Okay I finished Total Eclipse.
Random dump of thots:
-- This is surely the worst Muv-Luv game. Still entertaining but feels fan fictiony in parts and is clearly riding the coattails of the mainline games.
-- The lead characters are solid; a lot of the secondary ones feel interchangeable.
-- The "info dumps" kinda blow. I just don't get hyped about mecha stuff and this story is
deep into that.
-- The character art is great, but there are too many scenes with one-off characters that lack sprites. There are conversations where the player is staring at a blank wall.
-- Wish the soundtrack was better. There are few notable tracks, which is in stark contrast to the mainline games. The voice actors did a good job, though the audio seems to be mixed rather poorly.
-- The final "bonus" chapter was awesome and made me wish there were more alien battles in the game. Oh, and I love how the ending connects to Alternative.
-- The game's two "choices" were utterly pointless. This should be a kinetic VN.
-- There are 195 CGs. That's cool.
-- The UI isn't great and there's no fullscreen??
-- The number of times the term 我々(wareware) is included in the script is
insane. I'll be hearing that in my sleep for weeks.
Overall, fun but certainly not one of the better VNs. I think The Day After will be more up my alley.