goat-ghosts palace. 

Whereas Nadia, being so forward with wanting to spoil you even from the prologue chapters, she'll flat out comment on not wanting to make you nervous or embarrassed, but still presses on to hint that yes, she still wants to do whatever thing with you that you rejected down line when it was a more appropriate time, and that was ALL I WANTED from Asra's route. Some kind of acknowledgement instead of just "well I guess you didn't hear what I was implying, let's carry on!"

It just felt like Nadia's and Julian's route were made to be more engaged with the apprentice and their responses, but somehow Asra would just either not respond or get carried away thinking, "ah yes, nothing has changed even though I disappear frequently and you have missing memories. We should make out now" Like wtf bro WHAT lol. 

Nadia's route had a good balance I think of the relationship forming trust, and also the background details like the Courtiers being obviously non-human. I haven't finished Julian's route yet, and I'm still mad that I didn't foresee the trope they would pull for him on how his curse mark works--mad because I feel called out that I may have a type LOL. I actually don't think it's a specifically named trope, but that he's self-sacrificial to a fault; just the whole absorbing wounds from others in order to caretake while joking about it is OOF. I figured he was a fan favorite just for the way he's designed and his superficial flirtiness/comedic personality, I wasn't prepared to actually feel for his storyline.

Probably one thing to note is that I've only seen one paid scene in Asra's route that I knew would get horny, but it was like the writing style completely changed, or how should I put it? Perhaps unless you had selected ALL the paid choices up until then, it wouldn't feel as jarring that he would feel so comfortable and physical with the apprentice when every other conversation before or after seems so platonic. At some point in the story he would switch with being more PDA with the apprentice, and the other characters don't seem to really flinch, I suppose because they assume you continued to have a close relationship? I might have to replay his route just to be sure I wasn't just missing something, but the interactions felt the most inconsistent in Asra's route. And after seeing what the paid choice could be like once, I wasn't super motivated to have to go back and re-read and unlock different ones for different characters.

Why play a romance VN if not for the horny routes though? I just wanna see what the hype was about (I realize I'm a few years late but still), and maybe I'm more of a slowburn fanfic fan than just trying to get the random horny fixes during an unfolding story (I'm sorry, but just the random skinny dipping or running away during an impending plague situation--the timing just seems so forced to me). I'm glad that you can basically go through the story without those options and it feels like a natural story, and one with interesting side characters to enrich the world too.