Returning to Mia review
This is quite possibly the most exasperatingly blue-balled adult visual novel I have ever played.
As the player directing the male protagonist, you are granted precisely zero agency during the sexual sequences. What manner of AVN systematically withholds control from the central character in this way? Every intimate scene inexorably channels toward anal penetration, ending either in external ejaculation or climax inside the anus. Across the entire experience there is only a single vaginal creampie — shared between Sadie and Cindy — and from that solitary instance nothing of narrative consequence ever develops.
Having exhaustively followed every available walkthrough in an effort to extract maximum content, I still find the storyline feels abruptly truncated and hastily resolved. A substantial number of questions are left unanswered. What becomes of the protagonist’s relationships with the other love interests once he ends things with Sadie and commits to Mia? What of Isla, Laura, Grace, Vivian, Cindy, Stefanie, Emma and the rest? The narrative simply proceeds as though nothing of genuine significance occurred, only for the epilogue to present the protagonist as a reformed and steadfastly loyal partner to Mia — so much so that he declines an advance from a woman in a club on the grounds of that newfound fidelity. The portrayal is especially jarring given that, even after the separation from Sadie, he continues sleeping with Laura; the story then leaps forward and suddenly recasts him as a devoted monogamist. The character never truly absorbs a sufficiently hard lesson, nor does he earn the development that would make such loyalty feel earned or credible.
Why, moreover, must Cindy serve as the catalyst for the decision to leave Sadie (especially if you’ve already pursued Isla at home)? Why is deception not treated as a sufficiently effective tool for keeping Sadie reassured? Cindy’s choice to relay a half-formed account only intensifies Sadie’s suspicions for no clear narrative purpose — effectively leaking information without justification with the idea to turn Cindy into an unreliable and untrustworthy woman.
The breakup itself could have been far more painful and deliberately paced had Sadie learned directly from the protagonist the full extent of his concurrent involvements with multiple women — or, better still, had the separation occurred while she was pregnant. Either approach would have raised both the emotional stakes and the sense of genuine risk and consequence. Something the game clearly not do enough to truly teach the MC properly.
For a title that occupies some 17.3 GB of storage, the experience ultimately reduces to a mere ten chapters that offer little of lasting substance beyond repeated frustration. This seems to stem from developers who chose to play it safe with the protagonist and who, from the outset, predetermined the eventual “winner” — hardly surprising, of course, given that Mia already features in the game’s title.