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mission: it's complicated (M/M, F/F, F/M, NB/F, NB/M, free)

• overall: A. enjoyment: S.
• mission: it's complicated is a superhero themed matchmaker sim. you send your chosen heroes on missions together to help them grow closer and explore their romances in VN segments (formatted to appear like a chatlog) -- all so you can save the world with the power of love! i don't cover many matchmaker sims, though i do love them. if you're only interested in games where you yourself are at the center of every romance, you probably won't. but its a fun game with high replay value, cute romances, good writing, and charming characters. definitely worth a play.
• plot: C. you play as a long-time superhero fan(/shipper) and researcher. one day, however, you're contacted by a future version of yourself and encouraged to start your own superhero team -- you need to save the world, and you can only do so by getting two heroes to fall in love! its a simple plot, but the little details such as the time loop and you spontaneously spouting gibberish every time you attempt to tell anyone what's going on really bring it all together. ...and then the true ending, which is pretty dumb, brings it back down. still, it works very well for what it is.
• characters: S. they are, in a word, fantastic. its very rare in this genre for me to find a game where i actually love every character, but this is it. they're all well designed, though a couple of their costumes seem a little silly to me, but their personalities shine through the writing more than anything. they're fully developed with rich lives and backstories to uncover, and charming personalities that develop even further as you go along. the supporting cast is great as well, intriguing and full of appealing designs.
• writing: S. its great. its funny and light hearted when it needs to be, and emotional and dramatic when it wants to be. there's no mood whiplash, everything's balanced very well, and the dialogue all feels like real people talking about their real issues. the extensive worldbuilding and character backstories are teased in a way that makes you really eager to learn more, but for the most part left as mysteries. it just adds to the appeal even more.
• routes: zael & nightgaunt > wifi/nightgaunt > riptide/nightgaunt > nightgaunt & zirconia > zael/riptide > riptide & wifi > wifi/zael > zael/zirconia > riptide & zirconia > wifi/zirconia
• gameplay: B. the majority of gameplay consists on choosing a pair of heroes to send on missions, tailoring your choices to the mission details for the best results. your chosen pairs will grow closer, at which point you can send them on dates with VN style dialogue options that will help them speed up their bonding. while its actually fairly simple, the presentation makes it a lot more enjoyable; its really fun to try and figure out who will do the best on a certain mission, and try and score special CGs for the more interesting outcomes. you also have the ability to skip the dialogue portions of the missions, sending you right to the results, which speeds up replaying substantially. unfortunately, the same feature doesn't exist for the dates. as you need to be at certain relationship levels for some mission outcomes, it does mean having to replay those scenes over and over again if you can't get the mission you're looking for. dialogue choices in the dates are pretty thorough, however, and while they won't change the direction of the conversation too much there's still some replay value in exploring different topics and seeking out hidden lore.
• art: A. its cute! its very stylized and not always to my taste, but its clearly high quality and every picture has a lot of personality. there are a huge number of CGs, and the compositions are very good. the UI and general layout is also very smooth, polished, and nice to look at.