Side Effect

Editorial Meh

Side Effect presents an ambitious multi-world narrative with a large cast and branching relationship dynamics, but struggles significantly in execution. The writing is verbose and marred by recurring grammar errors (pronoun misuse, speaker attribution), broken image/video links due to case-sensitivity issues, and missing character identification in-game despite a roster introduced at the start. More critically, the game's relationship to NTR and infidelity content remains deliberately opaque: while the developer claims a rewrite removed "cuck content," players consistently encounter the wife's affair, the daughter's sexual encounters with multiple men, and other betrayal themes—yet the game lacks proper NTR/Netorare tags, frustrating both those seeking that content and those actively avoiding it. The monetization strategy (paywalling scenes in an early-access release) and strict linearity (choices rarely matter mechanically) compound the issue. Some players praise the core concept and unexpected twists, but community consensus leans heavily toward "not worth the friction" unless major transparency and technical issues are resolved.