Overall I'd say I enjoyed the story and characters, however I must admit, I was nearly deterred in the beginning, which felt a little awkward and clunky, but I'm glad I stuck with it, because once we get to the haunted house the story got a lot more interesting! I feel that's the point where it started to find its rhythm and unique identity. So allow me to break down what worked for me versus what I feel could be improved upon and why.

On the positive side, I love the idea of making a vn more inclusive by allowing players to not only choose their own gender/pronoun, but that of the love interests as well. Since I love otomes, naturally I made all the love interests male. The characters themselves were well written, they each stood out as individuals without being too over-the-top. Victor and Ace were my personal favorites, I became far more invested when they were introduced. Not that the other two love interests are poorly written, so much as not my cup of tea.

The inclusion of romance was well handled. I like the variety of choices, including having more than one romance option. Often romances in vns—particularly strangers-to-lovers—feel too rushed and make me uncomfy when the MC comes off as being way too forward with strangers. So I like having the option of being more respectful, while still interested in a romance. It just feels like more of a natural progression to me.

The writing, ambience, and visuals do a good job of setting the tone. I do love me a haunted house setting and this scratched that itch. I also really like the special effects used for magic and would like to see more of that.

I also like the background text. I feel that gave the vn a unique identity. And Victor in particular was comical to help balance the eeriness of a haunted house. Loved that he was included!

The writing is by no means bad, however it reads more like it was written for a regular novel than one with visuals. For example, you should be showing character expressions using your sprites, not telling us what expression they're making in the narration. We don't need quotes and dialogue tags, as names above the textbox already inform who is speaking. And the narration, especially in the beginning, was overwritten. Character interactions and dialogue should take up the majority of the script, whereas narration should be just enough to clarify what's happening. The visuals should be doing half the story telling for us, which is the main difference in writing a vn script versus a novel without any accompanying sounds or visuals.

While the backgrounds (more so the 3D ones) look nicely detailed and appropriate for the setting, I feel the 3D works better for the environments than the sprites. While it does allow for more dynamic posing, the facial expressions aren't really doing the characters any justice to be honest. They more often than not look like they're staring dead ahead into space rather than at the person they're talking to. I don't work with 3D models, but as a vn sprite/CG artist myself, they just didn't work for me as replacements for the more typical 2D sprites/CGs.

On a more minor note, the sound effects/ambience being on the same track as the music in the beginning was a little annoying. I wish I could turn down the background voices and crank up the music as one was far more distracting than the other.

As for a more in-depth reasoning of why I didn't care for the beginning, I feel it could've been as easily summarized in a single paragraph. The entire conversation with the ex-roommate was  unnecessary since they're not a main focus of the story. Meeting Terry and Katsumi by random chance were very forced introductions. I think it would've made more sense to meet Terry at the house/apartment. And perhaps Katsumi could've been a friend the MC already knew and the two were looking for a house/apartment together. Then we could've started with the newspaper finding instead of starting with the cafe/random photo backgrounds to more quickly get us to the haunted house scene, which was by far more unique and interesting imo. I know that would require a lot of restructuring and therefore isn't very useful criticism, but it's my personal opinion nevertheless. Something to consider for future projects perhaps. Asking 'does this character introduction feel like a natural way to start a relationship and is it essential to the plot'? 

Aside from that, overall, I did enjoy the experience even if it feels a little unpolished and would look forward to seeing more of this story in the future, as it did manage to capture my interest before the end. I wish the devs luck as they continue to work on this labor of love. Keep up the hard work!