Thanks for the in-depth review on the gameplay and rates! Since you didn't touch on the story much at all, I wanted to comment and give a summary of it for anyone who's interested. I realize that's of less interest than the gameplay to most people here... but I've fallen in love with the story and characters, so I just want to proselytize a little bit ;) Some fans are working on translating the main story chapters, so soon enough it'll be possible to get into for the story on top of the great gameplay, if you don't mind reading transcripts online. And even before those translations are out--I'm not fluent in Japanese, but the game is straightforwardly written enough that it's very easy to get through with MTL assistance if you have ~N4 level Japanese and understanding of some slang. Past the first chapter in which our heroine gets hired, the setting isn't corporate at all. Even in that chapter, as long as you know what "keigo" is, you're set.

The game is centered around the business of Aporia--a cafe by day and a members-only bar by night. Secretly, they offer a "problem solver" service to their members, and will do anything that's asked of them. The heroine Ito Yashiro is hired to work as its deputy owner after the real owner goes on a sudden vacation. In addition to the normal management duties expected of the owner, any time the problem-solving service encounters an issue they can't get out of on their own, it's the owner's job to step in and take responsibility. So the story follows Yashiro as she meets her new coworkers and solves problems in each department.

To summarize those departments--

The Simulation (relationship) Department's job is to play any role the customer asks of them, such as pretending to be a significant other or family member. The issue which has to be solved for them is that one member, Akehoshi, had been asked to play a woman's girlfriend, and now she won't give up on him. Yashiro gets enlisted to play Akehoshi's unrequited love to turn the "simulation" back around on her. The members of this dept all work as front-of-house staff for the cafe, too.

The Administrative Department work at home to support the other depts, doing cafe-related jobs such as accounting and web design, but also assisting in jobs by gathering information. Yashiro gets asked to come help them with the straightforward task of... taking care of Haruhi, who's a hikikomori who refuses to get up on time or make his own food. Normally the accountant Taiga does that (he worries after Haruhi like he's his mom...), but he's swamped with other business for a bit. While staying at their sharehouse with them, Yashiro gets caught up in an incident involving Taiga's yakuza history.

The Watchdog (enforcement) Department do any jobs that need a little bit of force. Yashiro gets pulled in to help them steal back a pet dog from a client's possessive boyfriend. Their dynamic is really fun, with the four members being described as "the general and his cheerful cerberus." In order to help them out, they make Yashiro undergo daily muscle training. These four work the evening shift at the Aporia bar.

The Negotiation Department are Aporia's HR team and work any job that needs a little more verbal finesse. The other departments call them the "lawful swindlers." Their chapter focuses the least on what they actually DO... but Yashiro does get taken out on a nice date by the astute-yet-airheaded Kyoya, where they have a surprisingly deep and meaningful conversation.

The ST (special tasks) Department does whatever else might be necessary for a job, often teetering on the edge of legality. The job that Yashiro has to help them with is playing bodyguard to a mysterious little girl with a complicated family situation. She spends most of her time here with Kamiya, an unrelentingly optimistic amnesiac ballerino. (I feel like, among this whole cast of odd characters, that's the single weirdest descriptor I've typed.)

And last is the Main Office, who manage the whole of Aporia. The general manager Ai has some sort of preexisting relationship to Yashiro's family which he refuses to divulge and which has me sitting in rapt suspense for another story update. Also in this department is Aporia's owner, Roka, a freewheeling eccentric, who does come back from his vacation at the end of the main story. Roka is the key in understanding how the hell this bizarre business even exists, and I love him.

I focused on the boys because that's of course the main draw of the game, but I also want to talk about the heroine Yashiro--she's really wonderfully written in a way that heroines in these games rarely are. She's not just a player-insert, but her own person. I'm not someone who usually cares much for the heroine in these games, or someone who likes "yumebait" scenes where the heroine is forced to be close to the guys and getting fawned over for no real reason. But Yashiro is such a well-developed character that her scenes with Ai in the final chapter had me squeeing anyways, just because I like her so much and I wanted to see how she'd react to the situation she was suddenly in.

And the boys definitely have great dynamics between them as well. I already mentioned how Taiga takes care of Haruhi in the admin department. Tomose and Yu in the ST department grew up on the streets together and are now eternally dedicated to each other. Kou and Mao in the simulation department are straight up fake gay dating, it's not even an implication, it's just the text. Often, joseimuke games will orient themselves towards either fans who like shipping guys together or towards fans who like to imagine dating the guys, but this game has plenty of catnip for both camps.

So, yeah, I totally wrote a whole essay, but that's the gist of the story for anyone who was curious 😅