VN - Ren'Py - Bad Hero [Ep.2 v3.2.4p] [Xlab]

Intermittent review: Just started playing and so far almost so good. Have found two problems.
1: Music is ok, but the sounds aren't sounds, they're musical interludes that are porly selected, imo. Breaking the mood, such as it is.
2: Main character render. FFS! If you decide to switch the main character model completely, redo the entire renders featuring him, not just do an insert with the new models face.

More to come as I continue, expect the vote to go up or down.

So I have to rate this one maybe 4 stars.

The good to me:
1) An evil (I wish he were more evil) protagonist. I have a much easier time imagining playing a villainous male versus a normal one because at least it reminds me a little of myself on my bad days at times hee hee.
2) Renders seem pretty good. One of the girls looks great to me and the others are good generally.
3) Humor doesn't always land for me, but it does try and create a fun narrative that is different than a lot of stuff you find on this site and a few times I laughed out loud, super rare for this kind of game.

MEH:
1) Penis. It feels more comic book than sexy to me. Maybe I care about this more than most of the players here coming from a female perspective.
2) Some of the writing - sometimes it's good but sometimes not so much, it's a little uneven at times, but compared to a lot other games on this site, not a huge problem at all.
3) Boomer anything...yuck.

(Update on a much older rating, this time it's for chapter 2, version 2.4.4)

I played through the entire game to make sure, and if you're anything at all like me, the biggest takeaway from this is simple:

SKIP CHAPTER 1, JUMP STRAIGHT TO CHAPTER 2
(there are no choices that matter between chapters anyway)

Here's why: Chapter 1 isn't only much uglier in every way, it literally has more sex scenes featuring other males than sex scenes featuring the MC. If that's your kink, good for you, but for most of us it isn't.

Furthermore, the animation that does exist in Chapter 1 is embarrassing at best, completely mood-ruining at worst.

The story is complete nonsense even by the lowest of porn logic standards and characters follow no sort of internal logic nor act according to their personality whatsoever, it's genuinely like someone just rolled dice to see how any given character would act. There are frequent attempts at humor and genuinely none of them land, a random 12-year old would come up with funnier quips.

There are some puzzles/quests/"quicktime" events in the game as well and they're nothing but a complete waste of time, just annoying and pointless.

Oh and the music is terrible and what sound effects there are, are just annoying and brings nothing to the game at all.

Objectively the only upside of Chapter 1 is that it has pretty good models. Not even outstanding by the standards that are being set nowadays, but well above average. Oh and if you're really into humiliation and sharing kinks with the ugliest characters imaginable, I guess.

So what about Chapter 2?

Well, it's a little bit short so far, but the animation is CONSIDERABLY better, maybe even straight up GOOD.

The music selection is better if not perfect and the game actually has sound effects that blend in now.

The story isn't much better, but that might just be by virtue of having to follow up on Chapter 1, but it does feel a little more coherent and well paced so far and I didn't come across any inane attempts at humor.

No forced sex scenes including other men so far, though there are scenes with other naked males, but they don't dominate by any means.

The game just looks better in every way across the board.

No puzzles at all so far, which I think is good. Puzzles in porn games are just a way to make a short game feel longer by virtue of wasting the players time with irrelevant activities.

Because of the abysmal start the game had, I'm willing to give it a relatively high rating; all it has to do is continue on the path set so far in Chapter 2, improve a little bit here and there and not stray back to the dogshit ideas and execution that plagued Chapter 1 and it well and truly deserves this rating and maybe even higher.

Chapter 1 by itself is genuinely a 0/5 game but Chapter 2 is, at least for now, deserving of a 4/5 rating.

Below, saved for posterity is the review I left over 2 years ago, so you can get an idea of how this project started:

ok, this game deserves much, much more than a 2 star rating. It starts off pretty rough, but the renders have improved massively up to the present moment (v 092).
The girls are gorgeous, the corruption elements first rate, the outfits and heels wonderful, and the story has some depth and is actually going somewhere.
The MC is a proper arsehole, but check the game title - you're getting what you paid for.

My biggest quibble would be the blurring of the animation - there's often no pause between the fade between 2 images and the result just makes me dizzy.
The writing's not all brilliant and things feel forced at times, but it's still above average.
The points system feels a little unnecessary, just a token of added gameplay really. But I guess this game isn't alone in that!
If the start of the game or an earlier version has put you off playing this, I can only recommend persevering, it's worth it.

Well done, can't wait to see more of this. And maybe one day you'll go back and rerender the first parts?

lol, this game is true to its name. You play an unmitigated asshole. This guy is NOT the good guy.

The writing is a bit tacky at points and the story makes little sense. The renders are good though.

Honestly, if you are pissed off at the world and want to play the villain this is probably a good game to check out. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on it.

[Reveiw Version V0.7.2 Windows]
This game is pretty wack...and I mean that in a good way. It doesn't take itself too seriously and following along can be a pretty funny ride.

The MC is undoubtedly a bad guy and he is very unapologetic and nonchalant about it. This is a strength. Too often authors fall into the trap of always excusing evil behaviour (e.g. mind-controlling people) to make the MC more sympathetic and it just makes the MC a hypocrite. This game suffers from none of that.

Renders and scenes are not the best but above average. Most models are pretty good.

If you want to play a villain protagonist, this game is a recommend.

I like the jokes, some renders, but not all.

This game got some comic elements that fit right in the script but that's not a consistent story.

I found the game quite average because there's not much about choice, there is too few real choices. MC horse dick bothered me too, some renders and too much black screens in transitional effect.

The story has this ironic tone that amused me a lot and that's why he got 3 stars of the 2 i was thinking.

Does justice to its title i.e "BadHero"...
Except for some below-average writing, everything else was fine. The renders are nice but lack the cinematic effect that would compliment the criminal themed story. I'm glad the protagonist has some unique character traits, he is a total asshole, unlike the other horny "fifteen-year-old" dudes as MCs in most games here.
If you're a fan of Male domination (BDSM) games, then you'll definitely enjoy this one. The plot development is quite nice and I enjoyed how the story unfolds, although you can easily guess what's going to happen next, but it's actually made for our "fap requirements" and it delivers!

I disagree with most of comments. The game reminds me of a B class crimial commedies from the 80s lol.
Bit funny and bit sexy with a hidden plot.
I wonder what the mafia plans and who was the guy that went to prison...
And where are MC's daughters hidden in a secret mansion lol
And where is MC's ex Mrs that ran away with all his money ... lol
Can't wait _
If you dont like the game, you have no sense of humour, you should watch English Monty Python, especially meaning of Life or Live of Brian.
If you still not get it, turn on Cartoon Network and keep watching Sponge Bob...

Update: after playing version 0.9 I am lowering my rating to 1 star. This has no story, and even as a farce it doesn't work. The translation is really bad, the models have degraded with ill fitting clothing, no attention to details. Completely nonsensical scene progression. It really should be zero stars, but you can't rate anything here zero stars.

This has to be one of the least thought out games on F95. I just downloaded the current version 0.7.2 and all I can do is shake my head. None of the dialog is proofread. Much of the dialog doesn't even make sense. There is no plot, other than the vague game description, and just because there is a description doesn't mean a plot exists. Since I played it from the beginning, what is with the renders of the MC at the beginning, his asset keeps changing, sometimes during the same scene!

I don't even want to start on the translation to English. Nothing in it indicated any effort was put in to translating the dialogue. Incorrect grammar, sentence structure, spelling. So much bad stuff it is hard to list them all. The story is basically a mishmash of scenes strung together, with nothing advancing the story.

Only reason I didn't give it one star, some, but not all, of the renders are pretty good.

Like every other game I have tried from here, I will watch this one, in the hope they hire a true copy editor and translator, that the story actually has a plotline and that it finishes stronger than it started. But for now, it is deleted from my HDD.

The story is about nothing, totally flat and uninteresting dialogues. Very stupid behavior as the main character and minor characters. And completely ugly tits at the maid in the latest update. 2nd star just for the good renders of other girls.

This is one of weirdest games i have ever seen , the story is really crazy and dont make sense , i give 4 stars for the great renders hot sex scence and bad ass protagonist , otherwise it coold be done way better whith more realistic story and events ( if he remove all the students part ) and just keep the crime life it will be amazing.

The good: You're playing an actual adult male character who isn't a little bitch. The renders are also great.

The bad: The characters, especially the women, are one-dimensional. Just generally shallow and unrealistic.

Overall it's nice to play a character that isn't some teenage loser that nobody actually wants to be. Granted, nobody wants to be this guy either (he's an asshole) but at least he's not pubescent.

playing that started well- game looks like average middle rated novell. byt i was forced to play with russian lang, cuz with eng translation my eyes bleeding like waterfall. ending was sh***y, like whole game- not avoidable castration and then dev forced mc pretend "girl" after that... its unfvoidable and end of current code. i hope dev stop making that "masterpiece" forever- no1 care what fetishes and desires have dev, till they pop that in game. as result- wasted time and that "masterpiece" blacklisted.
/to be honest, renders looks not bad.

Edit v2+
New Rating 2 (downgraded from 5*)

The scenes revolves way too much around prostitution for my taste and there's also too much content with the younger girl.

A real shame, the lawyer and the blonde cop were my favorite but they're discarded really quickly, they barely exist.

Looks like a missed opportunity or a game hiding its true colors at first.

The result is a mess, not so good sex scenes for most of them, broken english and a nonsensical storyline.


Don't waste your time with this game.
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Previous review
Sex scenes are really something, it really stands out, i guess most of the virgins rating this game just want kissing scenes with their imaginary girlfriend but if you're not one of them, you should try this.

I don't know if the writing was greatly improved or if i didn't read the worst part (i don't read half of it in most games) but i don't find it terrible, there's a lot of games with terrible english, this is not it.

I really like this one, very arousing and that's why we are here, are we not ?

On top of that, there's a lot of content and a lot of different women (policewomen, lawyer, maid, tutor, prostitute ... ) to play with.

I almost gave it two stars just for the renders except for the fact that the game itself is so bad that I changed my mind. This is probably the worse game play yet on the site. Bad Hero is Bad Story, Bad English, Bad Game Play, Bad Dev...

not that good has to many ways to end, the english is alright but it also has a jump in the story for no reason so you have to go to a separate game which should of been apart of this since it seems connected and not just some random bonus.

Pretty terribly written, every cliché from the book (and it ain't even attempting to be funny at that). Only thing going for this garbage are the nice renders of the chicks. Renders of other generic scenes aren't too great though. And no, manually playing an "animation" by having to click each frame to progress to the next is NOT a good idea. Neither are instant game-over story lines. Either you work out some decent variations in storylines, or you simply don't give any options at all.

This is the kind of game that would really benefit from being a sand box.
Overall, the story is silly but fun.
Girls all look nice, the ones that matter. I do detest the main character, he looks way to slimy to make me feel I want to be him.
The search and find games are stupid and seriously detract from the game.

Bit early to get real idea of this game

At moment is very linear but it does have the potential to be fleshed out and diverging paths.

The characters do seem interesting and showing potential but concerned with so many characters to develop will it stagnate game, with so many characters to develop forward progress will be slow. How long will it be before we can corrupt the cop?

Doesn't help that very little progress to be made with any of the pointed characters so feels like most of porn content so far dick pics. The two sex scenes are pretty disappointing and limited.

I like what he is trying to do but only time will tell.

EDIT

Renders not only not improving the faces are just plastic and showing no emotions at all the animations are still very basic.

The game is just all over place and MC showing no intent to actually do anything constructive to address storyline issues, instead following dick and chasing ridiculously plotted money issues.

The introduction of abysmal mini games.

The characters are just not developing.

The dialogue and story development is just terrible.

It is a shame as he seemed to have a great idea but it is just going downhill and very clear he did not take time to put a proper development plan or story tree in place. Is also clear he knows he losing way and is throwing things out randomly in hope they stick ie mini games.