Thoughts on Sweet Pool, 6 years later...

So. I got a new PC early 2020, which means reinstalling any BL visual novels I had. I've long since dropped Omerta but I still have Lamento in my folders. It's a pain to go through everything again, but nothing is as much of a hassle as replaying Sweet Pool. One, the game is at odds with the english patch and I have no idea when the save function will decide to stop working; second, the english patch is incomplete and buggy in of itself. I managed to complete everything with little incident (I expected the saves to fail so no big deal), thanks to the fanbook.

The game is still as disgusting as I remembered. Ahh I feel oddly nostalgic. I remember playing the game alone in my shared dorm room, feeling sick whenever I use the toilet, restless nights and anxiety for a whole week... it scarred me, yet I think of this game fondly.

The last time I played may have been 5 years ago, but I can remember most of the important details, thanks to 4shiki's great review of the game. The game relies heavily on exposition for its world building, coupled with disgusting imagery and insane biblical references.

Despite being a visual novel, the main theme is not romance, and as the steam page appropriately describes: 'something deeper and darker than love'. There are three characters whom the protagonist Youji can 'romance', but none of the 6 endings are good. Only Tetsuo's route has any resemblance of a twisted love with 4 endings to his name. The game has rape (what vn doesn't), cannibalism, gore, cults and the disturbing supernatural. There is nothing sweet about Sweet Pool. The tone of the game is sombre and unsettling, but it just makes the briefest moments of intimacy even more real.

Whatever that happened between Youji and Tetsuo isn't particularly romantic. It's all stuff you could observe in a typical tooth-rotting fluffy shoujo manga and I can count all these moments with only one hand! 

After some thought, the only clever description I can come up for this horrifying game is 'omegaverse with hemorrhoids'.