Ren'Py - Ataegina [v0.9.8] [Kthulian]

Impressive Title with only one thing lacking. My actual rating for this title is 4.8 stars.

The renders are gorgeous and the different characters are distinct and memorable considering the large cast of characters.

The very best part of the VN is the WRITING which is exemplary. It's rare that a VN makes you feel like you are the MC and makes you want to read the majority of the dialog. This is not Game of Thrones level writing but it would give a show such as "Legend of the Seeker" a run for it's money.

I play my character the way I would play a DND character which is Chaotic Good and it feels great. I briefly go down the more evil choices and the feel evil, not a bad way to play and if that is your playstyle it seems just as good as the good path. I will probably do a second Playthrough exploring the evil branch.

Another thing that raises this to a 4.8 are the thoughtful touches by the dev, while I enjoy the combat and it flows naturally, sometimes you are not in the mood and the Dev gives you a handy "Skip Combat" button so you can continue.

I generally like Corruption based games and I think I missed this game for so long, is the lack of a corruption tag. You are literally fighting or giving in to corruption to the MC and the characters around you.

So why 4.8 stars and not 5? The lack of animated renders, if you could take the gorgeous animation team from the "Lust Theory" game and put them to work on this title this would be a perfect game. "Lust theory" is a similar magic school based VN but they could use the writers from Ataegina, which imo are far superior. Ataegina it is damn near perfect for lovers of the DND genre.

IF you like DND settings and great writing, beautiful renders then this gets my highest recommendation.

This game is getting close to finished with various endings being worked into the most recent updates. There is a lot of content, which isn't too surprising for a game thats been in development for nearly 6 years.

Writing is above average for AVNs even if it leans a little towards the cheesy side, and the plot is unique and entertaining. This AVN does a good job of balancing story content and dialogue with sex scenes. There is a element of player choice, its not huge but it does impact the story and content.

This is one of the better games out there, I would recommend playing it

While it is not a masterpiece, being neither original nor great in writing, it at least does VN storytelling some justice.
There is no too much boring exposition, the dialogue flows naturally, renders and models are eyepleasing. Better than most things I've played.

For the dev:
Why sandbox? Most of the time we have only one choice to pick anyway.
Skills system had nice premise, but went soulless really fast.
My early Necromancy aspirations went unnoticed by every other character, sadly. Didn't found any reason not to use only one strongest spell as well. Zombies and spiders got feared by skeleton. I drained mana from animals.
There should be some synergies and antisynergies, so player have to think of which spell to use.

Felt pretty mid, maybe even poor. Story is not the first what I judge in this type of games, and here it is... present, but it's jumping all over the place and not really consistent, some stuff just doesn't make sense. Porn is ok, but lacking. A lot of blueballing to compensate lack of scenes, in my mind it's just doesn't work. And about sub-systems, like, battle system, map navigation, etc, I honestly would prefer simple VN over how it's done there. It's all about a first chapter though, don't get mislead. It's just so plain boring so I deleted.

I love fantasy games and this one is chef's kiss delicious. Deserves 5 stars.

Characters: Lovely characters, and lots of them. Some more important than others of course. Mida oh Mida, I can't get enough of you.

Story: It's interesting, as it starts by looking like and ES inspired world but it slowly turns into it's own self. I couldn't help but to eat it all up.

Graphics: The girls look pretty hot!!! You can clearly see that the first stages of the game have aged a bit compared with the later that are really good.

Please don't let this end now!

First of all the only reason why i don't give 5 stars is because i'm missing decent animated scenes in the game.
Besides that I really love the game.
Story : 5/5 A nice story that make the MC grow in game to become a god .
With a lot of female attention (sometime i think it's a bit much everyone wants in the harem even the devils .
Graphics : 4,5/5 As i said besides the animated part it's great, awesome looking models with their assets showing it all of and the world aswell is great.
Music : 4,5/5 Well i always love music in a game that is suited to the action and evenythough the music might be limited it was always a nice add in the game.

So in conlclusion I just want to say great game, great story, really loving it and curious on the next chaptor. Real nice work Dev.

What can i say, I love RPG style games and story telling. Combat system is really good too and it does really peak your curiosity on how the story really goes.

Yeah i know the banging and all that stuff is great too but overall this game really gives the vibe of you adventuring / harnessing your ability to full extent and helping around. Like a really rpg game.

Overall:
Renders: 5 / 5 (Even orcs can't beat the meat)
Story Telling: 4.5/5 (My brain hurts on too much reading)
Combat: 5/ 5 (Pretty good)

This game is excellent and would be a masterpeace if it weren't for the fact that has little animations and not soundtrack in the first act, i don t want to make a bible out of this review but i will try to resume what i think about this.

I played this game back in 2022 and reached an early stage in Act II and left it
now i resumed playing it all from Act I again and well...

You can choose what to do with your MC, you can turn him evil but still do good things from time to time, or be good and do bad things or being extra dominant with the girls.

The story is the best one i played in a VN-Renpy game without count a few as Eternum, once in a life time, pale carnations and that's about all, maybe city of broken dreamers is a good story too, but i m holding on that game.

Back to Ataegina, the story advances at a good speed, the characters change, you feel that time advances in the story and characters, the amout of lore this has is amazing and im really invested in it

Now the models could be better as the renders, but all in a whole, they are pretty girls and if you know how to make it hot, it will be hot and this dev knows his stuff

Act I dont have music, but well Act II does and the music is maravellous.

I think the best thing i can say about this game is that even if it has a lot lot lot lot of sex scenes, the only girl im really amazed by is the Archmage, and in all the whole Act I and what i played of Act II she has no sex scenes with the MC ..... and YET i love this game and didn t lose my eager to keep playing it, because is an amazing story. well... i hope this helps to whoever wants to play it.

Missing tags:
Rape tag, MC gets raped and cant do anything about it and you can mind controle girls and fuck them which also would be rape.
Also you have the option to rape a young married girl when you take the form of her husband, so she belives your him which would also be rape.

NTR tag, it can be avoided but its there none the less, Mida your forced girlfriend will have sex with another LI if you dont have sex or tell Mida you love her.

Drugs tag: MC and Kat gets drugged by some musrooms and have oral sex due to that, you cant avoid it.

You get to pick between two girls in a dream when going good, what the point of that is i got no clue, they both turn out to be lesbians and in a relationship on top of that so again why pick any of them, also you see some dudes fucking girls stright from the start, some are even possible future LIs, you can very easy get the feeling its a NTR game which its mostly not, but its not far from it since you keep seeing possible LIs having sex which can get really annoying if its someone you want to go after.
And it truely feels like all girls in the game are lesbians or BI which is idiotic, not sure why this dev thinks that a stright girl cant be in a harem.

And before ya know it 10 years has pasted....and doing that time MC still knows nothing about hes familie and still no memory apprently, kinda wierd a magic school filled with powerfull mages cant help MC with hes memory.
You also now have a girlfriend forced on ya, someone i wouldent want to be with since shes more annoying then anything else, like kicking MC out of a bedroom so she can have sex with someone else???? its fucked up.

Truely hate when LIs are forced on ya, why not just let the player pick who they want to be with...ffs...and if you ignore the girlfriend then you will walk in on her having sex with someone else which IS NTR and you cant even break up with her or get pissed when that happens, its stupid.

Also hate games where the main focus is on big tits, to me its nothing but a huge turn-off, and this game is proberly 95% big tits, and most of the small tits arent LIs just NPC/Side chars which is even more annoying that they put in none LIs with small tits you cant even be with and for mains the only ones you can be with is a sexslave/whore or an evil bitch....maybe theres one more i forgot with small tits but its low pickings in any case.

At one point MC made a huge deal out of having to fuck hes mother or not, but when it comes to the sister he acts like its any other normal LI, never thinking about its hes sister, it just makes 0 sense.

There is also alot of stupid things in the story that really dosent make sense, like you visit a queen and your are a guest in her palace, MC thinks what should i do, go look for my friend or go take a look in the bath where you know the queen your friends mother is taking a bath....you dont have a choice as the player and the idiot MC will ofc pick go to the bath and look at the nude queen like an idiot.....thinking about how hot she is even though shes and old ugly female with huge saggy tits...and it dosent make sense to take that chance either, i mean who in their right mind would walk in on a queen taking a bath unless they want to get killed or something....its just to much like a very bad porn movie.

Also so tierd of MCs thought process, like when you know you dont want to be with someone and MC keeps thinking how much he wants to be with that LI is idiotic, why not let people who play make up their own mind and if you have to put in stupid thought processes then do it after a player shows interrest in the LI not before, wouldent take much work to do, but this game never gets a hint even after turning down sex with a LI 5 times MC still goes on in lala land thinking about fucking them, its just stupid.

Another problem is how every girl treats you like your a man whore that has sex with everyone even though you have turned down all the girls, game acts like you have fucked everything that walks no matter if you did or not.

Story/Quests are a bit all over the place as well, you get one quest like the fat dude in town that escape from you, but it takes forever to get anywhere since MC likes to do just about anyting else for weeks before ever getting back to a quest, also in the queens palace it says "it could be the dragon egg you been searching for" thing is he never did any searching, when he got the quest he just asked a few people then forgot about it like always, its just a bit annoying since people like the fat dude was sending people to attack the town and with MC going to lala land to forget about it for a long time town could have been wiped out....just not enough tought put into it.

Some times story dosent line up with your choices either, like picking no to sex with someone and dialogs goes on as you had sex with them...thats just no good.

The story is around 2/5, there is just to much annoying stuff that either makes no sense or is plain idiotic, like your girlfriend having sex with another LI and you cant break up or even get mad at her, or MC being raped which should never have happened, he should have stopped it before insted of while hes being raped...it would change nothing for the story if he did that.

Girls/LIs are 2/5, mostly due to the fact that they are all close to being the same build with big or huge tits, and when you finaly see someone with small tits its someone getting fucked by another dude or not a LI.
There is so many LIs and they dident even make something for everyones taste, there are maybe 1-2 mains with smaller tits but one is lesbian other is a sextoy for the evil bitch and one you see fuck a dude, then there is another one who you saw getting fucked by a dude but shes not a real LI just one you can fuck once.

And some LIs you just dont see, no clue why they are in the relationship overview thing or why you can gain love points with them if you never do anything with them, one is from back early in act 1 a girl you save from a bear in the forest, after that you can kiss her and then you see her maybe 2 times in act 2 but you dont really talk with her or do anything with her.

The quality of the graphic/renders are arent great, i would say 2/5.

It has a few animations which are pretty bad and 99% is only a picture 0/5.
And the sex scenes arent really that good either.

music is nothing special, standard background stuff so 3/5.

Sandbox is 2/5, there is no grinds and its mostly just clicking around on a map, its its a bit pointless and not sure why its even there.
The fighting system is meh, no sure how you should ever lose a fight so again feels a bit pointless, but atleast is has a skip option.

+At first I thought this game looked weird but I quickly ended loving the girls aspects. There is a really natural armony in their design.

+The story is quite nice and easy to follow. The music helps a lot too. So I'm eager to see more about it.

+MC is a like a white canva, you can feel that you're bulding your character along the way. So it's easy to get inmersed

+The greatest virtue of this game is that I can see the improvement over time while the autor still conserves in mind what's the path of the game. For example, getting almost rid of the shitty open world.

- Evil decisions are childish decisions. A real evil person doesn't "ignore", he/she takes adventage and exploit opportunities

- Sex scenes occurrences are usually bad. It's tiring to have like 5 sex scenes in a short period of time when it's with the same girl and the same position

- Battles and skills aren't polished (but you can skip them to just follow the story)

- It doesn't have a replay gallery

Of course I fully recommend to try this game because even if you don't like it, this game helps you to know your tastes without brain damage like other titles...

[Rating for Act 1 0.5, haven't started Act 2 yet]

So, this game is a bit of mixed bag. A young mage turns out to be a But it's all in decent fun, and despite the rambling story, can be enjoyed.

I was thinking about giving it 3/5, but decided to upgrade it to 4/5 somewhat due to what I see is persistence of developers, who have created really *a lot* of content, *some of which* is quite enjoyable.

The usual suspects:

Plot 3/5 -- the basic premise and plot is reasonably interesting (4/5), the execution is quite haphazard (2/5). The end result is something that is, as others say, rather disjointed, but does try to follow some narrative. In fact, at start and end of Act 1, it becomes a bit more coherent than in the middle.

Dialogues/characters: Dialogues 3/5 -- are quite primitive and straightforward, but in general acceptable. They are by far too many and not good enough to not turn on skipping after some time, but stop skipping at points and you get back on track very quickly.
Characters 3/5 -- there are many; many of them are LIs, as indicated in relations panel, but you can hardly do anything with most of them [see a bit more about it below]

Visuals 3/5 -- the renders are generally good, and the devs have really done a good job on somewhat different body plans. But there are no animations, and H scenes are of very mixed quality -- some are more detailed and nuanced, and some are just skippable.

Maledom -- as it is one of my area of interests, I put a separate rating for this in my reviews for "male domination" tagged games. So, maledom here is 2,5/5. It is usually associated with an evil path, which I chose. And, boy, the devs really don't seem to realize what evil is. There is some maledom, but it's somewhat overly goody two-shoes. Enough to keep one interested, but really not enough for the -24 alignment I racked up. There are a number of good ideas and scenes like , but sadly they have very limited follow-up so far. Although there is some, and it does look promising (by the end of Act 1).

Which brings us The good, the bad and the ugly.

The good:

- there's quite a lot of content. the game is not VERY generous on H scenes, but is not blueballing MC either.

- the devs have built quite a grand story (even if seomwhat inexpertly)

- there are meaningful choices (not always clear), which will shift the story. kudos for not dropping into kinetic mode.

- there's followups for some characters which appear, then disappear (due to you travelling somewhere else), but are reintroduced later on in other places. Good, less new faces to remember, and some story buildup with girls. But see below also under "bad".

- there's instances of you being shown other characters' interactions [usually plot revealing, not sexual -- ie. you as viewer know more than MC]. it's something that somehow has been worked in pretty well here, despite there being lots of games and books where it doesn't work.

The bad:

- There's intricate magic system and fights. Which in itself would be OK, but there's literally no need to use more than 3-5 spells out of 10+ that are there. Thanks goodness, there's skipping combat option.

- There's an overabundance of girls. Which means less content for many of them. Out of 20+ girls listed in relations panel, by end of Act 1, I only got some 5-7 to have some love or corruption points for me. And I tried to go as much harem as possible.

- Way more love options than corruption, and I tried to go corruption route with as many as possible.

- Corruption isn't particularly clear. Supposedly it might be linked to submissiveness, but generally it is just some generic trait for some tendency towards more lewdness. Which is even not expressed in many scenes!

The ugly:

- The sandbox elements at College become very annoying at around middle of Act 1. You have around 10+ locations at College map to view, and they don't have interactions outside the story. Ie. you have to click hunt for the 1-2 locations where you've got something to do. All the time. This is annoying like hell. At the end of Act 1 it thankfully changes more into menu choices. Suggestion for devs, if you have sandbox, give option for repeatable content at locations. Otherwise it's very annoying to have to click all over the place without any good stuff except in the railroaded places.

- wrongly mixed MC. While being a a young promising mage he is quite deferential to most women, even after corrupting them, EXCEPT in sex scenes. This feels quite wrong. He's a somewhat wet blanket outside bed, and can sometimes start calling some girls sluts when in the bed. Make your choice, but make him more assertive in life, if he's such a stud in the bedroom. Otherwise it doesn't really match up. But, as I said, it's inconsistent, from scene to scene.

All in all, something to follow, but more clarity about characters and some more available actions to match chosen paths would seem a good improvement to me.

So downloaded the whole ~4GB because 4,5 stars at 148 reviews means this game MUST be good right?

Well turns out it just means the standards for 3DCG games are always low. Almost all of them have huge followings, despite using the same models and having the same incest story.

And that is why this one gets +2 stars, for different models and an attempt at something original. Although at the end of the day it's really just a poor Elder Scrolls ripoff.)

However, it loses -1 star for a plot that is all over the place - yet somehow still railroady - and never really figures out if the MC is a pushover virgin or a powerful sorcerer, with you dominating the shit out of someone in one scene and then coily asking your girlfriend(!) for a kiss(!!) in the next

Gonna be honest.. I'm giving this game a courtesy rating. This game has been on the backburner since I played through an earlier release. And then I saw it had been updated a few times. But it just didn't leave enough of an impression on me.
I don't really have anything negative to even say. On the other hand, I don't have anything to praise it for either. I remember liking the idea of choosing a magic focus and certain decisions helping certain focuses. And I'm curious how that's developed along with the battle system. But... I couldn't get invested in the story or the characters. So I'm taking it off the burner completely since I already juggle through about 30 games.
I'd still absolutely recommend this one to anyone interested. There's good mechanics, a decent story with intrigue, and good models and scenes. Its just not clicking for this particular gamer. Best of luck on this one Dev.

I haven't rated a game before , but this game needs at least some recognization.

Act 1 :
MC is just a small kid trying to improve and be stronger .
he discovered some powers and became a decent mage.
you can choose either being good or bad or you can use cake mod to try both.

Act 2:
MC is growing up to be the strongest wizard, yoour actions ( beig good or bad will have a huge impact on the game now) .
try to have a lot of saves that you can experience all the outcomes.
i do this on my own , group of pages for being a good person , and same for being an evil one.
______________
Since i have seen most of people that rate negative are mostly focused on combat and the battle system,
it's complete avoidable by a simple button called "skip battle"

i would recommend playing this game and living to be the most powerful wizard with whatever your decesion is.

This review is on version 0.9.0.

Ah, Ataegina, once so promising. I recall playing your very first versions, joining the Discord server, actively providing feedback, being genuinely excited for where it was going to go...what a tragic tale.

I have played a lot of adult games. I still play a lot of adult games, though the level of quality content available is never high enough to satisfy my rate of consumption. Yet, with all those games played, the number of games I have become personally invested in could be counted on a single hand.

Ataegina was one of those games.

Simply put, what fell apart was the writing. Near the end of Act 1, you come to realize nothing makes any sense. The world and its lore is not constructed in a meaningful and coherent fashion, the plot simply whisks the player along to whatever it may choose - in some cases quite literally, as you are suddenly teleported to your new location. It only becomes increasingly apparent as you continue, and remains a persistent issue throughout, if anything devolving further with Act 2. There is just enough consistency to get an idea of who is who, but never enough to understand anything.

Were it not for the overall construction of the plot, I wouldn't really have many issues with the game. There's a wide cast of characters, most unique and interesting enough in their own right. Some others have taken issue with the renders, and I do believe there's an argument to be made there with the scenery, but the characters themselves are largely serviceable or even look good.

It's just the nonsensical plot of convenience that ruins it all for me, a complete shame, I feel, when I recall my old investment.

I love this game - the cool fantasy setting, the beautiful girls, the magic combat system! I am looking forward to the next update. Thanks for your great work! I would whine about the updates being so short except for the fact that shorter updates mean they happen more rapidly.

Quality of renders are subpar.

Story is all over the place, like someone read a fantasy book and wanted to create his/her world without knowing how to do it properly.

Gameplay is annoying especially the battles and navigation. Good and bad choices are mid at best, without ability to be a 'grey' character since it feels like you have to commit to one side.

Big chunk of the cast are one dimensional.

Sex scenes are lacking, you won't get much satiscation out of them.

Had a lot of hope for this one in act 1, not so much now.

overrated boredom.

for act 1, it was like reading RR martin book it goes on and on... at the end of act, i didnt care anything about it.

for act 2, so we have 2 hot main females that was the my motivation to keep going yet at the end also disappointed about them.

1 star for weird gameplay mech and thats all.

Really low quality fantasy story, the writer has never read a book in his life, doesn't know how to write at all. The characters are flat and the plot is oh so lame.

Very dated visuals and annoying ui.

Update 6 months later (5 March 2024): due to the affection I still have for Ataegina, I decided to go back, to see what Kthulian has been cooking all this time.

I must say that it's gotten quite a bit better, enough to start leaving a better taste in my mouth again.

Subplots and main plot have picked up pace and started to make sense, though my question is whether it was too late to fix how sleepy the first two thirds of the second act are.

One more star, back to a passing grade.
Looking forward to the latest updates, to see how the remaining endings end.

Ataegina, Act 1: 4/5
Ataegina, Act 2: 3/5