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

I'd normally rate this 4 stars, but this deserves more for releasing in complete and polished state, with proper finished story , good voice acting for selected lines, cutscenes and animations.


Here are some minor gripes, so this review will have some useful feedback at least:

The sandbox felt a bit pointless and empty, though I guess it's better than a simple choice menu, though ultimately the same. Helped with the world, but maybe some minigames (plenty of opportunities for dice or cards) or more collectibles or quest items sprinkled would've helped.

Similar with choices - no much player agency, it's usually one good choice, and one stupid choice, so it read more like kinetic novel. Maybe some more flavor choices /dialogue would've helped, like naming herbs Faye showed us - that was pretty funny.

Sex scenes were nice, with great animations (though bit more varied and tastefully posed renders would've helped) but with not much time to build and feel the relationship. It didn't feel undeserved, but it felt rushed, hence less payoff. Also, some shown creampies (or runaway trickles during closeup shots) would've been hot.

It's definitely worth a play, hopefully it will have good sales on steam, this project deserves it. Thank you for sharing, wish you luck with your next project!

The game is amazing on everything: graphic, novel, lore, voice, over-powered main character, etc. I feel so good that I can actually watch and play at the same time. I'm sure the developer as well as this game is rarest gem on earth. I hope to see his/her/their products in the future, and I wish for their success. Many thanks.

Probably closer to 4 stars but i gave it a five star rating, because its one of the few games i actually bother playing instead of just skipping over everything.

Mc is definitely the strongest point, With an actual personality (which is unfortunately incredibly rare) and a unique look.
Story a close second with it being again pretty unique and more then a simple excuse for guy meet girl then bone (again pretty rare)
The weakest part was probably the girls who felt out of place sometimes and a bit too linear, Instead of being naturally present and relevant in this grand adventure, they were like mini adventures almost side quests, which when completed felt like they were over and done with.

Definitely worth a try for those unsure, also really good animations.

Everything about this game just oozes production value and passion.

Even the voice acting is good. Did make me read and stay up until 3 am.

If I had one criticism it'd be that the sex scenes are all pretty vanilla, but animation and sound quality still makes up for it.

As of v0.6
Simply amazing game loving the story so far with magic ,spells and other fantasy setup . Main character and female characters are a boost to the story as they all have a part to play in it . Music and sound effects are nice addition to the game . Sex animations are well done , Free roam is kind of off putting in this game with no hints but overall it is not that much so it's okay in the end .
Overall the game is totally amazing and it is worth playing for the story alone , definitely recommended and looking forward to endings to the story .

Great game, based on my tastes on force. I really like the story and the setting. An interesting fantasy one. The characters are likable and I find the style intriguing and refreshing. I have become a Patreon supporter!

Regarding the review, i cant say that there was much for me to criticize. I loved the story maybe except the last update that felt a bit rushed to me to wrap up stuff asap but its understandable. 4.5/5.

Art style doesnt have to be for everybody and even though i didnt like it as much in the begining not because of the eyes but because most of the characters felt the same with just different hairstyle / colours and it slowly grew on me eventualy 4.5/5 .

Cutscenes, voicelines, sex scenes etc were perfect i have no complains there, 5/5 .

I do not mind sandbox in the game but i dont think it served any purpose in this particular one, as it has only 1 main storyline and 1 character to pursue at a time. It would had to have some side activities or multiple stories pursuable at a same time, branching story or limited actions per day to be fully used in any effective way. Dunno how to rank this one.

The only thing i didnt liked was the way memories were handled. To have a pop up in top right corner when most of the time you focus on text in the opposite one doesnt work very well especially on big monitors. Found all eventually, together with 100 percent completition without any walkthrough mods but spend atleast 1h untill i found the one where you had to refuse HJ to get it and then was pissed that it didnt had any added value to a story. 3/5

Thanks for the time invested and GL on future projects

The art is really superb. This is definitely a game which I'm hoping the dev develops to completion. Multiple paths make this more than a straightforward VN game. Definitely worth a play in its current state.

My review of After the Inferno [v0.4]

Story
The story starts with a fantastic voiced FMV and great world-building.
Shortly after it already gets much worse though.
I think the biggest problem is the MC:
He is supposed to be the captain of an elite mercenary squadron, but he acts some average unimportant villager.
Always kind and considerate to everyone and backing down instead of being confrontational. No one would follow someone like this IRL. It's very unimmersive.
Stuff like losing a fight and getting imprisoned completely unharmed, just to casually escape with full gear after waking up, also doesn't help with immersion.
Realistically MC would be killed off immediately or at least tortured and questioned.
The pacing of the story also feels like 10% main story development and 90% dating girls.
Overall pretty disappointing.

Writing
The writing seems a bit wooden and often anticlimactic.
I'm not sure if the static images with neutral facial expressions are at fault, but overall it's just average at best.

Graphics
The graphics in this game are pretty bad.
They seems to be pre-rendered in Daz3D, but the environment models are very simplistic, textures are blurry, and lighting is very poor.
It's almost as if it was made in Honey Select.
There are also very few renders overall.
Sometimes there is a single static image for 50(!) lines of text...

Audio
The sound in this game is absolutely dreadful.
All tracks have hugely inconsistent volume.
No track loops properly, some have repeating popping artifacts mid-track, some have a long silence at the start, some don't even start to play due to bugs, some aren't even used.
It seems like the developer just quickly got some random free-to-use sounds and sound tracks, listened to them for a few seconds, and called it a day.

Gameplay
You can make many decisions, but most of them seem meaningless and only affect the girls.
The main story seems 100% linear so far.
There's also a completely pointless sandbox mode:
You can move around freely in the city, but you only get repeating dialogue until you find the right NPC that advances the story.

Conclusion
A pretty mediocre game.
I'm giving it 3 stars because the voiced FMVs are great - otherwise I might have rated it only 2 stars.
If you don't care about awful audio or play muted it can be a good game though - the girls look cute at least.

This is worth playing. Well I've always liked medieval stories about war stuff. Well this is about that. And game's mostly concentrating on story than the porn part, that's a big plus for me. Renders are good. Unique artstyle. MC gives the vibes of witcher. And game got some good cutscenes that are voiced. Writing is good. If you want to play a story focused game try this. If you are looking for more of a fapworthy this will disappoint you. Overall I enjoyed playing the game. Looking forward to next updates.

Keep up the good work dev

Where this marvel has been hiding all this time?
I really can see it going in one of my top ten 18+ vns of all time.
But let's get into the review first, I want to write something long for this game, so if you want to see the pros and cons immediately here they are:

Pros
- Smooth and simple writing that hits the spot
- A colorful and amazing graphic that looks like an animkated movie
- Deep lore and characters
- Engaging plot
- Sandbox gameplay that doesn't feel repetitive or annoying
- Actually good voice acting

Cons
- There are some musical bugs
- Some scenes are stiff (But they are very few)
- It's still not complete

I immediately reccomend it, go play it, now I'll write more thoughts, or the actual review.

The war and the merc

The game is set in a fantasy world in war, you heard many times this story, but not like this time,even if it's a world about magic, mythical creatures and warfare, but the focus of the themes is about human relationships, about a little story in a greater picture.
The game knows well how to handle the pacing, it knows when to be heavy, when to be soft and when to have humor lines (they are few, but they areally well made).
The protagonist is incredible written, his monologues are profoundly written and his personality is different from your average MC, he has even character development!
My favorite thing of the protagonist may be his journal, reading it you understand perfectly how he thinks and acts.
All the other characters are incredibily written, even the comic relief characters feel like actual persons.

An insight from the world

The worldbuilding is top notch, the world feels like a breathing one, even if you don't read the lore, you can understand situations, but I highly suggest to read it, at the same time it answers questionsand makes you wonder if one day you'll see all of this.
It feels like reading a book from a forgotten library, just wonderful.

Something about the music

I don't know if they are original or not, but sound effects and music perfectly embrace the ambient in an immersive way.

Seeeeeex

The sex scenes that are in the game are well done and hot, and they are paced well in the story.
You never feel like "Damn I need a sex scenes rn!", they come when they are needed.
Even some weird cliches like "Cum is magic I need it" is a well written scene deeply emotional.

The end

Oh well those were my thoughts, if you arrived here... Go play it and support if you want.
Games like this are hard to find and hard to make, kudos to the dev!

[0.3.1] So far so good. Great world building, excellent animations and even voice-acted cutscenes, which basically never happens in these games. The story itself isn't anything special just yet, and the writing can feel a bit stilted at times, but it looks promising.

This one is off to great start!

It has a unique UI and definitely has a unique style. The character models are unique, and I certainly always appreciate that. It's a quality all on its own. The animations are fantastic too.

Perhaps the weakest aspect of the game is the free roam. There's no reason why it's there currently, but I can see it growing into a good system once more characters have quest lines.

Oh, and maybe the gallery could have a replay of the scene option with the text.

This is a strangely DEEP adult VN in terms of world building. What starts off as sort of this generic fantasy world with the big baddie winning, turns into a story about the MC reconnected with his long lost love.

All the characters feel like they're a part of the world they're in. They're definitely not an archetype for the sake of it, they're an archetype born in the world they inhabit, so it feels right.

The MC is a human being who has so far been very lucky in his mercenary career. He outright acknowledges that he's never had to see many of his friends die. His reaction to the events at the beginning is justified, and you care about the character.

Then comes his old love, Cressa, and you go through reconnecting with her. It's a not this mad rush of "lol I missed you, let's bang," but instead she finds it extremely hard to tell him her life since they had to separate.

I have high hopes that as more characters get developed, the game will continue to have the characters with actual feelings and motivations. And that the MC has to keep up and think on his feet, as opposed to being god incarnate like in many other VNs.

There's always room for polish, but if Classy Lemon started off THIS strong, I can see this game becoming a classic.

tldr; 5/5 stars for a well-written VN with great animation, exceptional voice-acting, an interesting plot, and plenty of content. In more detail:

The developer knows that a good game is enhanced with adult content. Adult content will not save a bad game.

If you removed all the adult content from this VN it would STILL be entertaining and interesting. You would want to play it.

When adult material appears, it is added in a way intended to enhance the impact of scenes or improve an already good storyline to excellent levels. It is used as a tool to improve the story instead of a prop to hold it up. That alone is worth 3 stars because even if everything else is dropped, you have a story that an adult audience will want to watch.

Another star for excellent graphics. This is a VN style of game, so it is more of an entertainment piece than a game. The graphics are important to strike that balance between a movie and a book. Facial expression, scene design, body language, background atmosphere, it's all here and done well. Characters seem "real" and it's easy to care about them.

Finally, the last star for exceptional voice-acting and a lot of content. You can do a top-tier VN without voice-acting, and including it is a risk because I've heard terrible voice-acting ruin good VN. But if you do it well, you can capture nuances that are impossible with written text and graphics. It's extremely difficult to give the right voice to a scene when there is just a microphone in front of your face. These actors nail it.

For only 2 releases, there are already several hours of entertaining content.

Decent renders, good/original art style, but by God the writing is mediocre. The phrase "Into the inferno" is used at least 3 times in the first battle the MC's mercenary group takes part in for no reason at all. It isn't a natural phrase.

The MC breaks down into tears, after walking "into the inferno" for what seems to be different somehow to the other countless times he has done it? I

Everything is so jarring and is only worth immersing yourself in if you want the porn aspect. But even then, most of the scenes are just a single animation or render of someone else doing it. With the odd one out, being the MC doing a side-character doggy-style from an angle or two.

Fantastic intro though! Possibly the best start to a VN I have seen. But for what seems to be a novel that takes itself very seriously, the writing comes across as amateurish, and unnatural.

The world and plot is pretty interesting. Instead of being some young guy in college with a huge cock banging your family like most games, you are actually a leader of a Mercenary company in a world were an enemy empire is warring with everyone to expand their territory. There is another plot developing as you play through Cressas route which seems to heighten the lore of the world greatly and indicates a very good story to come once the main plot of the game begins.

Graphics are good, assuming you like the art style. It was weird for me at first but I gave it a shot and it grew on me very quickly. I like it a lot, and the girls are quite pretty in their own unique way.

The characters are great so far, but only one is fleshed out fully as the game hasnt progressed enough yet for the others. Right now its focused on Cressa, a wonderful girl I think you are going to care for greatly.

The sound is probably one of the best around. Its very well done and timed. I guess its pretty subjective and depends on the person but as someone who mutes their games, I left this games audio alone.

No bugs that I noticed.

Game has multiple endings with Cressa, so I assume everyone else will as well a long with the main plot of the game once it starts.

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I have played a ton of games on F95 and have had to make a lot of serious cuts on what I will continue to play and what I should drop. I just dont have all the time I used to and I wanted to focus on quality games with great engaging stories, characters, naughty scenes lol, and active devs.

This game easily made the cut of things I want to continue playing.

[Game Version: 0.2.1]

Firstly I would like to say that I have a thing for games with a medieval fantasy setting, so, I was quite interested when in the game when I saw it.
First impressions based solely on the feel the game gave off were quite good. It did have it's fair share of flaws, however.
Let's breakdown the review into the below categories.

[STORY] - 4
Spoiler-Warning
The setting for story was something that I feel had a lot of potential. I believe the idea of merc company being torn into two factions and their internal strife right before it happened was something I would have loved to see.
That conflict could have made for a much more interesting story than how it was done, and also would've allowed the player to feel more connected to the existence of friendships and such within the company.
However, with the way it was done, I didn't feel any connection to the MC while he grieved for those he lost. I couldn't see them as anything other than separate mercs who went their own ways. I couldn't understand why the MC would grieve for those who didn't stand by his side.
Of course, I could imagine why, but imagining and being able to understand through what's in the story alone are different things.
Yet, I don't feel it was such a bad thing, not every story needs the drama that would entail with fleshing out such a scenario. It really depends on who is reading.

Now, let's talk about Cressa.
On an overall, I think her arc was somewhat generic but that doesn't mean it was average. I would say I liked it and it was good. It did feel quite rushed but I think it might be because of it being the solo arc (I am assuming in future we'll get to work on multiple stories simultaneously rather than sequentially).
What I definitely didn't like was how it ended, which is also part of it being rushed. All we got about Cressa was slideshow of the choices I made, and how things worked out for her. It said the main storyline for her was finished so I am assuming nothing major will come for her. On that assumption, instead of that slideshow we could have got more gameplay which would have been much preferred. Another thing, Cressa is a love interest and yet how it ended, it felt they aren't actually together, a bit of reasoning for that might have been nice.
As a conclusion I feel the arc itself was quite good and had potential but I feel unless this isn't all there is to her main storyline (I feel according to what was said) a lot of potential has been wasted. Though I feel it does one thing well and that is set a good base for the main storyline (I hope).

As a conclusion, I feel the devs created a really good setting for a game however when it came to executing and fleshing out the story, they couldn't fulfill the promise the setting showed.
Regardless of it's shortcomings I feel the story was okay, a bit predictable and straight-forward so nothing too great but it wasn't bad either.
I can't choose between 3.5 stars and 4 stars so I'll just go with 4 for this one.

[GAMEPLAY] - 3.5
The gameplay started out as VN-ish and then we got some sandbox elements, however, as it is now the sandbox doesn't make sense as all you can do is complete tasks sequentially. I also mentioned it before but I hope we can do multiple storylines simultaneously to make the sandbox feel a bit more useful. Of course the sandbox allows for many other things to be added in a later update so I feel it was okay.
Apart from that there is nothing really special about the gameplay yet.
For now, I can't give more than 3.5 stars simply because there isn't much to judge.

[RENDERS / GRAPHICS/ SOUNDS] - 5
Let's start with saying this, YES, the eyes are big, different and I don't mind. I think they are a welcome change from what we are used to. It's a somewhat adorable art style and I like it.
Now, let's talk about the general stuff. I think the renders have been done meticulously. The scenic backgrounds and the amazingly well done cinematic videos were quite charming and surely something that required a lot of work to complete. They felt different from the standard and were something that I can truly appreciate the devs for.

Definitely a 5 star here, and even more if I could.

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As a final note, I would say that while the game might have some shortcomings when it comes to the story, I quite enjoyed playing it and would definitely be looking out for future updates.

Would I recommend playing this game?
I don't believe I need to answer now, but most definitely yes!

So far (Cressa route completion), this game has been really fun to play. Story and dialogue are written really well, and the animations/cutscenes are of amazing quality, something I haven't seen much on this website.

By far my favorite part of this game are the sex scene animations. In my opinion, they seem real and very hot. They're not just loops, and have good detail. The preview animation is what got me interested in this game in the first place.


Really fun game, looking forward to see more and supporting this guy on Patreon!

The story and the writing is really good. I did not expect that from the first impression I got (I think the MC looks just too boring and pretty to expect much), but it was really enjoyable.
The MC and the LIs (and other NPCs) are interesting relatable and likeable.

The (few) sex scenes seem a bit sober and matter-of-factly, but this suits the story very well
(it would actually have been off-putting to find the usual "oh my god I have never seen such a huge cock in my life and now I have my tenth orgasm already during the five obligatory positions let's do anal I have never done that before call me slut" etc)

There are "movie cut scenes" with voice-acting. For me personally they did not add much to the overall enjoyment of the game (while I assume that they are enormously laborious to make; so if the dev ever has to choose between "more cutscenes" or "more story" I would definitely favor the story. But I understand that for other players these cut scenes were important.)

A bit annoying was the pause before/after cutscenes, because the effect was that I sometimes was unsure whether I should click something to progress (but then when doing so skipped the scene, I think).


Gameplay: There might be real choices here (but I did not actually try alternatives, as anything other than the obviously "good" (kind?) choices would seem too wrong to me). The roam/sandbox part seems pointless, but was not particularly annoying.

The few negative points:

- I did not like the art style too much (MC looks uninterestingly pretty; LIs have weirdly huge eyes)
but that is a matter of personal taste and at least the style seems (to me) rather unique.

- It seems a bit weird that a hardened mercenary in a dark fantasy setting should be that traumatized by a military victory where some former friends are suspected to have died.

- The ending of the one arch I played (might be the only one currently available) seemed weirdly rushed and a bit disappointing, but maybe that will be expanded on in future updates. UPDATE: This seems to have been much improved in v0.2.3

[v0.2.1]

This is a strong 4*. First of all, I liked the unique art style that is displayed here. It is reminiscent of Alita Battle Angel or something. Sure, some people complain about it, but I think having a style that is different than the same DAZ/HS is a good thing.

The writing is a bit of a mixed bag. There are definite strengths and weaknesses. There is certainly a lot of thought put into the world building. There is a CODEX to go along with this. The introductory video is pretty cool. The overall story seems quite interesting as well. Unfortunately, the actual dialogues are a bit lacking. The grammar is certainly fine most of the time, but the characters come off very wooden and robotic. There is this terse and "matter of fact" style of speech present for pretty much all characters. I'm sure some of it is due to their personality, but I fear this might be the only style the dev knows. Plus, the speech patterns do not really fit the setting, as they mostly speak in a contemporary English that feels a bit out of place in a medieval fantasy. There is also some hiccups when it comes to properly getting the reader emotionally invested in the plight of the characters. Most noticeably, the MC's bond with his company of mercs is never felt. Thus, I had a very hard time empathizing when he was all torn up about a certain situation.

As for the characters, I thought they were mostly interesting. The weakest link was the MC, with his noticeable lack of charisma that would be expected of his station. The main girl was portrayed quite well. The other characters didn't get enough screen time to make much of an impact.

The other main issue I have is with the sex scenes. The animations were good, but that's all it was. It's just a series of animations with no dialogues. No build up. No sex talks. No foreplay. That's a huge meh from me dawg.

The final thing that has me on the fence is the gameplay or the way the story is delivered. Maybe half way through the game, some free roaming/sandbox thing is introduced and the pacing and flow is immediately disrupted. There is really only one place to go at any given time, so I don't even see the point. Still, this is very early, and perhaps the dev has something grand planned with huge maps and explorations, so I won't shit on this approach just yet. The end of the current build has me wondering how the game is planning on dishing out the story with the updates though. We see the "ending(?)" for the main heroine based on the choices we've made so far. How does the story move on from here? Will need a few more updates to get a clearer picture.

In summary, the dev does a great job in setting the stage and presenting the big picture, but struggles a bit when it comes to the execution and details. I guess I focused a lot on the areas that could be improved, but the overall experience was generally a positive one. I'd recommend it for people who like medieval fantasy settings.