End of January Rush!

This felt more like a proof of concept than an actual game. It works as a prologue of Carpe Diem Reboot but as a standalone game is very lacking. The twist at the end is quite unexpected and feels like a kick to the balls though (it doesn’t help that the name of the achievement you get for finishing the game is “What are you doing with your life?”)

While this LGBT-positive VN wasn’t bad it had quite a number of issues. For starters the art was super inconsistent. It’d go from western-styled to anime-styled and back to western-styled when you expect it the least (and against all odds I’d prefer if they just stuck to keeping the western-style in the whole VN).
The story was a tad rushed. During the first half the pace is fine but during the second one if feels like the author is in a hurry to finish it. Due to this (and the overall length of the VN) there’s not much character development.
All in all the game feels like wasted potential. It could have been a lot better with some tweaks, a longer duration, and a consistent art.

I was willing to write this one off as a generic VN (because let’s face it, it’s very typical plot-wise), but the fact that every character except the player is a monster (and not of the fanservicey kind to be precise) makes it quite unique. The game could have had more choices instead of just one at the end though.

You expected a short, easy beat em’ up game but it was me, BANZAI PECAN! Silliness aside, it could have been short if you have some godlike reflexes and some of the enemies/bosses weren't so cheap. The game is hard, not just because there’s a high chance you might be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of enemies but also some enemies hit really hard (and you can consider yourself dead if you’re on the floor and the surrounding enemies start to body slam you while you’re trying to get up). That said, I liked the variety of moves this game has (even if you’ll resort to button mashing more often than not, especially against the Jennies and some bosses) as well as the fact it even has finishers to OHKO dizzy enemies.
The art is quite crude and so is the plot, but imo it works in this game’s favor. I think it would have been a lot worse if the game tried to be dead serious. The ending was quite disappointing though.

First things first, the game was surprisingly more similar to Puzzle Quest than Huniepop, both character/setting wise and gameplay-wise.
Instead of having a big plot the game has mini-stories that take between following each of the girls available, and in each of them there are enough bits of world-building that keep them fresh. I personally liked them all but Leah’s route.
The art was top-notch. The backgrounds were stunning and the characters were designed in a way they looked either sexy or cute (or both) depending on what they want to emphasize. I only wish they didn’t include a loli character. I don’t exaggerate when I say I constantly repeated “ravioli ravioli, don’t lewd the loli” in my mind during her route.
Now let’s get to the meat (pun intended) of Mirror; the gameplay. It can divided in two parts, the battles and the sex. The battles are your usual match-3 games in which each tile has an specific function. Swords do physical damage; stars do magical damage; potions heal you; and rage increases your atk and def. Depending on the combinations you do you can get special tiles which, when combined, automatically use the allocated skill for that tile (IE a special sword tile would use the physical attack skill you have equipped). Enemies also have specific skills based on their race or job. For example the orc girl can significantly raise her attack while the nun would spend a lot of time healing herself (which is a bit annoying since you have a limited number of moves).
As for the sex (which let’s be honest, is the main reason you’re playing this game ;) ) The game lets you choose between different actions to perform on the girl and depending on what you do and were you’ll either raise her pleasure bar, her pain bar, or both, and depending on which of the two is higher once you run out of available actions, you get either the Pleasure ending (basically a happy ending) or the aptly named pain ending, which ranges from sad to outright depressing (ironically it’s the exact opposite for Martha the nun). The Lost Shards DLC also adds some extra "playable scenes" (if you know what I mean ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ), but it has no impact on the story whether you perform well or not.
Most of the achievements are fairly doable with the exception of a few. Some require some grinding (the challenge mode makes it easier to achieve though) while 1 requires a lot of planning to obtain, another one can only be achieved through dumb luck (usually obtained while attempting to get the aforementioned achievement), and the last one is so hard you better exploit a bug in the challenges to get it if you don’t want to drive yourself crazy.
To sum it up, it’s rare to find such a well-done game for so cheap. It may have a bunch of DLC but only the “Lost Shards” DLC is recommended to buy. The rest is just fluff that has no impact on the game.