Man of the House Review (Aluminum Elite Master)
I marginally recommend, but with some significant caveats:
#1 - The pacing of the game is among the worst of any game, ever, in my opinion. Two serious issues cause this, with the first being that increasing relationship points with anyone is a long, long slog. In a lot of games, it takes a bit of time to 'heart up', but you only might do it 5-10 times. In this, it goes 0-100. And for many girls, the most points you can gain at once is often 5. And sometimes, there are phases where it's just 1-2 points per action. This is a bit of an issue, but it's *greatly* amplified by the second pacing issue... which is that every action taken to raise relationship points tends to repeat like 5 times and be basically the same *unskippable* scene repeated. Because of all this, at first it's like 'wow, a lot of content must be here to go from 0 to 100 like this!'. But it's somewhat an illusion, because a lot repeats over and over and over again.
#2 - The work mini-games, if you can call them that, are a lost opportunity. The game would be an interesting management sim if working the two jobs reduced mood, and had to be balanced against the mood lost while working them. But mood freezes in place basically during the job. Worse, they aren't mini-games... it's basically just pick the client that is least likely to fail each time but that still gives okay money. If you've ever played BaD, which is a similar game, the mini-games there are way more interesting, requiring some level of reaction time or mouse-control from the player. But in MotH it's just a screen with a few choices, really.
#3 -The open world is pointless much of the time. It doesn't pay off to go to any locations other than the two jobs and the grocery store for 90% of the game. The other 10% is when the game basically tells you 'hey, go buy that lingerie from the mall now' or 'hey, go to so-and-so's apartment at 19:00 now'. The open world is another lost opportunity, as there are virtually no random encounters in locations. Going to the park? Alright, not a soul in sight. Going to the beach? Hope you like desolate shores with nothing going on.
#4 - The story is pretty worthless. Worse, it's clearly not the original story... not so sure why someone would be *that* weirded out by being attracted to their roommate. Clearly, the roles were different at one point and got changed. And this makes the story rather nonsensical.
For what the game is, it's not the worst in this genre. At least there's variety. And the concept of having different characters do different things at each time of day is interesting for a while. So for the price, it's not too bad.
But it's far, far from being an open world BaD... the story is poor, and the pacing of everything is horrendous. I maxed out character skills in no time, but it takes an eternity, even with waiting through entire days, to get a single relationship maxed.