From reading just a bit of this version, I’m already not liking it, even though technically it is ‘improved’.
Instead of necessarily making MC or the other main cast more likeable or understandable, they just make characters like Ivory very reprehensible. Like in Chapter 4, if you don’t pick the gem choice to have Seven Minutes with Shay, Ivory then asks a violating question about this possible SA in Chapter 1 (I haven’t read the new chapters 1-3) so I have no clue how Episode possibly made it worse.
I guess on one hand, it’s supposed to make Mc’s and the rest’s catty remarks to Ivory logical, but on the other, the energy should be more spent on focusing on Leo’s strife with Ivory and somebody talking to him maturely about it.
The love triangle is a miss for me, though I kinda get it if Shay is supposed to be flawed in the beginning.