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Those aren't determined by relationship values, though - that's dependant on choice for an event and is recalled regardless of if your standing with her is bad or good. Like plainguy said, there's nothing actually innovative beyond flavor-changes compared to other VN's.
Something more along the lines of "The Letter" and it's butterfly effect-style of branching paths - because while that game isn't perfect, the innovative and immersive extent of choice and consiquence to the story in it makes it (in my opinion) a very good example for exploring a new dynamic to relationships in a VN.
http://www.yangyangmobile.com/
If the reason for the above endorsement for "current examplar of dynamic relationship choices in VN's" isn't clear, here's the in-depth version;
In The Letter, all your choices and interactions feel a lot more meaningful in regards to not just your relationships but the kinds of events you can shape said relationships in. Some characters have entirely different relationship-spicific moments based not just on how high affection is but on what events had happened in the wider narrative beyond those two characters - the events of the story have an impact on the reletionship events, changing which ones you might get.
On top of that, The Letter manages to do the above without having every character be "player-sexual" - you can shape who they end up with, but it's not a free-for-all; they all have their own tastes or preferences. That, personally speaking, is where Crystalline's premise falls short of it's promises for depth - because while it touches on this with some characters (like Kara) having a preference aside from the PC's base one, it dissipoints in how pretty much nothing seems to really impact standing in general, much less have any noteworthy effect on Kara herself.
Example; if the PC is in good standings with Leanna, Kara will tease them about it in Chapter 3. But if you reject Leanna's confession in that same chapter, Kara never seems to take note of it or address the PC on Leanna's hurt feelings - even a notation like " Kara me sent a questioning look once or twice, but thankfully never asked about it directly" would have at least implied some form of consiquence in the relationship standing.
That, frankly speaking, is what my standard (or at least my current one) for "a new method of approaching relationships" is. Not simply making choice very important, but (A) making the results of said choices have lasting impact, (B) having the story itself potentially shape events in said relationship(s) and (C) vice-versa/having the relationship's events shape the story. All of which are present in The Letter - and none of which seem to be present in Crystalline, or at least not thus far (and they're running out of time to do it, since we're seemingly nearing the end of the story).
Instead of there being static outcomes like "choose this event, get obligatory mention of it here", more freeform dynamics like having a whole different way for the story to play out either one big choice or a collection of small choices would do more to make it feel like the relationsips, their effect on the story and vice-versa were actually impacted by said choices - something that leands far more to Pixel Fade's stated goal of organically-developing relationsips than their work on Crystalline thus far has done. If the bond with Leanna was supposed to be so important, have it show in her paying more attention to things the PC says - quote them on certian things they say or do, confront them on possible changes of heart or flip-flopping moral scales, keep note of the way they talk to the other people in the group, etc. Don't keep it as a static "get her affection to so-and-so level for a choice on whether or not to get a static romance" bit - that's just redoing what they did in ACE Academy, only with a single character instead of multiple others (and in ACE Academy, the multiple girls helped mitugate shortcommings in relationships because you weren't spending all your time exclusively with one girl; there were points in certian days where they just plain weren't avaliable and you had to spend time with someone else - aka, realistic to actual-life relationships).
My point in short; if Pixel Fade was going to put all the focus on one relationship and how it played out, it should have done more to have the interactions show meaningful impact on things and how the PC's choices, for the story and the characters as well as Leanna, would shape not just the direction but the kind of moments or events it would entail.
You actually noted something I missed with that last bit; if Crystalline is supposed to be focused on an in-depth relationship with Leanna, what does happen if player just doesn't want to have said relationship? That's tantamount to someone missing what's advertized as the core part of the game simply because the character it was chosen to focus on doesn't appeal to them. Then again, perhaps a bigger issue might be how said system that was advertized as a core aspect of this game isn't really something the player has to experience in order to go through the story - for all that was said about the Leanna relationship dynamics, none of it really feels like it impacts the story if you opt to ignore it.
Honestly, for what's basically supposed to be an experiemental relationship story, having the relationship not have an impact in the main story feels like a big mistep - instead, Leanna's actions and behavior in the story (so far at least) never seem to change regardless of if you date her, reject her or never get close enough to her at all. Hell, if you get her to like you but reject her confession, she quite literally goes back to the same-old same-old with only a single throwaway scene in Episode 4 to handwave it as being "it's too awkward a matter, so she'd rather just go back to how things were and not bring it up again" - pretty much the exact opposite of a changing relationship dynamic or branching experience.
From my experience playing through while purposely not going for Leanna. MC is basically kinda just there and things just blow by. It actually ends up feeling like more focus gets thrown onto Kara and Zacks relationship, since they still do all their romance scenes but all of the ones with Leanna just get skipped over and don't exist.
*gasp* The MC is Shou!
It also included Ashley as I recall, which is why I was so contemptous of the idea. Just Kaiden turning out to be bi is novel (though a little odd as it came out of nowhere), two's pushing it. But to answer your question about the issue - you're telling me that you don't see how the author reaching into an established character's personality at some of its deepest levels and changing it in a way to benefit the player isn't fanservice pandering? Truly?
Now, fanservice pandering isn't a bad thing necessarily and it's certainly a staple of the VN medium, but like everything it can be overdone and when you're completely changing major parts of character personalities just to make them like the player character when you have to axe a major character trait to do it, you're probably going too far. Well, unless you're making a pure fanservice game ala Sakura whatever where the whole point is fanservice, or DDLC where the fanservice exists to draw you in before hitting you with the twist.
For better or worse, the devs here didn't want to go all in on the fanservice game idea.
Now, I hold tnat an amorphous character isn't very interesting to read about - a Kara who decides she likes the MC and Zack is less interesting than one who likes only Zack, because characterization comes from defined traits. The less unique traits they have, the more wooden and generic they become. Take away Kara's preference for broody antihero types by genericizing her tastes and what does she have left? Well, she's flirty with a good sense of humor, I guess? And she has a tragic backstory? Geeze, she sounds like the stock flirty big sis archetype in anime at this point, right down to liking the generic nice guy harem protagonist for ill-defined reasons.
That's basically my point in the paragraph you quoted - characterization comes from unique traits that separate them from the herd of generic archetypes. A Kara who likes Zack alone has her preference for Zack's type as another trait that makes her more unique, one who like Zack or the Player (who can be defined however the player likes) is less defined. And literary mediums - of which I'd argue VNs are a part - definitely thrive off of defined characters.
This could be sidestepped by making the MC the type Kara likes, but at that point you're sacrificing one of Leanna's defining traits to serve Kara fans. Same goes for any other routes you want to include unless all these girls just happen to like broody antiheroes. (And if you're doing that, that's the sort of thing you build your hook around, not something you toss in after the fact to paper over a characterization flub.)
The only real way out of that trap in a multiple route structure is to let the player define their MC's personality - so the MC who'd catch Leanna's interest is different than the one who'd catch Kara's.
But that has its own serious flaws from a narrative and game design standpoint and I'll discuss those below.
Main characters in visual novels are almost always generic as a genre convention to allow readers to insert themselves, similar to how mainstream romance novel female leads are generally highly generic. Characters like Emiya Shirou are the exception, not the norm. Which games are you playing that give you the opportunity to wildly change the MC's personality between virginal nice guy (ie Leanna's preference) and dark and brooding anti-hero (ie Kara's preference) and have this actually matter in terms of the story, rather than just being a handful of one off scenes that affect nothing beyond the unlocks in the CG gallery and a couple lines of dialog?
Asking for a chance to define the MC as Kara's type sounds great on paper, but each wildly divergent MC personality you write adds a lot of work to the writing overhead - the kind of guy who's Kara's type is going to react to situations much differently than the kind of guy who's Leanna's, and this would have to be reflected in the narrative to one extent or another. Too little and we end up with... The situation we have now, just with more lewd Kara CGs and less lewd Leanna CGs - the only change to the game or character interactions is a few one off scenes that affect nothing. Too much and this starts looking like a huge, huge project with all that entails.
I mean, when you map out VN plots, you find very, very few VNs that do what you describe to a meaningful level precisely because of how complex it gets. Or they go with the easier option of letting players customize the MC to their liking, but having this be ultimately inconsequential.
I get what you're trying to say about how not letting the players customize their MC's personality to appeal to their preferred waifu is just like not reaching in and making the characters attracted to the MC's personality no matter what it is, but I don't agree with that premise on practical grounds. Video game player characters in general and player avatars in particular operate on different narrative rules than normal characters on account of the fact that they are ultimately controlled to one extent or another by the player and devs can only account for so much when writing the game. A normal character's (ie Kara) behavior is completely and totally up to the writer. She does nothing that they don't write her to. Player behavior in video games, even in VNs, has the player influencing the MC's behavior to some extent.
Case in point: Master Chief in the Halo narrative doesn't teabag his alien enemies even though this is something the game lets players do and something many players do in fact do. As the players get more opportunity to define their avatar's behavior, you fast reach a point where the narrative can't take all that behavior into account since devs only have so much time to write and so much money to pay voice actors and the like.
VNs have it easier in this regard because of how constrained they are in player actions, but as much as it gets a bad rap, railroading is a thing in all videogame storytelling for a reason and it won't ever actually go away. The same logic that drives you to ask "why not Kara route by letting me make my MC be her type like Zack is?" also drives someone to say "why not Amelia route by letting my MC like teenage girls and making him have a personality she'd like if I want?" or "why not Ginglain route by letting me make my MC a girl or homosexual guy with a thing for DILFs?" Taking it further, it drives one to ask "why can't I play a psycho who shanks Leanna as soon as he meets her because he hates blonde hair?"
There isn't anything wrong with any of these ideas inherently, they could all result in interesting stories if handled well, but at some point the devs have to stop asking these sorts of questions if they want to actually make anything.
And from a narrative standpoint in particular, giving the players too much hand in shaping their characters' personality is arguably worse than too little. A number of people complained about how Fallout: New Vegas' underlying narrative motivation (find the man who shot you/find the chip to get paid) didn't fit "their" character as they imagined them, because the game let players define their character in great detail. Fallout 4 ran into this issue even harder with people deciding to forget entirely about the MC's son and have adventures in the wasteland, then getting back on the main questline and chortling about how the MC is supposed to care so much about their kid that they spent years running around in the wastelands on adventures for the hell of it. The underlying themes Beth were going for in FO4, for example, were undermined by their own gameplay style.
And when your work shares more in common with a novel than a conventional video game with actual gameplay, well, undermining your own themes, characters, and narrative by giving the players too much control is a recipe for disaster since those three things are basically all you've got.
Now maybe you might say "your character doesn't have to start out as the kind of guy Kara likes, he can become that way through events in the story", but that's not a solution. The story of a man who becomes a Batman-esque brooding antihero and one who does not involves completely different events and tones, so such a story would end up having to graft wildly different stories together to make it work. That'd kill any sense of narrative unity and probably also harm the sense of the narrative's underlying meaning. In a more gameplay heavy medium that might work since nobody plays Tetris for the story, but in VNs that sort of thing is important because it's almost all you've got.
It's all well and good to say "oh, give players a Kara route if you romance her harder than Zack", but each interaction like that you include costs devtime and additional resources, especially if we're asking for it after the premise of the game was decided to be "one romance route, a bunch of friendship routes" during initial production like the devs have said.
One could certainly criticize the devs for how they apparently aimed too high just like Bioware did with the whole 'player choices matter' thing since very little seems to actually change depending on player choices even though we were led to believe things would change greatly as a result of the single romance route focus giving the devs an anchor to build on, but that's not really an indictment of the inherent idea, just the specific execution here. And I suppose technically this game isn't even done, and arguably making player choices matter more wouldn't necessarily require huge plot changes but a few new scenes and carefully chosen lines of dialog, though it would require getting the voice actors back to record more lines. Unless the player alienates everyone so much that they stop helping him in his goals, the only real change in the plot would be window dressing, really.
Heck, might just be that the most common routes are similar and we've just not found the actual wildly divergent ones. I heard someone in another thread talk about Leanna being yandere of all things depending on how you treat her.
Leanna's characterization is not tied in with another's the same way Kara and Zack's are. Heck, Kara doesn't even come into play until the second act and the plot starts moving. Cut out Zack and Kara and Leanna's character still stands on her own, though she loses some of the amusing interactions that make her appealing.
Cut out Zack and Leanna, however, and Kara's character is immenesly diminished since she's a secondary character who plays off the others and primarily Zack as her role in the narrative/
For your second point... It's not really risky to have there be just one way to shape your player character's personality in this genre - the overwhelming majority of VN protagonists either don't let you shape your player character meaningfully at all or only in very minor ways (usually relating to which waifu the player ultimately prefers). Going with the genre conventions is about the definition of unrisky.
It's quite risky to go with a VN that has only one route, and I expressed similar sentiments before, but I find myself not minding it much on a personal level and I can see why they did it and accept the reasoning even if I think it needs to go just a little further in execution. But I think you're not quite seeing some of the underlying reasoning behind the dev decisions here.
Here we go:
Well… this might be awkward for you, then. Because I’m sorry to say you've recalled wrongly - Ashley never deviates from being a strictly MaleShepard love interest. Meaning the thing you claimed was “pushing it” for you had never existed.
http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Romance
Honestly? No, I don’t - on both counts. The first is because, once again, changing a character’s personality DOES NOT automatically equate to pandering; it’s the way it’s executed that determines that, not the action itself. The second is because, frankly speaking, what was done with Kaiden really wasn't “reaching into an established character's personality at some of its deepest levels and changing it in a way to benefit the player” - that’s closer to if the likes of Joker, EDI or the Illusive Man were suddenly a romance option for Shepard, not Kaiden. Kaiden being bi doesn’t invalidate anything about him before that point, much less change the entirety of who he is, and so far you haven’t pointed out any instance where it did.
Simply put, you’re confusing a change in character with being “fanservice” - because, again, the instance with Kaiden was quite possibly the furthest thing from being “overdone”; that’d have been if they just picked any character at random to be bi. Instead, they picked a character it made more sense for, since Kaiden was defined right from the very start as one of the more open-minded, tolerant and accepting people on the crew - he even backpedals on his criticizing Shepard for joining Cerberus, which starkly contrasts Ashley’s maintaining she had a right to be angry and confused.
Kaidan’s personality made it easy to accept he could/would be bi. Even if you want to persist in calling it “fanservice”, it would still be fanservice that actually has justifiable sense behind it because it doesn’t compromise the character involved. If anything, Kaiden might actually be the single worst example you could have used for this argument - because if he’s fanservice, than he he’s arguably one of the better examples of how not to make “overdone” fanservice. His personality not only doesn’t change but is one that best accommodates the possibility of being bi.
Out of curiosity, where precisely does his being bi go about “completely changing major parts of character personalities”? If this is about his past love Rahna, that’s not changed at all - Kaiden is bi, not gay; he doesn’t stop seeing women as attractive like he did in ME1 and still does in ME3, so what “major character trait” is it you think was axed? Because personally speaking, it feels more like your argument is the one that goes too far over something that didn’t even feel like it changed what you’ve calmed it did.
This debate about the routes has nothing to do with fanservice, though; it has to do with the main characters being static cutouts who don’t have changing feelings - you know, the way actual human beings do?
Having a romance or making a character into a romance option isn’t automatically an act of “fanservice”, let alone an egregious one - it’s if the option is either (A) given to a character it makes absolutely no sense for like, say, paring Zach and Amy, or (B) is done purely for the sake of titillation without any care for building chemistry like, say, the majority of the Sakura series. By contrast of that, the concept of Kara being a romance option would not automatically make it “fanservice”, nor would it automatically make it “less interesting” - because it shows that, like any actual living human being, her behavior and likes are subject to change depending on what kind of person the MC is and how they compare to Zach. A character doesn't have to be "amorphous" to be a romance option - once again, Mass Effect soundly disproves that idea in how each of the characters can like Shepard for very different reasons; Miranda likes their capability and self-confidence, Tali likes their broad acceptance of others, Jack and Ashley like their propensity for take-charge action to get things done, etc.
Simply put, you're arbitrarily assuming that making Kara a romance option somehow requires her unique traits be removed - you know, as opposed to having her continue to flirt with Zach either way, regardless of if he returns her feelings, just because that’s the type of guy she likes to talk to? Case in point; a girl has a boyfriend with dark hair, but she still oggles boys with blonde hair because she finds blonde hair attractive - having a type doesn’t automatically mean you can’t fall in love with anybody else but that type. That's actually closer to being a LIMIT than a unique trait.
But your point has a fundamental flaw in it; it assumes that Kara being a love interest necessitates removing parts of her personality instead of incorporating them into it as something unique. If I were to choose between Kara and Leanna, I’d think the girl you have to work for and who isn’t automatically player-sexual is far more unique and interesting an experience than what’s practically a vanilla-girl personalty archetype - because honestly speaking, “honorable nice-girl maiden who’s awkward about relationships” isn’t any less a stock personally then the “flirty big-sis archetype”. And once again, I point out that maybe the problem is having there be no way to shape your PC as being anything else but the “generic nice guy harem protagonist” rather than a fault of the girls?
Maybe it’s just me, but fixed outcomes to character relationships just aren’t something I find “unique” - Kara preferring Zack’s type is a defining element and being unable to branch out past it, or the MC being unable to be shaped into said type, is a limitation. And the latter also deflates your argument for Leanna, because you the player would be electing not to see those traits as opposed to them being absent the game - again, that’s the whole point of a choosable love interest; you see more traits of the character you like as opposed to the one you don’t. That isn’t a detriment, dude - that’s the core premise of an RPG; seeing things with one choice or option that you wouldn’t see in another. Something that, again I say, doesn’t require the option you don’t pick to be axed from the game - having the option to be a broody antihero doesn’t automatically mean axing the option to not be a broody antihero.
Honestly, the “trap” your speaking of doesn’t really exist - it’s boundaries are dependent on your assumption that, somehow, a character’s personality tastes or behaviors should not be capable of even flexibility, let alone capable of change - something that runs completely counter to the concept of realistic human behavior and would necessitate a self-limiting ideal of "uniqueness = static traits without any flexibility."
But that iitself is a flaw of your argument; you’re not considering maybe it’s the static nature of a main character’s personality that’s the issue in a Kara romance, as opposed to this idea of yours that a Kara route would need parts of her character axed to work (which, as previously stated, isn’t true either).
Case in point; I would also consider Emiya Shirou to be the FURTHEST THING from “the exception”, considering how his major personality traits never change - every route shows he's caring, stubborn, puts others first, outwardly-polite, privately-sarcastic, strongly moral, doggedly devoted to whichever girl he picks. Its only his beliefs and end-goals that are subject to change, not his actual character traits. No offense, but I’d call your example the single biggest mischaracterization of a protagonist I could think of and instead is actually a big example for how you CAN have a character who’s tastes/who they love can vary without having to axe or ignore their character traits. That is not a case of a character with a changeable personality - that’s a character with a changeable viewpoint/belief.
As for games in which you can “wildly change the MC’s personality between virginal nice guy (ie Leanna's preference) and dark and brooding anti-hero (ie Kara's preference); The Dragon Age games, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II and Star Wars: The Old Republic. All of which are games in which the actions you take or choices you make can gain or lose affection or influence with other characters, thereby locking romance/relationship options with some and unlocking them in others depending on what kind of personality you build. These likewise matter in story since the ending you get can depend on which side of the spectrum you sit on - aka, who you were appealing to. Example; expect a hard time getting on the girl-character’s good sides if you’re a dark-sider in KOTOR II. Granted, I consider these more rudimentary compared to the butterfly-system of The Letter and it’s potential for entirely new branches of story and events based on single-choices, but they still stand as examples of how you can have multiple possible love interests who can be locked or unlocked based on what kind of personality you have.
Ok... this one is a big one to address in how much I feel it missed my point, so please bear with me.
First; you're assuming this method requires more work to establish when, in reality, it’s simply shifting which character’s development has potential for focus. For one, you’re assuming that every single potential possibility must be covered all at once. which is easily undercut by the same method used in building a cast of romance interests - get a group of archetypes to use as a basis and than work from there in making them feel unique. Dragon Age II experimented with this format in how you could be one of three primary archetypes; the goody-good, the joker or the broody merc. Building your own character doesn’t automatically equate to them being a start-from-scratch blank slate.
Second; different types of characters can take the same actions for different reasons - just like the many different personalities in your party have banned together for the same reason, so to can you have a MC with several different personality types take the same choice for different reasons. The kind of guy Leanna likes does not in fact have to react differently than the one Kara likes, much less do so always - hell, the most recent episode of Crystalline itself disproves you; Zack and the MC are different “types” but have the same response to seeing Leanna put sunscreen on Kara (ie, they enjoy it).
Third; the amount of work for multiple character personalities drastically decreases based on the number of love interests there are in the game - and in Crystalline, there is at best a maximum of three. Maybe even two, since Amy is quite arguably as much of a sis-character as Zack is a bro-character - instead of the workload increasing, it simply shifts how it’s divvied up; a romance with one personality type or another romance with the other, rather than a bunch of personalities/romance interests split up across the same type. And once again, this does not automatically equate to there being less of one and more of the other - merely which one you see more of in that spicific play through.
Forth and most importantly; this kind of depth... It wasn't even what I was suggesting for Crystalline in the first place. My suggestion was that the option to choose what kind of personality your character has would allow for a Kara romance without having to change her character's "unique" aspects. I never said it had to be utterly comprehensive - only that allowing for ANY variaty in your character's personality as opposed to "default average guy-hero" would soundly counter your argument of needing to change Kara's personality to make her romancable.
To make a long story short; half your argument hinges on this belief that Kara's characteriation basically "must" be staic for her to be "unique" . My argument is that this is demonstrably untrue, because of how many different possible ways there are to approach this without sacrificing anything about Kara's character and in fact add more variaty to things. The other half hinges on the idea that "chose your character's personality" somehow means that it must account for any and every one under the sun with no boundries - something that not only wasn't the case, but was slso soundly disproven in Pixel Fade's own work with ACE Academy, where you had electable personlaity traits of "Athletic", "Studious" or "Charasmatic" for the MC without compromising their core personality itself; only difference between my suggestion and what Pixel Fade already did in AA is to have those presets impact the romance options (either by locking a few to each one in the case of low-effort, or by making the girls easier or harder to get depending on the choice if you're going for high-effort work).
But that kind of thinking runs counter to what Pixel Fade promised for Leanna herself in Crystaline. Strictly speaking, that kind of promise (a deep, “organic” relationship experience) IS something that requires a lot of depth to take account for all the variables needed to make it work - what I'm describing is quite literally what it would have taken to match the rather lofty promise Pixel Fade made; that meaningful level of interaction is exactly what they claimed to be shooting for in the first place, yet you're acting like anyone asking for what was in said promise is making unreasonable demands.
By extension of that, even by your own logic would Crystalline have failed on premise either way - because in trying to justify it's current state with the litany of other VN's that do no better, you're basically saying it's no different to them; another generic VN with a vanilla romance, thereby dispelling this concept of it's characters having any of the uniqueness you've argued ones like Kara to have.
Arguing about how many VN's have depth of choice and relationship on a meaninfgul level is moot when delivering said experience is the whole premise Crystalline was advertized on. Instead, what's being argued here is no different from what was already promised for Leanna - the only difference is arguing that adding in other options wouldn't break anything and that, if they weren't capable of delivering a single relationship to the depth they promised, they should instead have focused on varying choice and outcome instead.
Personally speaking, I disagree - I really don't think you got my point, especially considering that you misunderstood "choosable personality" for "make the caracter a complete blank slate." My argument is primarily that all your efforts to argue Kara must be "fixed" to her current non-romancible state to work are counterproductive to your argument - they disprove your own claims of her being "unique" and therefore "interesting" if she cannot fuction without being statically fixed for how her character and relationships turn out. Having an MC with a customizable personality was teritary to that argument, meant to demonstrate an example of how a romance with Kara could function without having to axe parts of her character like you kept claiming they did - instead you took that and treated it like I was saying it was the ideal way to approach a relationship (on top of your counterarguments being arguably the more limiting options, but that's beside the point).
And like with Shirou, Master Chief is a horrible character to try and justify your argument with - Master Chief is a character in a first-person shooter, where the only input the player is meant to provide is good combat skill and motion control; it's not designed to account for personality choices like a Visual Nobel is. It's completely inadmissible as an example here because a purely-FPS game and RPG-Style choice systems are two completely separate beasts in what they focus on - not to mention that, once again, it still completely overlooks the fact that "player-defined avatar behavior" and "complete blank slate for character personality" are not mutually exclusive, much less that the latter must be the case for the former to be used. Likewise, VN's don't have to worry about things like physics values or motion reactivity, allowing more focus to be placed on choice and effect.
In my experience, that's a misconception - VN's arguably have it far harder because they must rely and entirely focus on their stories and characters, without things like graphics and physics to counterbalance. In a shooter-game, you can have bad characters or story and still find it enjoyable if the combat-gameplay is good - but in a VN, the story and characters are the main draw; if those flop, the game flops.
The better VN's take after the RPG elements of having choices in them because they must rely on the story, atmosphere, characters and the relationships involved to win fans; their succes is determined by how much they circumvent a straightforward railroad. Saying "railroading is a thing in all videogame storytelling for a reason" is a complete strawman argument - the point isn't whether there's a path; it's whether that path has different roads to take with branching junctions, using a train who's makeup and destination can be altered. It feels like you've mistaken the requst for more variaty or choice as being a request for a complete freeform experience - something that was quite literally the firsthest thing from my argument. Again, I'm sorry for any rudeness that this might be taken with, but the fact that new options for a character's personality-type would have to adhere to some kind of consistancy is so basic a conclusion that I never would have believed you'd think of any other outcome to that line of thought, much less that you'd base so much of your counterargument on it.
But that's literally the worst part of all this - your complete misunderstanding of the idea that more choices equals zero boundires. It's not even physically possible because that's the nature of media in general; if you try and appeal to everyone, than you ultimatelly result in appealing to nobody. It wouldn't be possible either way because nobody is logically even shooting for that as an option - you're literally the only who thought that was part of the argument. Asking for more options isn't the same as expecting anything and everything to become possible; it doesn't entail, much less require, an erasure of all boundries.
And the solutions to this not only aren't as complicated or impossible as you're seemingly believeing them to be, but that they're actually ones Pixel Fade is already equipped to impliment - like I said before, ACE Academy had the choice to select one of three personality traits for the main character; Athletic (better at sports), Studious (better at books) or Charastamtic (better in conversation). Applying that kind of system to the MC and having whichever one you choose affect your romace options isn't anywhere near the leviathan task you're making it out as - more work, yes, but no more work than what Pixel Fade argubaly would have had to put in to make Leanna's route as deep and natural as they promised it would be. Plus, there's only three girls and none of the guys are into other guys themselves (unless you think throwing out character consistanty is somehow another requirement of making multiple choices work... which it isn't).
In that same vein of argument, Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 4 don't offer any validity to your counter on their own - the fact a premise can fail if executed poorly is both (A) true of literally anything and (B) doesn't automatically equate to a flaw of the premise itself. Plus, you're once again making a comparison between two completely seperate beasts - games like Fallout don't show the protagonist's inner thoughts, thereby making it easy to assume; VN's allow the reader to see exactly what train of thought and justification the MC follows and uses for carrying out the respective choices the player makes.
This aspect - the benifit of reading and knowing the characters thoughts just like with a novel - is the key strength of a VN, aka, a Visual NOVEL, which is literally named that for the precice reason that it's a game that is SUPPOSED to share more similarities with a novel than the typical game does. Again, I'm sorry if I sound rude with this, but if your criteria for games has resembling a novel down as a negative, a game genre that literally is defined by a novel-based format feels like the wrong place for you to be... especially since, again, "more choice" doesn't automatically eqaute to "complete sandbox." As I've said in previous posts, games like The Letter stand as a testiment to how you can make a choice-driven story where relationship and plot affect one-another in vastly branching ways, all without the complete lack of cohesion you seem to think such a thing would entail.
Honestly... yes, it is a solution, dude - one of many possible ones that could have been used - to make a Kara romance possible without having to gut her character. Hell, that's arguably is what is/was already the intention with Leanna - landing on top of her in a field with the potential for your first words to be a dirty joke, you arguably don't start out as Leanna's type either but can most certianly become it if you show kindness toward the Pango and put chivalry first. And your remark that the story is all a VN has to rely on complety undermines your own argument - it's the necessity of not being so narrow-minded in how the story or characters function that entails you DON'T stick to such a formulaic medium as having only a single possible outcome for a character; THAT is what you expect in single-minded games like Tetris puzzle-solvers or Halo combat-shooters, not from a choice-driven story. Your logic is completely backwords on this, dude.
Contrary to what you're arguing, this isn't something that requires a complete rewrite or premise-change or character alteration - especially since those "completely different events and tones" become much, much closer when you consider the MC has literally lost his entire life in an instant with no garuantee of seeing home again, which could understandably make someone become standoffish with no shortage of reasons for a writer/Pixel Fade to use for it that a player could sympathize with without so much as affecting narrative unity. Heck, Broodman (the in-game joke-reference to Batman) can be optionally spoken to as if you're Batman himself and Leanna will display a dislike of it - these one-off scenes being interconnected to have more impact aren't anywhere near this impossible task you're surmounting them as. Hell, that'd actually be closer to the kind of "organic relationship" dynamics that Pixel Fade stated it was going for in the first place, showing characters in a relationship changing as a result of interaction with one another, be it one or the other or both of them.
And that last bit is another big issue with your arguments - because thus far, Crystalline hasn't delivered on that promise for Leanna either way. What it's done with Leanna's romance doesn't feel like it justifies her being the sole focus - her route, for lack of a better word, doesn't reflect any more depth than any of the many routes of ACE Academy did. In that game, they did more routes with better quality to them than this game does with one; it's existance in and of itself disproves your claim of resource costs being a factor in things - it's quite simply the how that feels lacking for Crystalline in comparison to ACE Academy, and that in turn is another big reason the single route of Crystalline doesn't feel it was worth being the sole focus on the relationship side of things when the studio's prior game does so much better in spite of five times the routes on a less advanced set of sprites.
That's another strawman argument, dude - games like Mass Effect have a lot more to balance and showcase to the player than a VN does, which in turn means that a VN must do more with the one thing it has. That means that "player choices matter" is quite arguably a bigger necessity for a VN - especially one that's choice-driven - than an RPG-shooter hybrid like Mass Effect; you're confusing overreaching elements as being the same beast in regards to thinking what's acceptable for one is automatically acceptable for the other, in spite of the different gameplay types and genres each is geared towards.
Also... no offense, but none of that was part of Mass Effect's promises as far as I can recall - that choices would matter was one, but not that the romances themselves would drastically change anything. So it's wrong on both counts to compare the overall promises of Mass Effect to the overall promises of Crystalline, which was sold and banked on the relationship mechanics over the story while Mass Effect was the reverse.
Furthermore, based on my experience with games like Sunrider... the voice-actors really don't seem like that much of a money-drain. Sunrider: Liberation Day had full voice-acting, with a Japanese cast no less, but it's dev shot down the claims the money for said VO's were why the story was underdeveloped - it was simply the choice they made for how to do it. So to does it feel the same with Crystalline - especially compared to, again, ACE Academy's four romances and one friendship route, all of which were also fully voice-acted; the VO's being a cost consideration is one thing, but they really don't seem like they're breaking the bank as much as you think they are. Getting the VO's back would not be so much of an issue in that regard.
But the biggest detriment to your argument about the issues with adding a new relationship retroactively... is the fact that Pixel Fade has already done exactly that in the past with (once again) ACE Academy. Mayu (a girl who has a crush on the MC's best friend Shou) was made a possible love interest retroactively because of fan request - and to facillitate this, they went back and rewrote the two episodes they'd already done to make it happen. So it's not actually stretching the imagination to think they could do so again if they wanted to. This is something publically acknowledged on their Patreon, so it's not conjecture either.
https://www.patreon.com/pixelfade
And in regards to Leanna being "yandere", it's actually the other way around - they're all part of the same common routes, and variations are all effectively just one-off scenes. It's more accurate to say that Leanna has a yandere moment - and only when teased about the haunted forests by a romanced player who, in her mind, is supposed to be protecting her as a boyfriend should. There really aren't any "wildly divergant ones" - just flavor changes; that's the whole reason why so many complain that effort could have been put into more routes alongside Leanna's, since hers is basically not all that complex by comparison.
But again your argument undercuts itself - yoy're citing a demonstrably static, unchangable outcome as something that should somehow be "interesting" as opposed to making the character feel like a cardboard cuttout. Like I said before, having her be a romance option doesn't requre her relationship with Zack to ever change - it doesn't entail she stop teasing or flirting with him or even that she stop eyeing him up, anymore than the MC comitting to Leanna suddenly means they can't continue to appreciate Kara's curves or Amy's "moe" apperance. Hell, Leanna doesn't stop liking the MC as a person just because they don't hook up, so why would that be any less the case with Zack and Kara?
Literally the only thing that would change long-term between Kara and Zach is whether or not they become an acutal couple - especially since even when they do hook up, they don't actually act all that different when they're together. So to would it be the case if they dudn't get together - they'd still be "the odd couple" as friends just as much as if they were loves. Hell, Kara might actually consider it just as much to tease Zack when she's taken as when she's not, as she'd probably enjoy messing with, flustering and getting a rise out of him with the fact a spoken-for woman is being so brazen towards him (see - that's how easy it is to work being a romance option into Kara's character without needing to change her preferences or personality or behavior). Your argument hinges on the idea that Zack and Kara suddenly lose any sort of chemestry if they're not lovers - and that's simply a fallicy.
Now, I know this is beating a dead horse to keep bringing it up at this point, I once again bring up Pixel Fade's prior game ACE Academy as the proof of my argument in how Valerie, one of the game's love interests, is defined by constantly flirting with the MC and primarily plays off of that in the narrative... and continues to do so even after she gets a boyfriend. Despite being the most agressive of the girls to persue the MC and always flirting with him whenever she could, she could still end up with someone else without it changing her character.
Having a type doesn't automatically entail being unable to like anybody else outside said type - that makes it seem like Kara's a placeholder bot, not an actual character - and dating somebody outside that type doesn't mean you stop finding said type attractive; it just means your a human being and, once again, not a robot with perfect control over all it's responses. Kara isn't suddenly going to become less of a tease just because she's taken - hell, the way she practically sets up a beachside show for the boys in having Leanna (who may or may not be taken by that point) put sunscreen on her back is proof that this aspect won't change if she's with Zack, so why would it change with anyone else? It's a critical flaw in your argument -
and all your other arguments for that matter - that presumes these things are some kind of all-or-nothing one-way outcomes, despite the fact it goes against the same concept of uniqueness you claimed to value seeing.
To make a long story short; No, Kara's character would not in any way be dimminished, much less be "immensely" so, because there is absolutly no reason she would stop liking Zack just because they don't hook up.
Yes it is, dude - especially when it comes to a VN that is openly-advertized as having a deep non-linear relationship system and instead is filled with linear choices; when you do what's basically the complete reverse of what your advertized goal was, that feels like pretty much the EXACT OPPOSITE of "unrisky". That's like promising a tense shooter-game and then publishing a book instead - especially if your announcements imply you're going to push the envelop by making progression in things have no straightforward means of completion (aka, the definition of non-linear). If this had been a VN focused primarily on the story or a straightforward adventure game with light romance bits in it, you might have had a point - but that's not the case; this is a choice-focused VN where the relationships are the key selling point, and not allowing the character any ability to shape something as major to those relationships as the personality of their character is by extension very much a risky move.
On top of that, arguments like "the overwhelming majority of VN protagonists" feels like another strawman argument - by your logic, you're saying that games like the Sakura series are acceptable as peers to games like Fate/Stay Night simply because they have any kind of choice at all or because "oh, a ton of other games have little MC variaty, so who cares" - all regardless of what kind of weight or impact they actually have compared to others. I'm sorry, dude, but that's just not something I think most people would accept - it's tantimount to hiding behind "genre conventions" as an excuse not to try and do better or deliver a quality experience, or to brushing aside when one game has demonstrably done better or worse with the same genre than another (again, Sakura Series vs Fate/Stay Night).
Ultimately, the fact of the matter is that what Crystalline's one route has shown thus far does not make it feel like it was worth being the sole focus. And in turn, I believe it's more that you're not quite seeing what the argument me or others like planguy have given actually were - because, completely contrary to what you said at the end, this was not about the reasoning in the dev's decisions; that, if anything, is completely and utterly moot to the argument. It's about how the execution of said decision didn't pan out, and about how this seeming underdelivery makes the lack of any other options feel like a mistake in hindsight. Especially when making other characters like Kara into romance interests wouldn't entail rewriting their characters.
Trying to connect this to "the letter" is an insult... in that game your choices matter, in this one they barely do lol.
Maybe. But they both still had the same promise as their selling point; a deep choice-based system to take character relationships through. The Letter delivered on this whereas Crystalline feels like it has yet to do so, hence why I used it as an example for what Crystalline should have taken inspiration from.