VN - Ren'Py - Completed - A Moment of Bliss [v5.0.1 Final] [Lockheart]

After playing A Petal Among Thorns and leaving a scathing review on it, I must confess I wasn't expecting much from A Moment of Bliss.
Well, lo and behold, this was a pleasant surprise. I initially gave it a higher score, but a few things stick out like the rushed ending and the need to play a (worse) prequel in order to be fully in the loop. This game also ends on a time skip followed by a cliffhanger, which would've been acceptable if Over The Moon had addressed those things appropriately, which it didn't.

Writing & Characters:
Visuals & Sexual Content:
Conclusion/TL;DR:
Decent kinetic novel all around. Amazing writing, decent story, good sex scenes and very lovable characters. It's not perfect, and the ending is very rushed. And while this game on its own was pretty enjoyable to read, it leaves a lot to be desired and the sequel fails to build on it.

Writing: ★★★★☆
Visuals: ★★★☆☆
Sexual Content: ★★★☆☆
Personal Enjoyment: ★★☆☆☆

What can I say about Part 2? OMG! It was just as great as the first one! It had a great storyline which I enjoyed. Don't misunderstand. Being an "adult" game, the renders were SAF. BUT the characters were brought to life to the point it felt like being a part of their lives. From funny moments to points where your heart was ripped out, the author knew what he was doing...AGAIN! Can't wait to see what his finale will be like.

PROS
+ Sex scenes are animated, and most of them are decent, even tho we have some static bad animations as well.
+ Visual style, and quality, is decent, and Petal's, and Bliss's design is good.

CONS
- Story-wise the game is bit on weak/poor side, and things are quite messy.
- The whole content revolving around, Suzi, SCI-FI, and AI was quite unnecessary, honestly biggest problem of this series from the prequel was same, adding unnecessary stuff instead of focusing the things it should, and seems like with this game things even got messier.
- Some of characters are not really likeable. First of all Chuck & Wendy are still present in this game as well, in fact right after MC came into the home Wendy comes there as well. Secondly we have Eleanor, a huge b*tch, she has no heart, and literally killed Suzi like killing a fly. Then we have Rose as a character straight up messy, inconsistent, and not likeable, especially with how she treats poeple, literally pushing them around instead of talking like a human being.
- Since Petal & Bliss are quite nice girls, and fond of MC you wait the biggest sister will be neutral at least, but surprise, she is quite angry with the MC, and her act is quite annoying considering she is angry to MC because he went into comedy tour, and then scold MC with saying ''Life presents a challenge, and you just give up. Ever job, every hobby. Everything.'' like it's MC's fault for not being good at stuff... Then even called him ''manchild'' and ''you don't deserve this family'' Imagine audacity of the b*tch...
- Choices doesn't matter, and as a player you have no control over the story.
- Some of girls designs, especially their faces, and facial expressions looks bad, like Nixie, her eyes, temples are too big.
- The gam end absurdly after 2 years of time-skip, it was weird.

VERDICT
This game was even messier than the prequel, and despite the more sex it has it wasn't better than the prequel.

I am not very fond of kinetic novels. I read the first one, the petal one, which gave me the false illusion of making choices that affected the story. I couldn't help but read Bliss's. Now I am looking forward to reading Moon's.
These are stories about which there is practically nothing to choose from. They are stories that overwhelm you with emotion, though. I think I will reevaluate my aversion to kinetic novels. If the story is good, it doesn't matter if I can interact with it or not.
So: second book and we are at a very high level. There are moments when it could have been done better. But the level is very high all the same.

EDIT: I'm lowering my rating from 5 to 2 stars after reading the last chapter of the trilogy, which ruined the entire project.

It's a really good game that I recommend everyone to play. They won't waste time and will enjoy the game completely. The narration of the story is good and the development of events is very consistent. The models are fantastic and the animations are good too. What more could you ask for?

The body proportion is really weird when both Chester and Bliss on screen. Her head is too small it's uncanny. It just like forced scale down of originally tall woman without adjusting the head size. Even dwarf women has better proportion. Kill my boner when both of them appeared on screen.

The genetic engineering plot about horniness toward family members is ridiculous. The dialogue and explanation regarding that is even more unbearable to read. Boner killer 2000

A fantastic sequel to A Petal among Thorns.
Animation: Good quality and wide variety of models
Story: Some very kinky moments, and a strange story is coming together
Scripting: Loves the characters and the scenes, they're interesting with good pacing

Review of v5.0.1 Final

Overall, A Moment of Bliss was a very good experience. The art style is a little unusual but you get used to it soon enough, the sex scenes are pretty hot, the plot is actually good, the characters are developed well, and the writing is just generally strong. If that was it I would give it 5 stars. However it does a number of problems which bring it down to 4.

• At the start we're told you needn't have played the previous game to enjoy A Moment of Bliss, but this is patently false.
• Apparently the mc, age late 30s, doesn't know that women often like to cuddle and bond after sex. In general, most of the time I could overlook the mc's flaws and found him likable, but there were occasions when he came across as unbelievably stupid.
• The sex talk is very hot, but it never materialises into anything real. If a girl repeatedly asks you to treat her like a fucktoy and take her whenever you want, then do it! I mean, isn't that exactly the type of fantasy AVNs are ideal to provide?
• Spoiler: Minor spoiler

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• Spoiler: Major spoiler for the end of the game

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I felt the need to list all those criticisms to get them out of my system, but please don't let them turn you off playing this game (after you've played the previous one). The pros definitely outweigh the cons.

The perfect second installment to this line of games. The art and animation looked a bit more cleaner this time. Between Bliss and Petal...i think Bliss is more my kinda girl. Had an absolute blast finally getting the partner involved in this chaos. Keep up the good work dev.

I think it's a great game overall. Girls are super cute, enjoyed the plot (admittedly, it's my kind of thing, may not be yours) felt it was overall a nice optimistic game and sequel to the previous game. Looking forward to its sequel.

Note: While it isn't necessary to have played Lockheart's 'A Petal Among Thorns' (APAT), this game canonically follows it. I highly suggest playing through APAT first if you haven't already.
In this playthrough, I followed the transhumanist path. The year the game happens in is 2032.
This game allows us to define the roles and titles of the different characters, I decided to play it as a family.


Where APAT regularly presented choices to the player, AMoB does this less. However, it adds several single-screen freeroam events where objects (usually only one) can be clicked on the screen to progress the story. It's my impression that these 'events' were created to give the player a tactile experience, but for me, this missed its mark. From Chapter 3, this mechanic is done away with. There was one instance where this mechanic replaced a typical choice menu, namely while examining a concept art for a story the MC is working on. I thought this was a great use for it.
A few choices that AMoB offers do have a larger impact. The first being a choice between the transhumanist or naturalist path, which will change the explanation and circumstances of the MC's unique family dynamic. The other choice affects an event near the end of the game.
These choices will also carry over into the next game in the series: 'Over the Moon'.

AMoB is very much a kinetic experience, which I usually try to avoid. However, Lockheart is skilled at characterization and framing of events. I was swept up in the story to such an extent that I didn't miss getting to influence the story through choices. I'd even say that having less choices than APAT was a good thing because the choices in that game often felt fake, eventually leading to the same result. (I believe there was one exception where it changed how a sex scene ended.)


Adult:
'A Moment of Bliss' (AMoB) contains plenty of adult content. Besides the 13 erotic/sexual scenes, the game deals with adult/advanced topics. If you're so inclined, you could spend hours musing on the different philosophies offered by its story. What does AI mean? What do you think of an AI influencing society from the outside? Any opinion about genetic manipulation, or the role and responsibilities of corporations in society?

Visual:
Like APAT, the renders are detailed, well lit and fit the environment and story.
Animations are masterful. Body physics seems realistic, hair moves, parts jiggle, and positions feel natural and realistic. Occasionally, it feels like actions are a little slow/too fluid for the effect that's shown.
Many animations feature a zoom effect, which I found distracting/dizzying. I think it would work better if the zoom effect was stretched across multiple loops of the animation.

Novel:
Text size is on the larger end and can be adjusted using Ren'Py's SHIFT+A menu. The game includes a configurable textbox, which I always appreciate.
'A Moment of Bliss' immediately picks up where 'A Petal Among Thorns' left us. The MC arrives home and reunites with Rose (his ex partner) and Bliss (middle daughter), while bringing along Petal (his youngest).

The story delves deeper into the origins of the MC's unique family dynamic, and lets us discover how an AI, and a phone company insert themselves in the MC's life.

Sound:
Music and sound are unintrusive, and add to the general experience. They don't stand out, or distract from the core AVN experience, which is perfect in my book. There are little sound effects now and then, they aren't overdone and add to the atmosphere of what's going on.
Unlike APAT, AMoB also has sex sounds. These also fit the mood and atmosphere, but the sounds don't always align with what happens in the animation. (For instance, the actions during a blowjob don't line up with the sound that accompanies it.)


Spoilers below!


Characters (+ evolution since APAT):

This game dosnt feel as "real" as first game because of harem but who cares, Bliss is amazing and story good enough to care about just more than sex and I find character models amazing . It gives edge to storytelling when almost all the time you look character face in the game .

Jeez, this AVN is absolutely awful.

I can't recall ever experiencing an AVN where every single primary character has absolutely no outside life or interests and is completely so up their own ass about themselves, their sex lives and their clearly obsessive attraction to each other and in particular the wimp of a failed clown (literally) of a father.

This narrative is almost identical in structure and, though far less accomplished in its characterization, still every bit as dire, interminably drawn out and intensely annoying as that of "SIngle Again".

It is totally abject and boring as hell.

If you want to see how it can be done and excellently too, check out "Christmas Eve" by Jonesy. This is absolutely not a cross-promotion, it's to add comparative context and thus, in my opinion, fair justification for what may seem to some to be excessively harsh criticism of this creation.

A masterpiece, a story that everyone should get to know.
10/10 And will support the developers for future releases and especially for the completion of this story.
This story needs a grand finale.
This game works in perfection as a trilogy and the first one has its role as an introduction to the story about the characters. If you would like the first one then you 200% would like sequel and no doubts the epilogue.

Bravo, this was even better than Petal's story.

The characters are so well written and believable, the emotion is there in spades.

Cant wait for Over the Moon, Im invested in Suzi now as well as the family and I need to see how it all turns out.

Well-crafted story that isnt dripping with cynicism even in the drama moments.

The writing of the game is quite engrossing and each character have some depth and personality in them. The inner turmoil of MC, him questioning whether what he's doing is right or wrong gives him real personality. Each girls don't just jump at his dick, although showing that they had some level of crush on him even before the story began may be easy writing but it is justified well enough. Would definitely recommend to try once.

Just a fair warning first of all, this is NOT a complete game and it has NO ending, its the 2nd game in a series of 3 and this one stops in the middle of nowhere with just a cliffhanger, this should have been explained on page 1 but it says nothing about it and it dosent even show the other games, i was prertty temted to drop this game to 2 stars just from this fact alone.

Well i am somewhat split on he story, i like the daughters/mother/dad part but did find it a bit weird how Bliss went all dom to presure Nixie into doing sexual stuff since Bliss her self has 0 experince with any thing sexual other then what she has been reading.

Also not really a fan of Bliss going after other womans all the time like Nixie and Sin, shes starting to feel more like a whore then a sweet daughter, and of cause the pussywhiped MC goes along with it and gives Sin permission to be with Bliss which again feels like MC is fine with turning hes daughter into a whore, this is why i am not a fan of kinetic novels with MC being like this.

And the going from a story about a loving familie with its problems, to sci-fi AI dident really fit in with the rest.

Also the story MC writes as hes job, dident really see a point in following that part at all and i think the time spend on doing that would could have been put to better use for the main story about the familie.

I am not really a fan of the virgin scenes either, no blood or option for it and for a girl like Bliss that never put anything into her because she was waiting for MC to have no blod and close to no pain and she cums which is very rare for a girls first time all just makes it unbelievable and feels nothing like a virgin scene, next virgin is even worse MC just slams it stright in and she has absolutly no pain and ofc no blood just pure pleasure and she cums 2-3 times i mean gimme a break, makes you wonder why they made the girls virgins at all.

And the constant creampies gets boring, theres 0 risk of pregnancy which the game should have had, without it and MCs none stop talk about hes seed being in girls is stupid and pointless, its a kinetic story so its not hard to put in pregnancy but for some weird reason its left out even though they talk about it multipletimes....

The worst part and this is one that really annoys me and made me go to 3 stars insted of 4, it has some big spoilers.


Story 3/5
Its not the worst story but it fails in alot of ways with Petal and MC being stupid and to trusting to an AI that could share hes info with Nixies mother that could get him trown in jail for years.

Graphics 4/5
Game looks good overall.

Animations 4/5
They are pretty decent but ive also seen alot better in other games, but they are still above avereage.

Music 3/5
I dident feel like the music really sets a mood its more a general music but thats still good, but ive also heard alot better in other games.

It is so refreshing to see a good-looking and well-rounded protagonist! The change to third person view here is a massive step up from Petal. The idea some devs have of what's "immersive" is often jarringly twisted. I mean, it's fiction, it's escapism, for fuck's sake stop doing MCs that are just emasculated good-for-nothing-boys with zero redeeming qualities and an ugly small corpse looking cock, I just don't get who would want to see that in their protagonist, how the hell is that immersive?

I absolutely love the MC in Bliss tough, his face, eyes, physique, hair, cock, all of it. Him alone is worth a 4 stars. That's just how starved I was for a decent protagonist. Looking at the reviews before playing I see why some people didn't like it even though their criticism was often nitpicky, but some just won't be into a change from solo male/female to harem, and that's understandable. I'm guessing it would be the same way I feel when going through a female protag novel just to find out she's a cock hungry slut, I can't even enjoy the renders. Naturally, this will be different for each and every person.

Since the dev is not constricted by first-person pov this time, scenes are more fleshed out, though still not nearly enough kissing and licking for my taste. The fact MC did not run his mouth on Petal's tummy, back and collar bone in their teasing phase is a goddamn sacrilege, and not even going down on her is a crime in itself. I thought this would change in Bliss but it didn't, and I would really like to know what is the dev's problem with it. The plot does make you believe he is going for a Dom path, but it never even comes close to happening.

Overall, sex scenes could have been more erotic, some are underwhelming and others just felt off, I can't put my finger on it, but I know something more raw is missing, or maybe I'm just not that much into incest as I thought I was, since anything with Nixie was way better, or the fact Nixie is goddess material. On top of that, dialogue is distracting rather than spicy, not that I expected sex talk to be the writer's forte, but it does get cringe sometimes. I would prefer a more neutral narration of events mixed with some sexy banter and their thoughts, rather than them describing to each other in detail everything that's happening. I can only imagine how big of a turn off this would be like. Or not. *shrug*

The dynamic of the plot is sorta unique, some odd decisions here and there, pacing felt good until halfway when they decided to throw a wrench at the plot and rush everything. The soundtrack is excellent and well-placed, each scene kept things interesting for the majority of it. Suzi was a nice surprise in this regard since she served as a sort of transition for every step instead of just having inner monologues all the time, and I very much enjoyed the time had with her. That is, again, until the halfway point, when Suzi interactions becomes an afterthought as does consistency and pacing. By then, you get the clear impression they just wanted to be done with it.

I do hope Lockheart takes a step back before going ahead with Moon to refine their work, between the lacking repetitive sex and scenes being far more vanilla than they have any right to be, there's a lot of room for improvement. Regardless, I do believe they did well here, and I'll check out their future projects. Scoring this 5/5 doesn't mean I think it's perfect but reflects how much I enjoyed it compared to the average experience.

The plot twists are great. I loved this one more than Petal. I cannot wait until Moon drops. Nixie and Rose are very hot it will be interesting to see what the family gets up to once Moon is reconciled with.

a fun read. yes, there are some issues, as other reviews enumerate. however, comparatively, this is one of the best novels on this site. if you like the tags, it's definitely worth the time investment.