VN - Ren'Py - Completed - A Promise Best Left Unkept [Bonus S2 Ep 9-11] [Hangover Cat]

I have no words. That game made my day.

Thats's a third HangoverCat game that i'm LITERALLY ENJOYING. This guy(s) know how to HURT ppl

So then i saw their new project here that was a nobrainer. Instant download and play.

AS V. 0.3.5 That game contains a lot of text even on MC perspective only. That's a really good written immersive story with a lot of suspence. Characters are really beautiful and well writen. Not to much to say about H scenes - I need second walkthrough to have an opinion on that.

Music - 10 out of 10 - some chill sounds at usual moments and changes when story become somehow darker.

And yes, guys, i'm hurt as hell here) 5 out of 5, awesome mystery ntr on MC perspective!

I can’t honestly tell if this game was meant as a dark comedy or not. I very much dislike NTR, but after reading a review about it being a good story regardless of whether or not you liked NTR, I said why not. Oh boy man let’s start with the whole blackmail story element it seems a little far fetched to say that he succeeded when a simple investigation could have brought it out to light. So much for the girl actually being a “strong” woman. The whole rules thing that he’s just puts up with it when the dynamic is clearly in his favor was so ridiculous that I found myself . I straight up couldn’t stop laughing on the floor. I guess if I was into NTR I’d give it more stars, but personally, I found the story average. Either way thanks for the laughs.

By far better than the first and the first was a really goooood game. The writing is excellent. I mean really good writing, this is one of the few games that I don't want to fast click for the next scene. I love the build up and I'm glad the dev included seeing both sides from the start. I love new 2 frame animated scenes too btw. Hats off, I'll become a patreon.

Game is great. Awesome art, cool story,, great characters. Not very much gameplay, but the story is so good one shouldn't care. If you are a fan of blackmailing and don't bother about NTR (and you shouldn't , since the main character has less "screentime" that all other characters)

5/5 game.
The story, pacing, and visuals are all top tier.
Version 3.0 has a few hours on content and definitely worth checking out.
The NTR is really good, some of the pictures/still-frames are higher quality than the rest of the game which is great

These sorts of 'behind the scenes NTR' are kind of their own genre. If you value realism over instant gratification then it is the thing for you. Especially great that you can switch from protagonist POV to all POV. I first played through the protagonist POV and thought it was good but a bit short on content. Then I played all POV mode and realized it's about twice or three times the content, full of explicit scenes.

These types of games live and die by their writing, and this writing is almost perfect. The female starts as genuinely 'pure' or normal, but becomes more sexual in a very authentic way.

Absolutely do try it, if you're into this sort of game. One of, if not the, best game in its genre.

Critique - v 0.2.5

If you're into mystery NTR that gets the adrenaline pumping then this is the game for you!
You get to play this game from all perspectives so you won't miss out on any of the hot sex scenes.

Drawings good - 8/10

Animation decent, was much better in the Dev's last VN - 7/10

Story line/ writing is pretty good, you really see into the minds of the characters and you're drawn into their stories. I doubt this could be improved upon 9.5/10


Can't wait to see how the Dev will improve the game when sound is added.

I get that this is a story and aspects will be unrealistic, but some aspects are really kinda unbelievable. I don't care if you are in your early 20's, there is no bloke alive that can cum 12 times in one night.

Reviewing v0.3.5:
There's an "enable rollbacks" option now... instant +1. The newly added content over the latest 2 releases keeps being strong (art: okay/above average, story: mostly great [if you manage to suspend your disbelieves for a bit -- it's still a work of (unsettling) fiction], production quality: very good [few typos/misplaced facial expressions]). Given that I now have a slightly better understanding of the intended scope of the project, there's only one major grievance I can share: IMHO, Aya comes off as too unlikable/annoying in the earlier parts of the game, hence I wouldn't choose to let the MC go after her... -- maybe a tweak here or there might fix that!? Otherwise: This one hurts so good that it's still a strong 4.5 for me.

Reviewing v0.2.5:
Except for "I wish this game was designed with more meaningful choices (and: alternative, branching paths) in mind" and "I dislike the fact that the developer disabled rollbacks" (and chose to leave us with a log/history), there isn't really much bad to say about this game. In fact, there are plenty of good things to say... which you can already read up in other reviews. -- In short: If I didn't know how to re-enable rollbacks, this game would be a 3.5 (at best) for me... b/c the story actually matters. And w.r.t. to the lack of choices/branching paths, well... each release progresses the story substantially, and -- so far -- releases are (quite) steady ...which you probably couldn't expect if choices/paths were a thing. Overall, this leads me to a rating of 4.5. -- To the developer(s): Keep up the good work, keep surprising me.

I started playing this game with no expectetions whatsoever. I was surprised by the ability author can turn a sentence. The way the story is written is absolutely awesome. The game is very NTR heavy, but the reasoning isn't off. Girlfriend isn't bimbo, MC is not a retard. The corruption is involuntary and the girl succumbs every now and then - a little more.
Lastly this game is not meant to be played for graphic content. It's the story and slowburn behind that.

Playing v0.2.5

I have to say that I'm not the biggest fan of cheating/NTR stories. They really have to hit the right beats for me to even get into them in the first place, and too often they descend into the girl falling so fast that I can't even believe she wasn't already dating the antagonist to begin with. With this in mind, I did not expect to like this story as much as I have.

To start off, I HIGHLY recommend that you start the game off by reading through Harry's story first. It builds suspense and a hint of mystery before you play though the "everyone's POV' playthrough, where the payoff and scenes really come into stride. This shouldn't take too long with the lenth of the current build, maybe about an hour or two depending on how fast you read. But as the story length increases I can see this being less feasible/interesting for some players. Ideally I think the idea of playing though chapters of the game, and then replaying those chapters over with the new perspectives would be a cool idea that keeps the suspense and payyoff, but I leave that up for the developers consideration.

First of all, one detail that really made me fall in love with this game is the This really made the corruption elements of the story plain to see, and that was my ticket in.

There have been some complaints about the art style slightly switching during scenes, but it wasn't drastic enough for me to note/care about it, so your mileage may vary on that particular detail. What did stand out to me was the writing. Maybe I've just been playing too many shitty MTL-translated RPGM games lately, but the dialogue and scenarios were well written and believable, at least enough that I could buy that a gullible guy like Harry would believe it. This is the second feature that made me go hard for this game. The story options have been hinting at a multiple route structure, one where you can choose who ends up with who. I hope this continues to be the case, that way everyone can have an ending that suits their tastes, regardless of whether they want the heroines to fall to Lucas's whiles, or if they want Harry to succeed at keeping Laura as his alone. (And maybe have the blonde chick too? I think he deserves it after the crap he went through as a kid, but that's just me lol)

Overall, I'd say if you're a fan of NTR in general, or like well-written smut with a hint of mystery, this story is shaping out to be good! I hope it continues on that route, and I wish HangoverCat the best of luck in making this project come to life!

Is it worth the download? At the point in time of me writing this review (0.2.0), this game IS worth the read. Keep in mind though, it isn't all that long, that meaning it won't take you longer than 2 hours if you were to read it and not "pause", but it has a decent amount of content for the download to be worth it. If you're interested in my reasoning then keep reading this review.

Positives

• The drawing quality is really good, I love the sprites and I love the CG's on their own (will elaborate on Cons).
• The NTR situation for the current scenes is really good, it's what you would expect from NTR but it isn't just a copypaste of the usual dialogue or flavor text you usually see in the genre. It drags on with enticing dialogue and mental reasoning for the female protagonist (Laura) and she doesn't fall to corruption in the usual cycle you're probably accustomed to seeing.
• To further elaborate on the scenes and their CG's, this novel makes REALLY GOOD use of their CG's by moving the camera along with the dialogue making the scenes feel much more dynamic than they actually are, they are your usual to be expected CG's but the clever use of close-ups and camera movements that happen along with the dialogue highly upgrades the experience, and I believe that if this isn't the first 2DCG VN that does this, then it's probably the one that made the better use of it, these scenes are really good and have me excited for what's to come in future updates.
• Blackmail might be something really burnt out at this point but it actually mentions all workarounds that the protagonist could have taken to fight back like a normal person would, if only Luca (the antagonist) was just another average joegly bastard like in common NTR, but he isn't and makes it painfully clear why he can pull off this almost too cleanly.

Negatives

• The art, while it is really good and the dev makes crazy good use of it on the sexual scenes. Let's address the elephant in the room. They're very inconsistent. As I said on the first positive point, I don't dislike neither of the artstyles, far from it, they're really good on their own, but it's such a heavy contrast looking the normal and clean anime sprites and next dialogue BOOM, suddenly the artstyle changed to a way more detailed one with different eyes. Again, it looks really good, I love it, but sometimes it feels like I'm looking at 2 different characters who are also the same, kind of like Mario and Paper Mario.
• The category of this novel was so short of becoming a kinetic novel had there not been the only 2 choices in the entire read (maybe 3, memory is foggy from having played ita week ago and just writing the review now). And one of the choices is unavailable as of this version, so if you're downloading now, don't expect a branching story or important decisions for now.

LASTLY AND MOST IMPORTANTLY:
Don't let these negatives deter you from Watching this thread or supporting HangoverCat (the Dev), the first one isn't that much of an issue, it's just weird getting used to it, and the second one will obviously be solved by the time the novel is finished or close to finished, it's just a matter of time. I just felt like it was necessary to mention everything regarding this novel because this might be one of the best NTR VN on f95.

5/5

The start is promising but sometimes evolves into cheap setups or transitions and, eventually, plot. Along the way, the visual style inappropriately changes occasionally and some design desicions seem ridiculous, for example the cool rules system being overblown by thousand rules so it lacks any tension or fun mindgames. The conquering would be alright if most setups 'n dialogs dealing with the dynamic between blackmail and inner slut were less repetitive or more creative. I remember having wished for more setups like business events or little hidden plays behind Harry's back in the bureau, just way more variety.

I also personally don't understand why one would go through the struggle of implementing choices: If MC gravitates towards another woman, why should we care, too? But even if you walk on the road of trust, the plot rather cares about just some scenes and a quick end that might reward it but isn't erotic, since it suddenly ignores character development by design for the rest of the time.

Really great story and art. And I love the concept of mystery NTR (although I played both perspectives from the start). Promising start to the game. Looking forward to future updates, one of my favourites on the site.

Story is great, different perspective implementation is also very good. I wish I played the game with GF perspective after the game completed but none of us have that patience I guess. Game art is also very good.

At the time of review, the game is less than 30% complete (maybe 15-20% idk) but so far- I'd say it has the best writing of any NTR game I've ever played.
The art is great too, but the writing is where it shines. I can tell it's going to be a great story of corruption.

Been watching this game since v0.1, ever since I was scrolling through the most recently updated NTR stories and saw this new game. And it just so happened to be made by the same guy who made The Edge Of, which I had just recently played and enjoyed the art of immensely (story... less so).

I played both v01.0 and v0.1.5 from getting it off of this site, and saw that on his patreon, v0.2.0 was getting released shortly. And I knew I had to get in early from it, because I thought it wouldn't keep getting posted here.

This is easily probably the best NTR game still in development, and it's not really even that close. The characters are organic, the rules system is fresh and adds so much to the experience, and oh my lord, if this isn't up there as some of the best art, I don't know what is. I don't really see writing concerns, and if there's a typo, it's so small and insignificant that it might as well not be there.

And it doesn't even fall into what I think is one of the worst failings a corruption NTR story can have, and that's a lack of pacing. In this game, helped out by the rules system, we can track just how far the relationship has gone, and the story benefits greatly from it. This is clear to see that the pacing of this corruption and inevitable falling of our heroine is going to be perfectly nailed on the head.

As a valid point, I will make note of the lack of choices to be made here, but well, I also remember that I'm here for a porn game and am doing this to jack off. It doesn't need many choices, because it's an NTR game right from the word 'go', and besides, it's currently in development. The man himself has said that there will be more choices added, and weighty ones too. We ain't even halfway done in the first route of two, give the man some time.

That all being said, this is 100% a recommendation to anyone that is interested in NTR. Keep up the amazing work, Hangover Cat!

By what Hangover Cat has shown us so far I think it's safe to say that A Promisse Best Left Unkept is a classic in the making.

He takes the old cliche of the girlfriend being corrupted by the bully and adds his rules system which when combined with the characters personalities turns this game into one of the most exciting NTRs out there.

The game's main screen let us know how the story is going to end, but I can't help but keep getting excited with each new scene to know how the rules are going to change, and that never fails to get me hyped for the next update.

Easily 5/5 and probably the best NTR game in development right now, can't wait to know how the story is going to progress.

Really enjoying this so far despite having only mixed feelings about The Edge Of. The writing is overall excellent despite a few typos and awkward phrasings here and there and the 'rules' mechanic is both clever and very hot.

I am really enjoying both the maledom elements of the story and that the female protagonist comes across as strong willed and competent. It's definitely all the sweeter when a strong and proud woman ends up succumbing. A competent and intelligent antagonist is also a plus

I really like this mystery ntr game, this game really suits me, For art I think it's also good for the scene where Laura and Luca are having sex. 10/10 I really like the art, and for the developer @HangoverCat I hope that in this game at least one character has pubic hair, for example Aya I hope she has pubic hair either thin or thick because she is Asian so I hope you will consider it because I am one of those people who like pubic hair, and yes I am enjoy for the game and I really like it

It's very short and I don't recommand right now to try it.
Story it's good with build-up characters one complain I have on graphic part.

I would like to see the heroines Laura&aya some change like sweat on her skin, bruise on her body, dripping sperm from her skirt I want to feel that corruption to be real, and I don't want you to rushHangoverCat on this part I want a slow and good corruption to be worth to say this is it.

So far I love where the game go, on the future I would like to see pregnant both heroines and some humiliation for our poor mc hahahaha.
Discreet sex or phone call also is a idea that would be great to see in your game.