Couples: Lustbound drops you into Katy and John’s bedroom at that weird point where everything looks fine on Instagram, but in the dark they’re just kind of… touching each other out of habit. They’re young, married, they still care, but the kisses feel a bit too polite and John keeps grabbing his phone after sex. The game leans hard into that slow, itchy tension. Katy starts catching herself staring a bit too long at other guys, especially when one of John’s friends cracks a dirty joke and she laughs a little too hard. John notices. Or maybe he pretends not to, depending on what you make him do. It’s not about instant filth from the first click. It’s more like watching a flame catch on something that should not burn and thinking, “Eh, it’s fine” until the curtains are already smoking.

The visual novel structure gives you both sides of the mess. One moment you are John, pretending you’re totally cool with Katy going out in that tight dress that shows way too much thigh while you’re “busy with work.” Next moment you’re Katy, drunk on the attention when some guy’s hands stay on her waist a bit longer during a dance, feeling his fingers press her ass in the crowd where everyone can see and kind of hoping someone is actually watching. There are scenes where you’re basically voyeuring your own marriage. Like when John sits in the car, screen lit up with a text asking “You okay with this?” while he imagines what’s happening inside the bar: Katy laughing, a big dark hand on her knee, her lips brushing someone’s ear when she whispers. The game loves that sick mixing of jealousy, arousal, and guilt that sits in the belly. It lets you push them toward swinging nights, sneaky handjobs under tables, hotel room oral that starts as “just trying something new” and slides into “there is another guy finishing in your wife and you are not stopping it.” Or you pull them back, but not really. Even the “safer” choices still feel loaded. A simple shower together can be cruel when Katy teases, strokes John just enough to get him hard, then walks out, wrapped in a towel, annoyed but horny, checking her messages.

What I liked a lot is how the corruption doesn’t just turn Katy into some brainless sex doll. She remembers what she’s doing. When she spreads her legs for a guy who is not her husband and lets him slide inside bare, knowing creampie will leave a sticky reminder, she has that tiny moment of “I am a terrible person” right under the moan. John too is messed up in his own way. Sometimes he stares from the sidelines, watching a live porn show that involves the woman he promised to protect, and his dick is rock hard while his heart punches his ribs. It feels wrong and hot and pathetic at the same time. There are scenes where he joins in, hands roaming, groping her in front of another man like he is trying to mark territory, only to end up sharing her mouth, her pussy, everything. And then there are the quiet shots: Katy alone on the balcony in panties, knowing the neighbor across can see her, fingers inside herself while she replays what happened that night. Or John “accidentally” opening a video he shouldn’t have, seeing her knees on a hotel carpet, lips wrapped around someone else’s cock, and he just sits there, watching the whole thing in silence, breathing heavy. The game is at its dirtiest when it hugs that line between love and pure selfish lust, and doesn’t say which side is winning. It just lets you poke, twist, and watch them both fall apart in a way that feels way too real.