VN - Ren'Py - Completed - B.E.S.T [Ep.5.1] [Dolyla]

I've played a lot of AVN's (80+ now) and this is by far the worst I've ever played. After EP 3, there is basically no more decisions for you to make. None of the LI's are hot (except Ruby) and it's so poorly written and cringe that the plot twist which I know the dev(s) thought was going to be epic, was foreshadowed and easily figured out since the beginning of the first episode.

This AVN also has the WORST party scene I've ever seen, like it was utterly horrible.

Rating: 1 star, 0/10. Ruby is the only reason I continued to play, thank god that they rushed these episodes, took less than 2 mins to skip through the entirety of Episode 5 (their cliffhanger ending episode lol.)

The models are really good, and it has touches of realism, but they are mostly sensual and even more softcore and erotic than sexual, sensual, and daring.

It's a bit of a mess with how the relationships go, especially taking into consideration that you are supposed to play this, and then the second delivery to know what's going on.

this game seems fine and i kind of enjoy it

Cons:

• game is relatively long making replay tough order
• game demand you to endgage with phone contacts and other phone activities to unlock all the scenes, i simply skip over that so half of my options ware PASS - fuck this, just make the mobile phone things happen in background
• game have no option to unlock galery once i finished it...
• game have non-conclusive ending and just works as advertisement for 2nd game
• some of the scenes and animations loads badly, aka everything works fine, but wrong dose of skip and whole thing will get skipped
• Sex scenes are not hot and had 0 variants or choices for the player
• lewds are the weakest in this game and weakest i saw in renpy so far
• There is way too many stupid choices, i chose to be with redhead girl since i enabled pregnancy and fuck her pregnant and i had no choice to go for her later, it was always blacked!
• Walkthru dosn't walkthru - i have no idea what any of the option really do excluding sport/education ones

Summary: try it if you already played hot lewd game, but could use some sport winning auto-scroller? seriously whats the appeal?

Setting is interesting enough, graphics are good. Its not engrish, but it is a bit rough in word choice. At times, the game breaks the immersion of the story. For instance, if you are going to have the setting in the US, colleges athletics here are focused around American Football or basketball - soccer is just not a big thing here. The developer does a good job at adding some depth to characters. Character path wise, on the lower end for amount of content.

Overall I would suggest playing

Day 1: Started a game, got bored in the first minute. Closed Game.
Day 2: Pushed through 15 minutes of the most cringe dialogue, fell asleep. Closed Game
Day 3: Look for a gallery unlocker to see if there is any reason to torture myself with this so called story, no unlocker found. Closed Game.
Day 4: Play on skip mode, see if anything interesting happens, nothing did. Closed Game, Shift + Delete.


Maybe the renders are ok 3/5, but the script and gameplay is like nails on a chalkboard.


I worked with many french guys none of them looked indian like the MC in this game.

UPDATE: The AVN has gotten a lot better as the story has gone along and I will admit, I should have played all of it before making my initial review. While I didn't say anything wrong, I put too much weight on the first part of the AVN and not the entire story. It still has issues and it's not a perfect AVN, the dev has gone all in on the story and is working to make it better and I have to give them credit for that. With this in mind, I am adding another star.

OP:
This AVN has the potential to be pretty good, but the English is horrible. In some parts, it's unreadable. While I get English is not the Devs first language, it is bad enough to pull me out of the story as I have to try and figure out what the characters are saying. There are also some strange continuity errors like not having any luggage after leaving the airport, then sleeping in his clothes, waking up and going to school without anything like a shit, shower and shave. I mean, you don't have to show them, but they should be referenced or implied easily with transitions showing the passage of time. We wouldn't have to know what he did, but could infer he was taking care of daily life activities.

Having said that, I think the story has a good foundation as I like all the characters for the most part. I do wish there were some more males in it as some of the scenes are kind of sparse. Like when he came out of the airport, there was only one other person and it looked like a regular office building.

IMO, the dev needs to get a writer or editor who's first language is English. Again, I think the story is solid and the production is good so just some editing and I think the dev is on to something here.

Good luck.

Good AVN, but not much A in it.

The good

Good writing. The plot is interest enough to catch player's attention, and let him genuinely curious how the story will unfold. This is the main strength of this game.

Football as a background. Regardless if you like the sport or not, the football element as a motivation for NPCs fits the story (including as an element for the coach to approach the MC) and the scenes land quite well as elements of narrative suspense. Will the protagonist succeed? Yes, but the game is good on making you have second thoughts.

The sisters. They have clear drives, but are not predictable characters. As of today (as the game was released without the last chapter), it's not clear what Red/Elizabeth intentions will be.


The bad

Adult content. There could be a lot more. 3 of the "main four" are virgins, but don't really behave as such. The story could have use this as a cue for "corruption", but didn't. Quite on the contrary, the most likeable of them, Ruby Suyun, doesn't even have a sex scene yet. So what's the point? By the way, is she asian or white? You'll be the judge!

Contradictory settings. Is this game harem or not? Ruby doesn't seem to care if you are having a good time with someone else. Julia, Grace and Madison do. But only against a given person. They don't seem to care about sharing the MC between themselves, even tough it's expected (if not implied) that they are aware that the MC is doing Grace. Moreover, Elizabeth/Red warns the player against messing with her sister Sophia/Blue, but if she catches the MC kissing Grace, this has no consequence. Lastly, if I had lost my mother like Julia, romance would be least of my concerns, specially considering that I were a naive virgin.

It also doesn't make sense story wise, why Blue rejects the player as a pervert at the pool if he didn't grope another girl at the beginning, but advances towards him if he did (any other reason would do, but not groping is exactly what a pervert would never choose). Also, why can't the MC open Charlotte path if he wants to walk Julia home? Charlotte action will only take place on a later time... This game is A+ on contradicting itself.

Character development. Well implemented on surface, but shallow. Ruby is there as an element for advancing the plot if needed, but there's no real depth (or use) for Julia, Grace and Madison. You can have sex with Grace or Madison, but that's it.

Lewds are few maybe its my paths taken but the issue for me is the lack of LI's here that I find attractive enough and am interested enough in

AVN is meh besides Gabriella IMO and the cats as well.

Appears there is also going to be a second game or season this rolls into? was unclear in the best 2 coming soon massage. This goes into the time waster if I ahve nothing better to play category.

I'm surprised that this excellent game currently has about 3.5 stars on average.

Granted, in its early releases it was not so polished, and managing the gameplay with 4 stats might not be that convenient for some (not me), but now at Episode 5, especially with "Official Walkthrough Mod" (DLC) it's a breeze.

(While the story actually varies with great mastery, depending on the player's choices).

My only serious complaint is that Ruby Suyun has that unnatural triangular face. These don't look sexy at all, if you ask me. So why would devs use those weird models? And before you say that I don't understand or don't like the Asian type beauty, have a look at Zhang Ziyi or Qi Shu! That's what I'm talking about!

Still, there are so many perfectly cute and sexy girls here: the freckled redhead Grace, celestially charming Julia (sexy a bit like Scarlett Johansson, but more elegant looking), Antique Goddess Madison- and oh, don't let me started about Sofia!

You fall in love with them instantly. These characters truly have soul (Sofia and Julia were my favorite). They have interesting stories and plenty of screen time, including romantic interactions with enamored virgins and long and well executed sex scenes.

Renders and animations are top notch.

The story is intriguing, captivating, well paced and very well done technically (including the football matches and other dynamic action scenes).

Though in earlier releases you could have doubts about the veritability of that weird competition, in Episode 5 it receives a deep, even thrilling and philosophical explanation.

The dialogs are almost always perfect. There's some humor (e.g. Ruby explaining basics of AVNs) and attention to details, for smooth player's experience.

It's an interesting game. Endearing characters. Can't wait for BEST 2.

[v. Episode 5 - BEST part 1 - completed]

Ep 5 - End of chapter 1

It's a 3 1/2 star story that just scrapes 4 stars, as it looks so beautiful. The concept is good and had so many possibilities. However it promises something great but in the end fails to deliver as it lacks details, depth and explanation, with a few plot holes . In terms of the activities in the competition, there too much focus on football. What makes this worse, the football scenes themselves while looking beautiful are poor and seem to be done by someone who watched football once and has never played the game so are very unrealistic. What's with the smoking football all the time? It's ridiculous. The mind games such as over the token in the boxes seem over complicated to the point of boring and slow down the drama in the story. Not to mention the fact that we are ranked 20th going into the token room but there aren't 20 people in there and there's a glitch with some of the choices that don't make sense. Did the dev get confused? If not it didn't make sense to me. The intimate scenes while again looking beautiful lack emotion and take you out of immersion. They are short and have no choices in them so you don't feel part of the scenes. Essentially for a 10 GB VN it's surprising how little story there is, showing how the dev's main focus was on how beautiful everything looks rather than what going on. On so many occasions you feel there could be more detail and wonder why they haven't expanded on what's going on. It's good but it should have been so much better.

Review as of Ch 4

Really a mixed bag with this VN. It has pretty good presentation quality. Visually its at least above avg, if not very good. Pretty decent renders, models, ect... But unfortunately fails in narrative and storytelling.

Prologue starts you off on a private jet traveling from France to the US for the purpose of studying abroad. Meanwhile all the main LI, who are Americans and already enrolled at the university are also on the same flight. For absolutely no reason at all. Some suspension of disbelief is somewhat expected in what is a essentially a male fantasy, but this is utter nonsense. IMO the entire prologue should be scrapped. Or at least completely redone. Writing was also cringe early on. To be fair that does improve over time.

Delving deeper into the plot, the MC is an economics major studying abroad to improve his English. Meanwhile the only classes he has are economics. And his dialogue at least is written as perfect English. There is not a single instance of the MC misspeaking nor any struggle with his diction. So the entire pretext of this narrative is a massive plot hole. Now factor is this competitive B.E.S.T. program that no university would ever condone is utterly absurd.

May have been able to overlook the plot if at least the characters were well developed. LI are likeable and all but at best two-dimensional. And any antagonists having no development at all. Simply being a-holes for purpose of spouts of conflict. Then dev adds in cheap tactics trying to instill drama in LI backstories. Emotionally abusive father, dying mother, etc... But again there is no development to this so carries no weight to the player.

Some of the mini-games are OK. Tolerable if you're into that and at least, skippable if you aren't. One in Ch 4 though is a timed scavenger hunt. These are young adults ~20, not 12! I don't even like sports in general but the soccer elements were probably the only parts I enjoyed. At least that gameplay was grounded in some semblance of reality where I could find any investment.

Many of the choices are for developing your character stats. I'm not against the system in general. And it would offer some replay value except some require choosing between normal and behaving like a douche. If I wanted to play as a DIK there's already another game for that. Though 'creep' is probably more accurate. Too many black and white choices, not enough gray.

I'll give points this AVN isn't just another fap game. Adult content is there but not the primary focus. And there is some creativity in regards to the narrative. Translation was well done. Don't recall seeing a single typo or grammatical error. And writing did improve as it progressed. I'd even be open to checking out other projects the dev may pursue. Flawed as I found this VN dev has some talent. But I feel those talents would be squandered in continuing this one.

Good quality of animation, multiple endings, good job !
For a first game, you can be proud.
Still a bit confused to search for the last endings, but, well, it's the game
So continue like this, I'll follow the game evolution !

Good game and good characters. Finally, a MC who isn't ugly or stupid. The characters are very pretty and have good content. The story holds up, the villains are really bad ^^, but it lacks a bit of eroticism and clarity regarding the possibility of a harem or not.
A good start, although I'm hoping for a bit more length because these four chapters are quite short.
Special mention also for the humor and Mr. Cat ^^ for the moment 4 stars

The story is getting better and better, and the changes that were made in relation to the first versions were very good, the scenes are very beautiful, the characters have charisma, each with their own story and personality, and the routes are well done, as I said, the story is getting better and better as new chapters are released.

Seems I am easy to please because I felt entertained by the game, unlike some other reviewers.

What I liked
Girls are pretty and distinct from one another as well as other games
MC looks like a person, actually quite French
the premise with the competition is a somewhat different take on the school genre
The language, despite not written by a native speaker, mostly brings across what is going on. I was misdirected once when the options asked if you want to pass the test (well, duh) but should have been to skip the test. I have seen much worse before though, nothing dramatic.

What I did not like
the stat system. I don't like that you are forced to be a dick and to be needlessly rude occasionally to get certain points.
The opposing team is very one dimensional. They are evil without any plausible motivation. Despite being in the same classes as the girls and MC and thus being clearly recognizable they still run away without paying and even nearly assault a student. Just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Overall I'd recommend to have a look

Review on Episode 3.
Good story
Graphic is average+ (textures of objects are really bad, girls are cool)
Animations are average+ (the last scene with Red on top of mc is not good imho)
It's a strong 4/5. Give 5 in advance and for better overall.
Wish all the best to the dev and complete this vn.

Update for Episode 5
Can't add something new to others. This game had great potential with good looking visual, different types of girls, cool vibe and other features. But it become another bad written common vn with cheap tricks to evoke emotions and not working mixed features.
Same problem as in The Mystery of Vaulinhorn. It wants to be something more then good adult vn but becomes a joke.

Hard to enjoy this game, it's so overly focused on 'being sporty' and football, it's really sad.

The MC ends up being so pathetic. The 'best' choices always involve running away from girls to do sport and touch guys.

The renders are good quality but make all the women football tomboys. The writing is so so,not engrish but verbalizing everything on screen is weird when communicating with women who naturally throw themselves at sad mc because he has nothing to offer?

Sex scenes feel just thrown in, between overly long dialogues about sports

Could not finish playing through. Felt the game was a waste of my time in its current form. Giving a brief explanation because I see some ridiculously high reviews that don't reflect the game.

1. Sex Scenes - There aren't many, but you can get one immediately... only if you choose Casanova trait. The lack of sex scenes makes this not worth the time investment, at least for now.
2. Renders/animations - Just above average. Definitely not cutting edge or particularly good. The animations I saw were not great.
3. Writing - Clearly not written by a native English speaker. The English version of the game is very poorly translated and is often hard to read. Even the overview of the plot uses the word "enigmatic" to describe the program the MC will be partaking in, but there is nothing enigmatic about it. The goal is clearly explained and there is no mystery - nothing difficult to understand - about it. The poor English translation really hurts any immersion in the story and should really be fixed by the dev for the sake of gaining in popularity and support. Overall, I find the plot/premise to be rather unrealistic.

I found the other reviewers to not be very accurate and I wanted to give my feedback for others who are trying to decide on spending time on this VN. I don't want to be overly critical of the dev or other reviewers, but this game needs a lot of polish to get anything close a 4-star rating. It's absurd that the rating is so high. I would wait a few updates to see if the writing gets re-translated and more sex scenes are added.

I recommend this game.
Excellent characterization of the characters. There are no sex scenes yet but for me it's ok, at the moment the emphasis is on the story and the MC's bond with the various characters.

v.Ep 2.1 (which i guess means episode 2 will be released in 10 parts?)

can't say i am a fan yet but liked the premise and delivery...up to a point.

writer ignores themselves by giving a long soapbox-y dialogue on rules for a VN, which are their personal opinions, and breaks their own rule on TMI for a start. not sure they spotted their own irony

then oddly, opens an economics class, of alleged adults, by asking a really dumb question. i cannot imagine there are many adults in america who don't know about the statue of liberty and i would accept this as a posed question to kids, not young adults. elementary school kids maybe?
first answers popped in my head were 'friendly fire' as made famous by old boney (cannon fire on french streets and yes i know he was only around 14 at the time of independence, but not all thoughts involve logic) which america took to with some alacrity in what was called a "civil war" to keep it polite and 'titles for cooks' because everyone is a chef now.
that may just my dark humour after an evening watching gervais and chapelle specials and the bear though

insert your own roll-of-the-eyes here -> [ ]

the rest of the time i read through with fluidity. some of the dialogue can seem a little immature but not childishly so.
i might have gone with describing the tournament as a knockout tournament instead of getting tongue-tied by saying it is an elimination tournament after already saying no one will be eliminated, but that's just me

art is pretty good for what i see on this site, but as my main focus is the writing, as ever, i may have missed any odd poses or something. was nice to see some sport action. nice to see a young m.i.l.f for once considering they normally get shown as middle-aged here despite age not being part of the requirement, on this i agree with the writer and will happily don my soapbox here in solidarity, this being a forum, not a game.

the recap exchange was a nice idea as long as it is not overused.

could turn out to be good. not top 5 good as no signs of that i can see, but certainly top 10 should the competition build the right kind of tension. it shows promise

*mic drop*