Ren'Py - Completed - After the Inferno [v1.0] [Classy Lemon]

While it isn't perfect, this is definitely one of the best adult VNs/games I have played. Despite a few limitations, I am rating it a full 5/5 because it is leaps and bounds above any 4/5 star VN/game on this site.

PROS:
First off, the story is great. For those that care about the story, I guarantee that you will not be disappointed. There is an incredible amount of depth , lore, and overall world building that makes everything much deeper than it has to be. All of it is written surprisingly and I loved it. While there is the occasional example of things conveniently happening even though it makes no logical sense considering the circumstances, these instances are few and didn't impact my ability to enjoy the story at all.

The characters are also really unique. There are no copy and pasted characters. Each individual feels unique and grows in their own way throughout the story. Every character feels grounded and real, with none of those empty shells that only exist for the MC to have their way with. The character models also all look great, and there is individuality between them. While some others have complained about the characters having eyes that are too large, I didn't find it to be an issue at all. It is a VN so it doesn't have to perfectly anatomically correct, and the over all facial expressions are very good. The parts where the characters are animated are also executed extraordinarily well. Especially since they are often having to sync to a voice-ver.

While I'm not usually a fan of voice acting in my VMs (especially during the sex scenes), the voice acting that is there is surprisingly good. I've played big budget AAA games where the characters sound more lifeless. While I didn't necessarily enjoy hearing the MC grunt during every orgasm, the voice acting was good enough that I'm still going to add this under PROS because it is done well.

Background music and sound effects were really good, though there were glitches pertaining to this (see below).

CONS:
The biggest con in my opinion is how the pacing starts to deteriorate at the very end. it just feels incredibly rushed. One of the final characters that you meet feels really rushed (which is a shame because she is absolutely adorable), the big final battle is over incredibly quickly, and you don't even have an opportunity to talk to the other character and answer their questions after the fact. You don't even get to click around the map or anything, you just have a party at the cavern to celebrate your victory and them poof - brief exposition and kicked straight back to the main menu. In an ideal world I would love for this story to keep on going. There are loose ends I want to see tied up, questions I want answered, and most importantly I want to see what the characters end up doing after the battle. And while it is unrealistic that Classy Lemon would be able to make something as massive as The Witcher 3 or Baldur's Gate 3 without an entire studio behind them, they did such as great job setting up the world that it just leaves you wanting more. At the very least I would have at least liked the option to visit every character one more time to get their opinion on the pact I made to get allies for the final fight.

The pacing of each individual character is also a little bit strange as it seems to go in phases. You complete the entire story pertaining to character A, then you do the entire story pertaining to character B, then you do it with the next one and the next one until the story is ready for the big final battle. The downside of this is that you cant really interact with (or in some cases even visit) characters that you've grown close to for very long periods of time. While intertwining these storylines a bit more would have helped in the delivery of the story, it was mostly my inability to talk to, get new dialogue from, have sex with, or just generally interact with certain characters for longer periods of time was disappointing.

This ties into my next point which is the emptiness of the map and lack of dialogue progression. The map is great, but there is never any reason to visit a location unless it is required for a story step. There is nothing new to discover, nothing new to see, and no new dialogue to get from characters. This applies both to background characters as well as your allies. The dialogue you get from your mates at the tavern at the very start is the exact same as you get at the very end. Having characters react to progression in the story and/or changes in the world would be a massive advantage. As it stands, this story should probably be a continuous click-to-read VN instead of a sandbox VN. Which is a shame because I really do like the sandbox mechanics, even if it is just the bare bones with zero fleshing out.

Lastly, there are surprisingly many audio and visual glitches. These are common and plague most VNs, but because of the incredibly high quality of this VN I was always surprised and a bit annoyed when I encountered one. The most common one was rollback disabling audio. There are areas where rolling back even one message will completely disable the background track. This really sucks because this seems to happen most in dramatic scenes where the atmospheric music is absolutely perfect. The only way to get the soundtrack to start playing again is to roll all the way back to before it was first triggered, and then continue again from there. There were also two instances where I had more than one background track playing at the same time, which got really annoying. I was outside and there was a mysterious soundtrack playing but for some reason the tavern music was going as well even though I was nowhere near it. And lastly, sometimes certain assets would stay stuck on the screen. I had both the green park from the map and Lexis the blueberry addicted market girl get stuck on my screen, with the second occurring twice. It doesn't matter where you go, what you do, who you talk to, or how far you progress in the story - the images will just stay glued to the top of whatever is supposed to be on the screen. If you save and load that save file the problem persists, and the only solution I've found is loading a previous save and just hoping that it doesn't happen again.

TLDR
I absolutely recommend anyone and everyone to give this VN a try. While there are some bugs, quirks, and the pacing becomes too rushed at the end - those drawbacks do little to take away from an otherwise masterfully crafted story with surprisingly deep and intricate lore. I will be purchasing this on Steam to help support the dev.

Some people have complained about the art style, but it really didn't bother me.

Overall, this is a story-focused AVN that does a pretty good job of exploring each of the characters personalities. If you're into that, this is worth the try.

Its crazy the amount of detail Classy Lemon puts into their games.

I wouldn't call this game perfect but honestly to me its pretty damn close, its clear the longer it goes on, the more experienced the Dev got,

My only real nitpit is that we never really got to explore more of MC ability's, felt like there is so much more story to be told/experienced

The ending has me satisfied enough if we never get a sequel it'll be alright, but im always going to holding out hope that we'll see more adventures.

Absolutely loved the game, although I think the intro kind of set my expectations too high (was expecting something witcher level which is obviously impossible). Writing was logical (pretty rare for an AVN) and witty.

I only wished that it could be longer because the lore building made it seem like the scale could be larger (maybe a sequel in the works?) but I completely understand since it's always better to have a small tight game rather than becoming too unwieldy.

Overall I would say it is clearly a top tier game and I look forward to playing the next one!

Overall 4/5, A well written VN with good renders and shallow sandbox gameplay

Story and Character 4.5/5, the characters, the narrative, the mystery, and humor are well made, kept me interested throughout. However the story does feel more rushed the closer you get to the ending

Art and Renders 4/5, some scenes though short are complete videos with voice acting to my surprise, however I do find the renders to be on the lower end in terms of quality especially the environment. Another thing is the eyes

Gameplay and Sandbox 1/5, the sandbox is there so you can call it a sandbox, it barely adds anything to the game

What a BANGER!! Story is superb, great use of humor, setting is very well crafted, the dev really allowed imagination to come to fruition. The renders are great and the art is excellent. I played more for story so I can't say I'm disappointed in that regard since it's very nicely written. this dev really knows how to do cut scenes well because I play their other game Projekt Passion which is awesome as well. thanks for this great piece and awesome art and you always have my support ❤

If you're expecting to actually lead a mercenary company or have an actual sandbox experience then you might be disappointed. If you prefer non stop sex scenes over story and world building then this game probably isn't for you.

Bad
Limited choices: The "choices" overall mean nothing and just give you the illusion of choice. Unless of course you go for the "bad" ending but most players won't because there's little to no incentive to do so.
Sandbox: Yeah this element just doesn't exist. It means there's no Korean MMO levels of grinding (which is nice) but if the games gonna be labeled as a sandbox then I expect a sandbox with the good and the bad that come with it.
Story pacing: It feels short and certain plots are just rushed, especially the last mission. It involves you "recruiting" others to help you in the final fight and honestly feels like it should have been its own season instead of 5 or so minutes worth of slides and dialogue. But unfortunately this is to be expected with these kinds of games especially if you don't want to wait 5+years of development.
Ending: The entire ending itself is fine, pretty solid in most areas but that final slide bro...The good endings final slide is an animation that leaves you with more questions than answers. It seems like it's setting up for a sequel but whether we get that sequel or not is anyone's guess. With the amount of work he's putting into Projekt Passion(fantastic game btw, can recommend) I doubt we'll see a sequel anytime soon.

Neutral
Female Models: Honestly wasn't a fan of some of the women at the start but they soon grew on me. It probably helps that I played Projekt Passion first (Classy Lemons current game) so I got accustomed to his art style. But I understand that the first two women Kyra and Cressa might not appeal to a lot of people due to the formers Bug eyes and the latters unconventional attractiveness.
Sex scenes: Not the biggest fan of animated scenes with no written dialogue and only voice acting which only consists of grunts and moans. Maybe some people prefer that but not me. Only reason this is in neutral and not bad is because it comes down to personal preference and isn't objectively bad.

Good
Fight scenes: They are honestly top notch, some of the best I've ever seen in a fucking sex based VN. Can't praise them enough.
The love interests: They are different enough from one another so it doesn't feel like you're fucking the same girl with a different skin, which is nice.
Story: Overall this game is story first and it does a good job of that. It's not an amazing story with grade A writing by any means, but it's great for what it is and easily in the top 10% of all the completed games on this site when it comes to the story department.
Developer: Classy Lemon is fantastic, and If you want someone who not only involves himself with the people who pirate his game but also take feedback from them then he's your dream Dev. I only learned of him about a month ago when I got back home after 6months of working in Alaska. I decided to start a new game and found Projekt Passion and after playing that I saw that he had completed game (this game) and decided to give it a go because I fell in love with his humor, writing style, and renders. I can honestly say he's on the list of Devs where I'll play all of his future games.

Overall if you like story driven games then this game is for you. Yeah there's some weak points and problems with the pacing of the plot but nearly every game on this site has similar issues. So while I'm giving it 5/5 stars the game probably deserves 4.5 but to my knowledge you can't give half stars so I decided to round up because the game was made by a guy who had little to no monetary incentive to actually finish the game and not some triple A studio with millions of dollars to throw around. So for what the game is, it excels at that and is a solid 4.5 that I feel comfortable rounding up to a 5.

Game Version: Complete V1.0

TLDR: Game is not perfect, but this is a cut above the rest VNs anywhere. Story is serviceable but the main draw are the animations. They are placed importantly where the story really needs it and of course A+ H-scenes.

Scenes: There are animations in a few scenes and are perfectly done. Fighting animations are a bit off, but these are better than the few we have here. 5/5

H-scenes: Most will only have 1 position in loop and a few camera changes. But the animations are done perfectly smooth. Near Pixar quality 5/5

Story: Not unique but it is not uninspired. It is perfectly told and fits the MC and Characters. Animations are great and have a lot of effort done into it 4/5

Characters: Very beautiful no Tripple-Z cups or those nukes in other games, they are small and realistic. which is a plus for me . The eyes definitely are a turn off for some and jarring for others. But luckily, I love Alita Battle Angel so it is nice for me 5/5

Gameplay/loop: Not much to say here, it has choices and maybe except for a few important choices, not a lot of effects to the story. H-scenes are locked in "side stories" that are unlocked via progress to main missions. 2.5/5

Overall: 5/5 Game is not perfect, and the cons are simple and can be expanded on. But the good is better than some games combined. Animations are well done, Classy Lemon I recon worked for Pixar or an Animation studio before. Some of the animations are just a step down from what Pixar does. And the story is perfectly fit in. This game needs more attention.

Good story with a great moral about friendship and teamwork being essential instead of the tired cliche of making the player character as OP as possible to win. Didn't need a walkthrough to get a good ending because the characters reacted to player choices in a way consistent with their characterization. Good variety in sex scenes, enhanced by the fact that the LIs felt like peers instead of worshippers of a ridiculously over-powered PC.

Surprisingly good game. I'm not a big fan of models (in dev's next project there is huge improvement in this area) but the story and dialogues are top notch, sex scenes are great and in general it's one of the most entertaining porn games I've ever played. I was hooked to the monitor after the first minute, the humour, the banter and the main plot are just that good. Erotic scenes are hot and even women models somehow grew on me.

Pros:
+ Story that is in the top 1 percentile
+ Dialogues and humour (this game will brighten your day)
+ Sex scenes that are animated
+ No filler here or stupid minigames

Cons:
- Some models could use a bit more work but after a while I found them hot so it's not a big flaw in my eyes
- Cutscenes are unnecessary IMO but they can be skipped so it's not much of a flaw either

(Version Reviewed: Completed Game)

Good game from a great dev.

I liked the story and the voice acting. The renders do look a little odd, I think it's a problem with the eyes of the characters. The animations look good. Dialogue and humor are on point. However, I did not enjoy the sandbox and felt that the story could've been told in a VN format. The sandbox made it feel like the city was empty, so more NPCs would've been a good move. The romances feel underdeveloped, it often feels like it's too rushed other than romance with the fire mage which had a bit of a backstory to it.

Solid game. 8/10 is a fair rating.

+Writing style is efficient and enjoyable. I was expecting things to be pretty dry with lots of reading in what looked to be a fantasy epic but was pleasantly surprised with a much lighter approach and good amounts of humor while still keeping things serious when they needed to be. The humor and style got me particularly hooked in the earlier parts of the game but became less pronounced as the game progressed while still being there from time to time.

+Lore entries are unlocked as things are mentioned in the game which make for a terrific way of providing background and world-building for those of us that care without bloating dialogue with unnatural exposition.

+Animations are surprisingly well done. The lewd ones are somewhat straight-forward (each scene is one to two positions shown at various angles and a finishing animation) but satisfying. Things jiggle as they should and things like speed and impact are just right. My only slight knock is that the quality is somewhat compromised in some cases by compression artifacts. Things move fast enough though that they're usually not noticeable.

+Voice acting was well done for an AVN. Sounds were overall solid. Sounds and moans/voices during sex scenes were excellent.

+Bonus points from me for a few decent animated facials.

=Renders are overall decent enough but not great. Some look terrific but a lot are lacking in various aspects. Aesthetic choices particularly with some of the models themselves can take a bit of getting used to as well. The amount of renders used per scene can seem pretty low compared to other AVNs but they generally get the job done. Render choice was a bit hit or miss with some seemingly unneeded large shots of barren landscapes and not enough in scenes with interactions with other characters. Use of sprites in certain dialogues did help make up for the lack of renders in some of these scenarios though.

=Most of the lewd material and flavors catered to are fairly vanilla aside from a few exceptions.

=It's hard to tell if one of the storylines in the final battle is an homage or just a fantasy rip off that other parts of the game were included just to set up. It worked in the context of the game world but hardly felt remotely original.

-Despite being fairly succinct, parts of the story and dialogue still feel meaningless and boring. There are also occasionally things mentioned that are quickly explained away that make no sense if you stop to think about them at all. A couple things that are brought up are then explicitly not explained within the game (which would be fine if there was meant to be a sequel - and I'd love to see one someday).

-Romantic progression with LIs is extremely rushed and largely formulaic. There's rarely time or reason to get invested in them, chemistry is nearly non-existent, and how quickly they come to trust or care for the MC rarely seems earned or believable. It works fine for some of the more casual sexual relationships in the game but not so much for others.

-A bunch of the sex scenes don't feel organic or built up to but rather there because it's just time for a sex scene. There's also little very in the way additional renders, descriptive text, or even dialogue during the scenes. While I like that the animations have the characters clearly not afraid of getting after it, the only build up before most of these animations is usually one or two renders and a bit of text hinting at some foreplay which I would rather have seen more of (just some more renders and text would do the trick). Scenes also have no choices/options to speak of.

-City seems empty and lifeless. The handful of characters you can interact with in the few locations you can go to freely have dialogue options that disappointingly never change as the game progresses. I liked the map and journal interface but it seemed wasted as you only ever have at most a few simple choices of where to go and what to do at any given time.

-Panning/Zooming effects are used way too much on static renders. It works well in the cases where there's a reason to pan/zoom as well as in the scenes with more lengthy dialogue on top of an otherwise static background but it's very frequently used completely unnecessarily. After playing for a while you may start to feel like images even in other programs are moving when they aren't.

-Renders and animations both suffer in certain lighting conditions. Frequent low light combined with bright glowing elements seems to be particularly problematic.

Conclusion:

There's a lot to like and a lot to pick at critically. Writing and world-building had more pros than cons. Animations and audio were impressive. LI progression was generally a let down but sex scenes were satisfying if a bit generic and short. Renders were decent but a bit infrequent at times and often hampered by lighting, quality issues, and obsession with panning/zooming.

This was a good first time outing from a new dev. There are certainly things left to be improved upon but what was already accomplished and learned from here certainly bodes well for future projects. This was also a game which was completed in a very reasonable length of time but as a result unfortunately did feel a bit like an experimental project that could have been much more. It did a good enough job of telling its story and wrapping it up in a fairly satisfying manner but it felt like a lot of potential was still left on the table (especially for the amount of thought that went into building out the world). Nonetheless, the game felt fresh and quite enjoyable for what it was and I'm looking forward to the dev's next project.

While the renders, animations and overall visuals (except maybe the background) actually quite good the game wastes a lot of potential. Several story elements or side storys could have been much deeper and fleshed (like the cult and so on). It's also sad that your choices don't really matter that much. This game could have been much more but wasted all of its potential.

Carried by animation and voices, the game itself I found broody and dull. So many opportunities and mechanic potential wasted. All you do is speak to someone back to back, go to sleep, new event. The choices are near negligible and pointless, it makes maybe a inch of difference with no real consequence. It's more of a VN that a game, you almost do nothing but read text and select 1 option every 5 mins on top of that you don't even interact with the characters after their story is done, you only see them again end game.

Really enjoyed this visual novel. Enjoyed the story & lore. Story had a beginning, middle, end which was nice.

The animations really helped imo with the story telling, and i appreciate animations for non-sex scenes!

Would be cool if the story continues.

Excellent VN.

Good and varied cast of female, "romancable" characters, as well as some fun supporting male ones. The prose is some of the best I've seen on this site and the models and animations are outstanding. The voice acting is nothing to sneeze at either.

The story is well done with a variety in locations and arcs as well as a certain amount of player choice that amounts to more than just altered dialouge. It doesn't break new ground concept-wise but the execution is near flawless.

It has some fun humor and suprisingly good lore, I am especially a fan of the depiction of the Death-God.

My only real gripes with the game is the fact that the ending of the game does not have enough buildup in my opinion and that the final girl Izumi, really does not have a lot of "Screentime".

These criticisms however pale in comparison to the good aspects. I am very excited to play the next game of this Team, it looks very promising.

Still salty the Death Priestess isnt romancable though.

A most excellent first game by this Dev. Barring a few issues, it's almost great, and definitely worth a play.

The Good

Story is solid if a bit short. Likeable MC and well-developed ladies, put it well above average.
Girls are gorgeous and with good variety, with mostly decent backstory and interactions.
Music is good and sound is great, especially in the lewd scenes.
Ending is solid, if a bit abrupt. Nice to not really need a walkthrough to get the good ending. Just use common sense and be a decent dude and you will get it.
Lewds are plentiful, though most all of them could be a bit longer. I have seen a lot worse sexy time.

The not so Good

Dialogue is a bit wooden, and writing could use a bit of help. It's pretty bare bones, though the story makes sense, and a lot of thought went into the world building and lore. Some more exposition and dialogue more suited to the individual characters would have been nice.
Need more renders for the sex scenes, especially foreplay. The animations are pretty good but need more variety and longer loops. Changing up the positions and more dirty talk in the sexy scenes, would make them more fap worthy. They were just too short to properly get off on them.

Those small issues aside, it's still a very good game. Looking forward to more from this Dev.

I'm like 15 minutes in and the only thing I can think about is why is this game lacking the 'Gay' tag. "That's fucking gay" is literally the only thing I have been groaning the entire time. The game literally opens with the MC leering at another mans junk, nuff said. This game consists wholly of visceral cringe. The main character is the demon love child of Geralt and Rob Stark, which absolutely had me in stitches. Then he fucks an ugly bitch, and I'm like... Okay! I see you game. Respect Its about time ugly bitches get love too. But then they straight up reuse models with the slightest paintjobs. There were 3 voice actors in Oblivion and there are 3 women in this game. It's like a bad one women show. Every 4 seconds the already non existent pacing grinds to a halt for some dramatic music and some stupid fucking manufactured bullshit. I'm 5 seconds into the game, I don't know anything about these characters, other then the fact they are all deeply closeted. I. Don't. Give. A. Fuck. For an adult game, it sure does blow its load too soon. Although... I'm sure it only gets worse. I'll probably give it one more go for shits and giggles... But I have a very strong feeling that this is another 'acting lessons' type game where it is absurdly overhyped to the point of absolute insanity and is actually an embarrassment to the culture.

(EDIT: +1 Star for big D MC. -1/2 star for shape changing cock, it's different in literally every scene. 1 scene it is thick and veiny and the next its slick with a purple head. +1 star for decent animations. +1 star for positions. +1 star for aggressive insemination. -1/2 star for 0 creampies, facials sure, but ZERO cum in coochies, unacceptable. 1/2 star for limited voice work. -2 stars for the purest cringe. +1 star for blind ambition. +1 star for translucent bitty, -1/2 star for lack of visual insemination. -2 star for the story without factoring the cringe. - 2 star for formulaic nature of gameplay. It's just pure repetition with extra unnecessary steps: look in journal, do what journal says, choose sex, rest at inn. Rinse. Repeat. Having a map was worthless, just make a f'ing VN next time. +2 stars for skippable cut-scenes, it was the only way I could finish the game. -3 stars for having cutscenes that need to be skipped. I don't know how many that is, and I genuinely don't care. But I know its negative and I can't accurately reflect that in the rating.)

As of this review I've only played past the prologue and the Cressa story

Story, Art, and Audio
I'm the type to try and put my attention into a games story and see through the MC as Devran is written to make that easily possible, where I found myself quite surprised at a few reveals (His comedic timing brings for a pretty fun break with all of the seriousness that you encounter). The other characters (so far) are pretty good to level out Devran constantly being in your face as everything is told and seen from his perspective (First Person POV). An important part of his character right now (As of this review) is revealed that makes a game element quite clever along with his design.

The art is quite tame but suits the purpose that it was pretty much made for as after about an hour I was already accustomed to the character designs and found their charm, though some don't particularly fit well more than others and that's honestly okay in the grand scheme of things. The audio, music, and sounds are used sparingly and are perfect for where they are used, as ambience isn't overpowering and plays quite well with immersion while the voice acting I find quite a bit rocky and awkward (so far).

Overall
The game is pretty good and I honestly would recommend it to anyone on this site to give it a go if they like story over gameplay and of course sex scenes as there a quite a number that can easily be missed. The humor I think is great when its used but my own might just end up being skewed. My only gripe with the game is primarily on how a lot of things don't really fit together as much art-wise and few inconsistencies with necks and a bit of spelling errors but this can all be forgiven as it was graciously provided for free to anyone looking to play. This game is great for this time played (4 hours) and I would hope my review helps others pick it up for a decent read and experience.

That was a good game. It wasn't too long or too short, the LI's were nice and the story was good. I have no complaints for this game. I would've like some free roam sex scenes but that's more of a feature that would have been nice and doesn't effect my rating.

It's a completed game and I'm gonna give it a 5/5.