VN - Ren'Py - Between Salvation and Abyss [Ch.10 P2] [Ethan Krautz]

Love the tags and their execution but I have to give it 3 stars. The story is nonsensical. You read some and just wanna skip the rest.
On the positive note it is one of the very few games with extreme anal gape and prolapse..

POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD

Review based on Version: Chapter 10 Part 2.

TL;DR is available at the bottom of this post.

Preface
First of all, I came across Ethan Krautz through his other game, The Sunset Fairies. To be frank, TSF and BASS were practically in the same shape. I played TSF due to the Loli characters, and I played BSAA as I'm a softie for freckled cuties. IMHO both would've got at least 4 stars if not for the disastrous writing. Will be explained further later on.

Story
After spending years in a correctional facility for killing his father in retaliation for abusing his mother, the protagonist joined the "Hunters" due to his unique ability to witness the final moments of the deceased by touching their bodies. His life takes a dramatic turn when a vision from a dead colleague reveals a shocking truth: he has been a pawn of the "Hunters" all along, and he is a reincarnation of himself, having died 500 years prior. Now, driven by vengeance, he embarks on a relentless quest to destroy those who have wronged him once and for all.

Views on Story
The game's starting trope is pretty straightforward. MC kills his abusive father after witnessing years of suffering inflicted on his mother. After serving time in prison, he begins working with a parole officer, only to discover that the officer is linked to the same people who had ordered his father to break him mentally at any cost, raping included. MC then finds out that magic, witches, vampires, and werewolves exist. This is where the story starts to go off the rails.

MC is turned into a werewolf and learns that he is the reincarnation of himself and that he once had goddesses as lovers. He also discovers that many of the people he knew 500 years ago are reincarnated in the present day. MC also begins using the church’s mausoleum to break and manipulate the female "villains". On one side, I don't mind mind control, mind break, and abuse, but on the other hand, it is very repetitive here, it takes away the "fun" aspect.

The game has pretty much little to no story, despite the 10 Chapters. Most of it is just sex, sex, hardcore sex, and sex. I can confidently say about 75% of the game is just about ejaculating and evacuating. Story-wise, 2/5.

The thing that bugs me is the writing. Very poor grammar, constantly wrong pronouns, wrong words and phrasing, with very unnatural dialogue that it feels like robots are the ones doing the talking. Paired with a hard-to-follow story, practically a disaster waiting to happen. Dev should get a proofreader. Writing-wise, 1.5/5.

Renders and Animations
BSAA's renders are pretty good, even without the fancy schmancy stuff you can see on higher-quality games. Blood and Cum textures are good, Animations are good, and Setting work can be better since some inconsistencies can be observed. But otherwise, I won't complain. Good renders, models, and animations. Render-wise, 4/5.

Gameplay
Pretty much straightforward gameplay, no bullshit, no character love points, only corruption and love points. But I fail to notice what both do here in BSAA, as they can change scenes in TSF. Choices here mean little to nothing, as there are no consequences in choosing one over the other as far as I can notice. Pretty much a skip-spammable game. No relationship to build, no nothing. Girls drool for MC's dick and want to constantly be filled. Romantic scenes were cringe-inducing when we know the final destination is to fuck girls into submission. Again, very confusing dialogues. Gameplay-wise, 1.5/5.

Content
Content-wise, BSAA is all about violence. Both in the killing and sex sense. If you played TSF before, BSAA is the same, but worse. Most girls MC gets to rail are virgins, so blood during sex is very much expected. However, some fetishes such as granny sex and prolapses are very much forced. The MC is also a manipulative asshole, he goes around and gives anal and vaginal prolapses to the girls he claimed he loves, while narcissistically forcing the girls to smile and such, but not doing shit that actually makes them happy. Pretty ironic and absolute nonsense. MC also rapes "villains" with revenge being the motive.

I don't judge kinks, but more extreme kinks should be optional. If I hadn't known better, I'd say BSAA is pretty much trying to normalize abuse, violence, and rape. MC does them as naturally as breathing. If he's not abusing, raping, and fucking girls, he'll go about killing his enemies and vice versa. Content-wise, 3/5.

Characters, Love Interests and Paths
Character-wise, I will only say 1 thing. THERE ARE TOO MANY CHARACTERS! I can count around 30 characters that are currently in BSAA. Who knows how many more the dev will add in the future? To add to the confusion, Some characters have very similar names such as Alysha, Aysha, Alessia (the mom, aunt, and sister), and Maya and Mary (colleague and sister's friend). No offense but the dev lacks the common sense to name his characters differently enough to avoid the player's confusion. Some characters also have very very large boobs, not my cup of tea.

There are no also paths, but pretty much all the girls in the game are fuckable, borderline begging to be dicked, save for a few that will probably get their turn in the later updates. There are currently so many girls the MC dicked that I lost count but it should be around 20, and there are still a handful more that have yet to receive a dicking from MC. Just goes to show the absurd amount of characters. Character-wise, 2/5.

Conclusion
Firstly, BSAA is a confusing, janky mess. I want to continue playing, but there is so much nonsense I kinda lost interest halfway through the game. The tropes are getting nonsensical the further in, and the players are also left in the dark as the information the game gives you is very damn cryptic, the script even acknowledges it at one point. You get 1 question answered to just have another 5 unanswered questions. Dev throws whatever he wants into BSAA, it's getting out of hand. At this point, the dev giving answers to all the questions I have would be considered a miracle.

Secondly, BSAA URGENTLY and SORELY needs a proofreader. Everything is very messy. The English used is on par with an elementary student. Wrong pronouns, off-putting, unnatural and robotic dialogue, wrong speaker, characters unnecessarily narrating their actions, wrong MC name if renamed (one transition screen and one sex scene show the default name).

Thirdly, the story needs streamlining, and the pacing needs to be improved. At this point, the story is very messy, with no clear directions. You're a human one day, then you get turned into a werewolf out of nowhere while going on a date with a girl. I am tempted to just wait for the final release and just play it instead. I want answers to the cryptic information the game gives, not add another 5 to the already massive pile of questions that needs to be answered.

Fourthly, dev should make kinks like prolapses, rape, and granny sex optional. I don't feel like seeing a character I fancy getting prolapses. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Just let characters do stuff normally. Rape is also very prominent here, I can stomach rape, but it's not for everyone. Granny sex is well... it depends on the character but here? no thanks.

All in all, BSAA is a mediocre game. It's not THAT bad if you can look past the absolute mess of dialogue, story, kinks and the manipulative MC it offers. IMHO, the renders and models are not exactly half bad. However, at the state it's in, I cannot recommend the game. I can stomach what the MC does, but the disastrous grammar is what killed my interest.

TL;DR:
Rating for BSAA:
Story - 2/5, Hard to follow, very cryptic information given to players, not even enough contextual hints.

Writing - 1.5/5, Janky grammar, wrong words, wrong pronouns, overall confusing dialogue.

Render - 4/5, Pretty good. Looks very nice, on par with better games.

Gameplay - 1.5/5, Confusing. Choices don't matter. No relationship points.

Content - 3/5, Violent. Forced kinks, Borderline whitewashing abuse, violence, and rape. Rapes "villains" with revenge as motive.

Character - 2/5, Very confusing names. Too many characters. Girls practically begging to be dicked by MC.

Overall - 2.3/5, Good renders alone can't salvage the disaster the game is. Could improve with the help of proofreaders and content writers.

Not recommended for those who can't stand the forced kinks stated in this review.

I played this game because sometimes I enjoy being evil in a visual novel but this game is just poorly made. The MC has convenient friends and circumstances to manage every situation. He is never struggling, always in control and always trying to portray rape and abuse as some form honorable deed in the name of his family. It's a laughable attempt to whitewash rape and violence at best.

Ultimately this game is interesting for people who are sadistic and thrive in extreme debauchery. There is little story to find here, no meaningful choices to make, no relationships to build, it's all about a twisted desire to spread the MCs ego and genes. Family relationships are deeply twisted and shallow with the single aim to be both protector and ultimately owner of them. Literally every female villain gets sexually abused until they reach a breaking point like it's the only language the MC understands.

I'm sure this type of game has its fans but if you have any morals when playing visual novels, if you like to choose the path you are walking, or if you expect a story that is more than a string of perverse exercises, this is not a game you will enjoy. I didn't enjoy any of it.

(I'm still new to this reviewing business, so please bear with me.)

I sort of want to like this AVN more than I do, but the frankly crazy amounts of spelling, grammar, punctuation and overall formatting issues with the text really takes me out of the experience. Generally speaking, I feel like an AVN can (and maybe even should) be judged primarily on 2 things: The writing and the visuals. Both are more or less equally important, and while I definitely wouldn't say BSAA misses the mark with the visual elements, it definitely needs more work when it comes to improving the writing.

For starters, instead of having characters weakly "narrating" their actions with some supposed internal monologue, there really should just be a classic narration. No one thinks to themselves "I'm opening the door in front of me" or "I'm taking a walk in a park" while they are doing that very thing, at least not unless they are a very simplistic robot. Adding to that, spelling and grammar needs work, and a lot of it at that.

One last complaint I have about the writing is the off-puttingly janky dialogue. Little to none of it feels like it's spoken between actual people, and instead makes everyone in the story seem incredibly stiff, one-dimensional, and ultimately pretty much lifeless. And I am pretty damn sure there has never even once been a good story with universally lifeless characters.

Still. Thanks to some good visuals, decently kinky sexual scenes (though unfortunately every single sex scene I've seen so far has leant way too much into the rough stuff for my tastes) the game is not without merit. It's not like some other visual novels where the story was bland and uninspired on top of the sex being that as well. I wish I could give the game 2.5 stars instead of just 2, but since I can only award full stars, I am choosing to round it off downwards.

Visual Novel, not much choices to be made, BUT it's perfect for those who like rape, incest and bloody sex.
The trill is perfect, envolves betrayal and passion. The character is not a "hero", he is evil, and it makes the game perfect for those who are bored with the same "hero" type.

Well this is the first kinetic novel that hook me enough to play past the first scene. The story is very edgy, kinda bonkers, yet it's consistent enough wit its tone and its characters to work, a sort of lesser and pornier Vistor Q. The renders are nice but it is to expetc cause the lest freedom had the player, the more pullish the renders tend to be

I'm really enjoying Between Salvation and Abyss! The story quite interesting, and the models are gorgeous especially the red head.

Renders 4/5
Characters 5/5
Story 4/5
Animations 4/5

Overall, this is a fantastic game! It easily gets 8 out of 10 from me. The story is interesting Definitely worth checking out!

(Review of Ch. 10 P2)

This is an AVN clearly designed to offer quantity over quality. A mindless fuckfest where you get to see all kinds of depravation exerted by the MC on every female in his family and beyond, including rape, violence, BDSM, pregnancy and other kinks. The story is pretty forgettable and since the writing is also abysmal, your best bet is to skip all that nonsense and go straight to the sex scenes, which are vanilla quality with "mechanical" animations but just good enough. The MC gets to deflower some petite girls, rape his foes without remorse, knock up his entire family including grandma and fuck them again for good measure when they look about ready to give birth.

It may not suit the most refined tastes but it sure offers plenty of content and variety especially for incest lovers.

Potential Wasted
Version reviewed: Ch10pt2

This had the potential to be great. Ultimately wasted by some forced fetishes and Broken language.

Lets Start with the positives:

* Great mix of diverse characters. All shapes and sizes which makes a nice change (Euphor and Sophia my faves)

* Large mix of fetishes (this is also a negative - as although its nice to see a range available.. as this is a KN rather than a VN - none are avoidable and you are forced to see all)

* Interesting story - i like the "war between humans, gods, vampires, warewolves, witches" kinda thing... done well its a great storyline

Onto the negatives:

* Forces fetishes - There is no choice, and basically you are an asshole to everyone even those you love. How can Forcing Anal and Vaginal prolapses to the ppl you are supposedly in love with be classed as a good thing?

* Horse cock - no idea why the MC in a lot of these games (generally the ones that are average or worse tbf tho) has to have a cock the size of his arm. Its unrealistic and unnessesary. Generally puts me off playing the games tbf.

* Needs a proofreader. The english isnt the worst i have seen but could definately do with someone who is better with the english language to give the text a once over.

OVERALL

The negatives (mainly the forced fetishes - and lack of "nice route") for me unfortunately outweigh the nice mix of characters. I did try and play this all the way through however if i am honest the more dark fetishes (especially when pushed on characters the MC supposedly loves) put me off the more i played.

Average at best because of that.

Best adult game I 've played!
Loved the plot, the diversity of characters, also the natural hairy pussies you barely find in other games(hairy lover here), also that the MC didn't stop for any reason going on and on all the time..

Excellent game, wonderful graphic and super sexy characters. MC's mom is super sexy, and other characters are gorgeous too. Very good start, story is dark & alluring which is not something quite common here.

Between Salvation and Abyss
version #: Ch9 so far - Scores from low [1] to high [5]:

TLDR: You have no real choices. Prepare for depravity. I really wish I could give this a highter rating. With improvements on the things I list below it could certainly get higher.

MORE:
* with a competent English writer/translation this story could have been good. The bones of the story are worthy, but executed very poorly.
* If you think causing painful prolapses(unavoidable anal and vaginal) are somehow a sign of love, that your partner would actually appreciate, then you're delusional enough to like this. Otherwise, prepare to have to overlook some seriously demented nonsense.
* if you're OK with having no choice at all in which fetishes you participate in, then this might be for you.

Story - 2, hard to follow. Leaves things out that it doesn't explain until much later, leaving you rather lost for a while. Overall cringeworthy writing. (more below)
Originality - 4, this has what eventually reveals to be a rather intriguing story hidden under very poor translation.
Renders - 4, they look very nice.
Sound - 0, none at all. (except a scream jump scare in a single scene)
Playability - 3, story is hard to follow. Poorly written and formatted. More characters that you can really follow without making notes. There is often no difference between a charater's spoken word and their 'thoughts/narration'. Sometimes thoughts are italicized, and sometimes it's done backward, making the spoken words and thoughts even harder to differentiate.
Performance - no issues,
Bugs - not found ,
Animations - 2(at start) 4 later on, Marrionette motions look very unrealistic, though they do improve after ch5.2.
Voice Acting - n/a,
Grammar - 2, very poor. missused or completely wrong words and phrasing. Constant missuse of he/she/his/hers/you/me/them/etc. Switches between first person narration from the MC, and first person narration from other characters, which just doesn't flow well.
Amount of content - 4, there's quite a bit there, though a lot of it might not be to taste.

* MC often manipulates his famiy and friends in a wholely narcissistic way, forcing his mother to smile when she's sad just to make his pathetic ass happy, instead of saying/doing legitimate things to cheer her up.
* Mom and aunt are twins, and have the exact same name except one letter. Youngest sister's name is also the same, just spelled differently. With well over 30 characters in game this just adds to the f'in confusion.
* Selections are binary; Love OR Corruption. There is very little difference between them though, just some slightly different dialog. The pain you cause others is not reduced by selecting the love route.
* You can't avoid unwanted fetishes, at all:
- Prolapse, both anal and vaginal.
- Footjob.
- Granny sex.
- sexual abuse.
- rape where MC is perpetrator.
* A Scene Gallery is sorely needed.
* Significant continuity errors: skin colors change, Alessia grows a foot+ between chapters, etc.

I'm someone who plays all this kind of games and this is a game that I found great, I never get bored, the only thing I see bad are the prolapses but it's not something that disgusts me so I put up with it, very good game if you want to spend time and see a good amount of MILFs.

Its ok game with rough edges.. Game is/feels like kinetic novel which is bad. I would prefer to control mc and chose how I approach each problem or story element.. Wasted potential..

Should you try game? yes. But don't expect amazing story

The story could be very interesting but is delivered in very small pieces chapter after chapter, and the more you learn about MC’s past and present, the more you don’t understand because everything is damn cryptic, and honestly quite badly written (not only because of the bad English). When you finally get one answer, you have 10 more questions, so after 9 chapters where the developer gives you so little answers you start to get bored and wish for the story to end. So you either wait for each update to learn a tiny little bit more knowing that it will bring even more questions, or you just stop and simply wait for the final version because it’s becoming extremely annoying, which is what I’m doing after reading chapter 9.1. To be honest, the developer has opened so many doors that I’m not even sure that he will give all the answers by the end of the story, I guess he lost himself at the same time he lost the readers.

Now let’s talk about the second main problem here, something I’ve never seen in any visual novel so far: the huge obsession of the developer for anal and vaginal prolapses. Okayyyy… to each his own, we are not here to judge one’s kinks, but as @Sarkasmus pointed out in his review, we should get the choice to decide if it’s OUR kink too! And if it’s not, which is, I guess, the case of the vast majority of the players here, we should have the simple choice of skipping this (disturbing) fetish.

And while we’re on this subject, let’s talk about the supposed choices you have in this game. Do not think you have any, it’s a kinetic novel, you have no choice, there is no “corruption” or “love” path, both are the same except for one single scene with a MILF (Lucia) in the early chapters. The more you progress the chapters, the more you will see that there is no corruption/love choices anymore, as if the developer finally realized how useless they were.

Be aware that if you don’t like seeing the MC raping women, you will have no choice anyway, you will rape many. Ok they are mainly acts of revenge because these women hurt his family or were about to, but still, you have no choice. You don’t want to see the MC banging his grandma? You still will, no choice again. As I said before, it’s a kinetic novel, so be prepared to see bdsm, rape, skinning, mutilation, and a lot of anal/vaginal prolapses.

Now let’s talk about the love interests. Most of them are nice looking and some are even really hot, but some of them are just so-so (Jessica, Clara and Helena for example), and a few of them have a breast-dystrophia problem (when breasts alone are a third of the total weight of a woman, it’s a bit problematic for the vertebral column).

Despite of all the negative things I’ve said, I still want to see more of it but will wait for the final version before downloading it again.

The chicks look nice and all but, ew, like really ew. Bro I get it, you like anal prolapse and feet stuff, but like, don't we even get a choice in this matter? Why can I get to choose what to see and vice versa? It's really disgusting and I don't judge you for it but at least think of others a bit no? The whole thing just feels like a big fetish piece of the author with no regard for the general audience.

I don't mind the MC is a dumbass and being kept out of loop but it's very annoying that most of the chicks that know something keep saying the same thing to the MC "I can't tell you this" and "It's not my place to tell you" bla bla bla, why don't have them just straight up don't say anything after the MC realize that he won't be able to know until a certain time.

This game almost got everything right, and then it's just dumped a bunch of disgusting stuff on you. Leaving you with a flower that plant in a pile of shit, beautiful, but you can't get anywhere near it because of the stuff around it.

Summary:
•Forced shit
•A KN in disguise, your 'choices' won't matter
•Prolapsed asses everywhere
•Brainless Bimbos
•A hodgepodge of characters you've probably seen in others AVNs.
Don't waste your time on this...

It looks bad, the story and dialog don't make much sense and it's obvious the author is not a native English speaker, the music is too loud then too quiet sometimes, there were images missing in my game, there's no gallery, should I go on?

There's so much wrong with this VN that I stopped with the first hour. It's just not worth the download, skip it.

- Chapter 8
- Nice models and graphics
- Intriguing backstory
- Infuriating writing
- Choices make no difference whatsoever
- Careless setup

Can NOT confirm claims of the renders being grainy. I'm playing in fullscreen on 3440px width and can't complain about the image quality whatsoever! I also like the chosen models, though some of them (especially the older ladies) are weirdly disproportioned. If this was just to offer the players different body types, I wouldn't expect to see basically every adult woman to have the very same voluptuous forms.

The real problem I have with this game is the writing. And, by that, I do NOT mean the story. Which is intriguing. No, I mean story progression and dialogue.

You start out playing a guy who had been badly abused as a child until he finally liberated his family from their abuser. So far so good. But, as you progress through the story, it becomes clear that this MC is simply stupid. He never questions ANYTHING. He takes everything he's told, even if by complete strangers, and even if it is in direct violation of his beliefs, at face value and just accepts it as the new truth. And it takes forever!

Even though the things these female characters want to tell him are apparently essential to their survival, they keep playing the damn pronoun game and throw insinuations around instead of just telling him what he NEEDS to know... and then call him stupid for not realizing sooner. Either because it's "not time for him to know, yet", or because "it's not their place to tell him", or because "it's for him to find out"... It's interesting as a plot twist the first time it happens, but by now became just fucking exhausting!

Like, for example,when we meet the "Woman in red" for the first time. She immediately realized that the MC lost his memories and knows everything about him. But, instead of just filling him in, she makes a few comments about how hard poor little MC's life was... and then fucking leaves without enlightening him! And the only reason the Players can believe her is because, for some unknown reason, we can read her thoughts. "We" is the players, not the MC, by the way. The whole game, all we know is what MC knows, but in this single instance, we suddenly hear her thoughts confirming her words, making me believe that the dev knows how stupid it would be to believe these characters and gave us a reason to accept it.

Or when the aunt and grandmother FINALLY show up to fill him in, the first thing we learn about those two is that the MC barely knows them. He only saw them ONCE in his entire life. And yet, when they turn his world upside down by telling him what is what, he almost has a mental breakdown because he believes them. Even though they didn't offer ANY proof to support anything they just told him. And yet, it just worked.

I also strongly disagree with MC's actions. When he's basically raped by that blonde girl, he still cares about her deeply for some reason. Someone he knew for all of a week! And the only thing he knows about her is that she is friends with his sister. So... Why does he care about her!? Why does his "heart bleed" when he sees his aunt and grandmother sad, given how he had absolutely NO memories of them!? Why does he go full-on postal on any perceived threat, but then just leaves to relax a little after he learns how that one woman ordered his sisters to be raped!?

So, I thought maybe this is all because of the choices I made. I installed that mod that shows the impact of each choice, and the game seems to have a counter for "Corruption Points" and "Love Points".
I played it again twice. First, I only chose the Love-Options, and then I only chose the Curruption-Options. And, guess what? It's the EXACT SAME game. As far as I could tell, even the dialogue wasn't different in any way. I found ONE scene that only showed up when I chose the love option, and ONE other scene that only showed up when I chose the corruption option. But, even then, neither option had any impact on how the story progressed.

It also doesn't help that there's an abundance of typos throughout the game, accompanied by sloppy tagging. Quite a few times, the name tags above the dialogue line show a character's name who is clearly not the one saying what you're reading.

This just goes hand-in-hand with the dozens of instances where the text goes from MC speaking out loud, to MC thinking to himself, and finally to the Narrator informing you about something... all with the very same markup, as if the MC was still saying all of that out loud.

And then there's the most offensive thing about all of this: Most of the action and interesting visual bits are hidden behind the damn dialogue box! First time you meet Victoria? She gets naked and half her body is obscured by that black background. Entire sex-scenes are hidden by that thing! And, yes, I know I can click the middle mouse button, but I also kinda want to follow their dialogue, so I'd have to read the line, hide the box, show the box, read the next line, hide the box, show the box,... and so on.

All in all, the dialogue is infuriating as it is hours of buildup to something we don't know about, the story progression makes no sense as it's only meant to lead you from sex-scene to sex-scene, and the MC is an imbecile. Other than that, the game's quite good!

I drugged myself from chapter to chapter reading and trying to find sand grains of story in this game.
- Renders.
I don't know why some people say that they're grainy, I played at my PC at 1920x1080 and only see a couple of grainy renders. But the quality of renders is not the issue here, it's female figures itselves. For some strange reason dev likes ugly fat mature women. And he likes to show us that. While young women rendered with totally natural figures and they're hot, mature women are ugly and have even more "screen time". So in my mind this game is visually disgusting. And I don't even want to mention puddles of urine, anal prolapse and so on. Needless to say player has no choice to see it or not.
- Gameplay.
It's a kinetic novel with meaningless choices, player cannot choose who to fuck, what fetishes to see, there's no branching in the story. If you like to play sadist with over the top ego who fucks every woman he meets - then it's a game for you. For everyone else I wouldn't recommend to waste your time on that game.
- Story.
Well, there is one. Between lewd scenes we find out that Marty Sue is so important that he can do everything he wants, influential people and whole organizations will cover all the crimes he commits. And, of course, MC has Oedipus complex, fat fetish, gerontophilia, he thinks about it from the start. Every woman easily falls for MC and most of time we read what he wants to do to them (and then - what he's doing to them). No choice. Sometimes we choose between being nice and corruption points, choices changes nothing and we don't know what we choose.