VN - Ren'Py - A Foreign World [Ep.6.5] [HighbornTiger]

Ironically, I think this is a rather crappy AVN. However it's a VERY good VN. The characters are interesting, and I really enjoy the process of learning about their pasts and how the trauma affected them. They each have distinct personalities as well as 'powers', and the interactions both between themselves and with the MC are well developed.
However the romance...feels sloppy. I actually enjoyed playing hard-ball with the girls, turning them all down, until the game just flat-out didn't let me. Legitimately during one scene, the MC suddenly reverses how I had been treating Tracy up to that point and suddenly he's just some horny guy talking dirty to her and talking about what he wants to do to her and it gave me serious whiplash. Did the author just get tired of writing for the 'long game' options and slap everything into the sex route? And what made it even worse was the way Tracy was reacting during the scene, all wooden. Made me feel ick, which is the whole friggin reason I had been avoiding it in the first place.
On top of that the scenes themselves are very boring, no animation at all ( unless you consider flame flickering animation ) and they drag on for far too long considering they add nothing to the overall story.
It's a very rare treat when I find an AVN where I'm more interested in the plot and characters than I am the sexy stuff. I wish this game had lived up to my initial assessment that it was one of them.

*Just leaving a quicker than normal review here primarily because of a select few elements having a devastating impact on the overall experience.

I'm genuinely surprised by the amount of 5-star ratings this AVN has received given how little it respects the audience's time, competency, and agency. What does all that mean? Boy howdy do I have a list of frustration for you!

Fiona
I genuinely struggle to understand why this character exists other than to serve as an antagonistic force for drama. Specifically, she leaves the protagonist due to promising him they'll have children together (she can't because she's sterile), but refuses to tell him. The amount of effort the author goes through to keep this character relevant leads to contrivance after contrivance as she's later forced back into the story with zero choice to reject her. Furthermore, if you have sex once with any of the characters than she'll lose her damn mind...

For perspective, removing this character would instantly bump my rating up to 4-stars rather than 2, that's how awful her character is written.

The MC
The story initially paints the MC as a heartbroken, lonely man while learning early on about his past working for a shadowy organization. This character is perfectly set up for the main plot of the story which deals with a group of super power women from a parallel Earth. The history with his ex-wife Fiona also sets up a believable path forward towards the MC genuinely falling in love with the women under his care. So what went wrong?

This ties back into Fiona being reintroduced... Seriously, this character already served her purpose for the MC, so why is she being brought back in? Furthermore, why aren't we given the choice to reject her especially when she left for such a petty reason? This whole scenario leads to the plot twist of Fiona being accepting of a harem feel heavily contrived as this guy has rejected every LI - multiple times - because of her. This genuinely feels as though the author had an initial plan to keep Fiona as a main LI, but fumbled the execution so spectacularly as to detract from the underlying premise being rather enjoyable.


Quickfire points

• Nathanial is a terribly written antagonist who follows bad practices in writing villains (i.e. evil for evil's sake, basic/mundane goals)
• The LI's vary significantly in terms of quality due to the author refusing to progress all of their arcs in parallel
• The author frequently utilizes the codex to explain plot development either due to forgetting their implementation, or laziness in properly scripting the scene (i.e. the friend in the beginning dying without knowing why)
• Choices are superficial, this is essentially a kinetic novel as the player only has limited agency when it comes to lewd scenes alone
• Lewd scenes are primarily dream sequences... Seriously? The author is this inept that he's going to script dream sequences rather than properly progressing character romances??
  • This genuinely frustrated me because the dream sequences degrades the MC's personality by adding a trait that fails to align with his overall character
    • This is made worse because said flaw is a contrivance to justify Fiona's antagonistic nature...

The quality of writing is a whiplash of fantastic ideas with extremely poor executions. The author will continue including whatever recent idea he thinks is interesting to the detriment of the overall story, and it's a genuine shame considering the elements are there for a refreshing blend of fantasy and sience fiction genres.

I've seen enough of this one to give it a full-throated endorsement. It's surprising how well this story works for an erotic game, The balance is great. There's always a thrust and a clear goal our characters are working towards while not missing out on the romantic/erotic moments that arrive organically and they are plentiful unlike many other "serious" games. Even the accelerated time crunch of a month makes sense here.
The LIs are another aspect in which this game shines. While there are some who are not that memorable( the hacker chick and the invisible girl are boring imo), there are many that will pull at your heartstrings with their unique story and/or fiery disposition(yes, I'm talking about the redhead, my favorite LI). Coming from a foreign world different from ours, their thoughts on what a mixed gender society is totally different and it's great to see them deal with the complete contrast they are presented on earth in their own way. Each girls' future actions is shaping up to be an exciting mystery.
Gameplay wise, this is a linear VN if you're going for the harem playthrough. The visuals are top of the line Daz3D models so if you like them, you can't really expect more.
A really amazing experience with lots of interesting it can still go. Keep up the good work guys.

Lets start with the good, I like the general premise. It has legs. For the most part the girls (at least the ones we spend time with) are written with some thought. The power sets of the girls are cool. A lot of back and forth with what's happening is digestible and makes sense......for the most part. Tracey and Aurora make sense in how they think. I thoroughly enjoy the story and the details when they are consistent with the world which is set up. The growth and training of your powers is interesting.

Now the mid, the MC. So this random secret agent chad just happens to find these girls who dimension drop from another world. Forgivable as it gets the story going. He also treats a bunch of women he does know as if they aren't really a threat or at least that he should definitely be the one to handle the situation while playing games with an agency he needs help from. Now we have the villain Nathaniel, an over powered child who is painted as "someone who would have fun torturing small animals for fun" who gives the MC powers and this is justified because boredom and the power hurts the girls when he takes their powers. It hurts them once and then poof he has all their powers. Its a plot point that comes and goes quickly. There is also waaaaaaaay too much time on them pondering on what his plan is. Its not hard. If he returns earlier than he said, the MC dies. Also there's this weird avoidance of sleeping with any of the girls in the beginning because he's hung up on his ex, but he's got no qualms later asking for a harem.....yup.

Now the bad. Sue is a bitchy rapist who is explained to us that's redeeming because she's in love with you....after like a day. She's a bitch to all the other girls if she's not coming off like a slimeball and then she tries to act all cute or seductive with you. Amber is basically a living super computer and she's black. Should that matter in the context of the story? No, does she immediately think the reason the MC wont kiss her is after weeks together where hes been nothing but nice he must be a racist? Yes. Once again she's supposed to be the smartest person in the room at all times. Esther, who's powers are locked away, will not tell you what her powers even are.....they just ignore it. She also is somehow smarter than everyone in the room and can talk people into anything. How is this explained? It never is. She just can. Couldn't talk her way out of interrogation at the beginning, but a couple of days later she talks circles around the same agents. I mean....why not? Invisible girl thinks shes ugly. Fox girl likes to be petted. Blind girl is blind.

And finally Fiona.....oh Fiona. If there were one word to describe her it would be grating. She left the MC because she cant have kids and he wants them. She never tells him this of course...she just leaves him. When she comes back mostly out of petty jealousy, not only does he immediately take her back, but she treats him like a whipping post. Even the other girls are looking at him like he's a giant bitch for letting her show no respect to him and not only does he acknowledge it, he just eats it. He knows they lose respect for him and he just eats it. Of course this is never brought up again, they just let him look emasculated and these women who are hoping he can fight off an interdimensional threat just look at him like he's a chode. Once again she does this out of petty jealousy. Her only solution to any of the girls problems is by taking them out as a group in public where any stupid situation could set off a war. She also magically gets her ability to have kids fixed by one of the girls. She then immediately freaks out and is trying to struggle and argue while the medic is telling her she need to rest, so she puts her to sleep. What is her reaction when she wakes up? To bitch that the woman who just gave her to ability to have kids again is dangerous because she ignored her body autonomy why she was spazing out. The MC of course nods and tells her she's right. He does this a lot and mostly because she like starting arguments with him. I swear she's written to bitch about college level social bullshit or which can be far worse, she's a pink haired self insert and we're meant to believe its clever writing. It's not. This is clearly the worst relationship ever. Its explained he saved her and thats why she loves him, but the opposite is never explained. She's just an annoying rich girl who is annoying. Also and this is the best part......you can't say no to her. You can tell any of the other girls no. Sue multiple times.....but Fiona is literally forced upon you, even if you are going for a harem. If you completely removed her and gave all of her needed interactions to the female agent, I would bump this game up two stars immediately.

I'm surprised by the amount of reviews complimenting the writing, considering how consistently dry, sterile and verbose the dialogue feels to me. I suppose people on here are so used to broken or machine-translated English that anything grammatically correct and comprehensible is praiseworthy.

There's also a much less important thing that I find irrationally annoying: the people in this VN change poses as if they're talking to each other but almost never actually open their mouths. After I noticed what was happening, it went on so long that I stopped to point at the screen when one of them finally did.

I love the Concept of the Game.
Played the Previous one just to get some of the Story about the girls live in the other world.
I love that the MC is very smart and plays his cards well.
Can´t wait for the (happy?!) ending

Extremely good Vn i loved it and i enjoyed it a lot
Visuals are great and the story is very good too.
MC is very good and he js very capable and with backbone too and at the same time he isnt rude thats somewhat refreshing for me and i believe he is better than most MC in this site.
Furthermore the Lis are also beautiful and interesting and every LI is different than the other.
Overall i believe its a quite good Harem
(personally i like the fact that there isnt any lesbian content though thats personal taste.. in future i hope if its added to be optional at least).
Nonetheless i highly recommended it.

The purely linear VN style is not my favorite, but this one is very well done. The only choices are whether or not to pursue a particular LI, and it doesn't seem to affect the main storyline either way.

The storytelling, though, is first rate. The pacing of the main plot as well as the backstory reveals kept me interested. The characters feel like actual characters, not just archetypes. And the models are unique and well matched to the characters.

4.5* but will round up.

Unique plot, and its decently written. All of the characters have unique voices which is always a plus. Renders are good, there is a great amount of content relative to development time, and the plot is moving along instead of getting bogged down. With most LI the relations are progressing, and with appropriate pacing.

The only downsides are that there are too many LI. There are a couple characters for whom there is practically no content with, just because of the focus on other characters - which is fine, but they probably shouldn't have been included in the first place. Its a tall task to build out paths and content for 10 LI.

Only other negatives in my book is the english word choice can be spotty in some places, and the MC is a bit of a mega chad

Would suggest playing, this is a good one

This will be hit-or-miss for most of you

The game has good renders and writing thats been done with some effort, unfortunately threes this whole fantasy plot that is more of a nuisance than interesting (goblins type fantasy, not kink type fantasy)

Some of the li's are half attractive with good proportions and are rendered well but most look like boys and one even has hair on stomach that says it must be trans without tagging in.

The writing means the mc tries to be a bit of an action hero which so far ive never seen work in a vn and it means there are long sequences of distraction and with the unattractive li's

It's not a badly written, theres just nothing that excites or makes you want to return, the story premise was wasted on boy-action

I hardly mind when a novel stops and I have to wait for a new chapter, but a foreign world had me aching. If you like sharp dialogues, a gripping story and sufficient character depth; this a brilliant one. Had similar writing style to Summers' gone, which is a jewel imo too. If you like unearthly breast shapes, or a story that got lost in lewd scenes search somewhere else.
Can't wait for more !

An adult game that doesn't punish you for not being a 12 year old staring at every butt that crosses your path. And bad jokes and inuendo in every scene for fear you aren't mature enough to pay attention to a good story.

Is it for everyone, nope.. But I wish there were more adult games that don't low brow everything.

When life puts you in a sticky situation and makes you a god amongst men.. remember. "With great power comes great responsibility" -- Uncle ben

Better than average, rounded up to good
REVIEW OF v5.5

If i could, this game would be rated 3.5/5. It definately is better than an average game but falls short of good at this stage in its development. My reasoning broken down below:

POSITIVES
* Unique models.
* Nice story premise.
* After a bit of shaky diialog at the beginning, i actually read a lot of the script, didnt skip much at all.

NEGATIVES
* Updates are short considering the time in between releases.
* Many of the characters get very little screen time which is dissapointing.
* Lewd Scenes restricted to 2 characters currently (i dont count dream/flashbacks) and are pretty tame so far.

SUMMARY
This game has the potential to be good, maybe even great, but the game needs to be fleshed out a bit more... give the other girls some proper screen time, make the updates bigger or if staying at the 200/300 render update, then they need to be quicker to come out imo.

Final note... Megan Fox for the character with the fox features... name makes me chuckle whenever i see it (which is sadly very limited as of v5.5).

Honestly, this is a very good game with a lot of pluses and only one major minus.

First and foremost, the story and characters deserve copious amounts of praise. The characters actually feel like real people with interesting personalities, and the story is intriguing and drives you forward, interested in knowing what will happen next.

Same goes for the art. The design of the characters is very good, and it is clear that a lot of effort went into the renders. They are far better than the average VN here.

Another aspect in which this game differs in a major way from the average VN here is that you play as an adult with a pre-defined personality, instead of the usual "Blank-slate Protagonist". This is a welcome change in my book, but my issue is that I felt it was taken too far, as you pretty much don't have any agency in the story, not even in minor decisions. There is a series of decisions on whether to pursue the romantic interests or not, but other than that you basically don't influence your character at all. That disappointed me, as I would have liked to, for example, be more stern in how I treat a certain character that literally tried to kill me multiple times, or be more loving and caring for a certain character that I feel deserved it. Such things wouldn't have majorly changed the story or created a ton of extra work and diversions, but they would have made me enjoy playing the game more.

All in all though, I definitely recommend this game to anyone who enjoys a pretty good story. I just wish that the developer adds more choices in the future, even if they were minor ones .

Played through AFW (Ep 5) in about 6 hours tonight, and while the story is definitely interesting, the game as a whole is let down by several shortcomings.

++ VERY unique characters and LIs - almost everyone is easily memorable
+ Good renders throughout
+ Music for different parts of the game, but no sounds
++ Good premise and situational world building to set the stage
+ Story keeps moving at a steady pace (though very slowly)
+ Interesting use of science & magic
+ Some scenes are animated (gets better as it progresses)

--- Almost no choices that are relevant are presented to the player. Those that are only seem to affect whether or not we see sex scenes.
--- The MC is a complete idiot. Women basically throwing themselves at him, and he says no more times than I can count. And what for? Keeping hope alive that his fiance (who left him without saying why) will come back. Huge facepalm moment here.
--- Quite a few sex scenes aren't real, they are daydreams for the MC. Which to me just cheapens the experience by taking away any LI progression that could have happened in their place, and using up that much more development time.
-- Not one creampie in the entire game as of Ep 5 - it's all just cum shots on their backs/bellies.
--- Very few real sex scenes overall, for the ~6 or so hours I played. Handjobs don't count, oral doesn't count, daydreams don't count, flashbacks don't count.
--- There's an apocalyptic event on the way in 40 days in-game, and the MC and girls run around on dates, or go bowling, or something else frivolous. What they should be focusing on is training up the MC, which seems to only take half of their time.
--- Some pretty stupid decisions on the part of the MC (and the girls) throughout.
----- We (playing as the MC) have zero choice on how to respond to the MC's fiance (who left him without saying why weeks earlier in the plot). He keeps telling the girls no to sex, while hoping she'll come back (yeah, he's an idiot). Personally I would have kicked the bitch to the curb at the earliest opportunity for what she did. It's a serious letdown in something we should have been given the choice over.
-- Many of the sex scenes in the game don't show actual penetration, it's skewed more in favor of Rated X (soft porn) than it is XXX. As an AVN, that's rather disappointing.

As a result, the game gets a 3.0 (okay) rating from me. Might be worth a playthrough if you're having trouble finding other good stuff to play at the moment. But it also needs a lot of work, and I'd recommend to the dev that they allow us more freedom of choice in how the game unfolds. Right now it's more kinetic novel than a game.

Because of the points I listed above, I'd recommend a re-write and re-render of several points of the game, along with adding in more choice. Further recommendations below.

Things to improve:
- Sex scenes need to be more explicit, hot, involved, lengthy, and give players more and better camera options
- Choice needs to be given to the player on all LIs, and on major plot points
- Allow the player occasional free-roam time, so that he can get busy with an LI of their choosing (i.e. current sex in the game isn't sufficient)
- Creampies. For the love of all things sexy, give us the choice of creampies. Girls don't always get pregnant the instant you cum inside of them. "Money shots" are lame to begin with.
- Oral, Anal, Deepthroat, Threesomes... there need to be more varied sex scenarios, and kinks. There's precious little of that in the game right now, which made it almost boring for me.

I played through episode 5 of this urban-fantasy in a few evenings.

I rarely give five-star reviews, reserving that distinction for games that really stand out; but I found this so engaging—despite some minor flaws—that I found I could give it no less.

The excellent:
• The world-building—of the foreign world—while still somewhat sparse, lays the foundation for the growing harem.
• The game looks great: the graphics in general and the character models.
• The girls have unique and believable personalities (excepting the earth girl).
• The game takes itself seriously.
• It has potential to become a battle-harem, though it is not clear if it will go in that direction.

The good:
• The musical tracks are well-selected.

The average:
• The story feels a little too much like something from a light-novel.
• The MC does too much soul-searching for someone who is supposed to be a super-duper secret agent. This is well written-enough that I never felt the urge to skip it, but it got a little annoying after a while.

I am glad to have discovered this game, and look forward to seeing where it goes.

The plot is a reverse fish out of the water, you harbor a bunch of girls from another world with super powers. The narrative relies heavily on the nonsensical antagonist as a world ending threat far into the game's future.

Pros:
- Good renders, prose, erotic content and music.
- The girls are well characterized, each being unique and having a somewhat interesting backstory.

Cons:
- The plot barely moves after the initial setup, there's basically nothing that happens between chapter 1 and chapter 6 besides relationship talk and the occasional sex scene. This is a soap.
- The game's magic system sucks.

Thoroughly enjoyed this and look forward to seeing where this goes.
Personally I found the author very capable of giving distinct personalities to the various characters. I stayed engaged from start to finish. Superb!

Excellent AVN. Depending on your taste, it could even be in the top 3. Narrative-wise it is incredibly well written, the inner monologues of the MC are really well constructed and give him a depth not typical for these games. Not only that, but even though they are numerous, they don't feel overdone to the reader, at least not to me.

As for the LIs, I really like the personalities and looks of all of them (Fiona and Tracy are the top lookers for me).

Highly recommended.

this game is great, story driven, the protagonist is highly capable and that makes it interesting, the girls are beautiful and all the cg is immaculate.
The dynamics are interesting, the reverse isekai is a classic, but also nice is the blending of the two worlds. It doesn't feel like the magical world overrides the regular world too much.

All in all very good, if story heavy, game.