VN - Ren'Py - Blairewood [Prologue A v0.1] [BlackFeather]

Tbh I like what I saw. I know some of the reviews are complaining about the the writing but it really wasn't that hard to follow. MC was a child and child see through the bullshit, the writing was on the wall, so he dipped. It will be interesting to see how the story continues when we get to 2029. I'll avoid giving this dev any money for the time being until they show some actual work. But I really did like what I saw and it'll it wasn't for this half cooked prologue I'd have probably given it a higher rating.

Starting at the rework here so theres no confusion. I do find it funny people three years ago were calling this perfect just because it looked good lol. This kids is why you don't rate unfinished products as flawless.

Look, I'm not saying I'm the best writer, but 101 here.....I know what this is and I'll explain by the end.

Why would two girls just believe the mumbled words of a kid getting his ass kicked and then immediately repeat it to the kid who got violently pissed off when he said it? You're terrified of a kid and then immediately go about making him mad. Then we find out this Claire chick is part of the reason Cassie's brother ran away, but Cassie and her dad see her as family and they are trying to save their, idk, farm?....what the actual fuck?

Then we enter Diego. You think someone who is tazed by a cop is just gonna pop up and start screaming like an idiot? Then he stops at the mere mention they might want to talk to a girl he was talking about in his sleep? Oh no they might want to talk to her the girl they all know......that'll override police brutality and a retarded as fuck sister who physically assaulted you. Then the cop outright threatens him again because his annoying ass sister got inches away from a dude who was passed out and his immediate thought is not about how he's gonna go to prison, but "Don't you come near my sister again". He doesn't even know your sister and she fucking slapped the shit out of him. Don't be mad your sister almost ruined your life....threaten the guy who can go file a complaint and has a witness you did some illegal ass shit. Then this Diego dude is worried someone is gonna repeat what he said while asleep to someone else. This is somehow more important than the tazer barbs hanging off his face or the fact the cop was just gonna drag him into the back seat of his squad car and lie about what happened. WHY IS THIS EVEN HERE? The tone of this thing is all over the place. Everyone just does what Cassie tells them like she's the smartest person in the room even though she's clearly not or like she's got this big sister aura which is not established at all. Everything after Diego showing up is supposed to be some goofy slapstick comedy, but everything before it came off as a serious drama. Pick a damn lane. None of it was funny and that's mostly because of tone whiplash. Goofy jokes don't land when every thing before was super serious.

None of these characters come off as likable. Well Ben does, but only because he hasn't done anything to be annoying yet. Dude just wants to save his house. I mean Deigo might have come off as endearing eventually, but the slapstick nonsense ruined that. Claire comes off like a self interested bitch. Everyone just listens to Cassie for no established reason. In the flashback this much older girl is just there for the fight out of nowhere, Diego didn't need her to get to the farm, she says Claire is like family then comes off as threatening towards her about her brother, she then just shows up and believes a cop who just assaulted someone over anyone else and pretends she doesn't know who this Diego kid is at all when he knows the family she works with or for or whatever. We're pretending Diego getting hurt like a cartoon is funny when its not. I'm kinda hoping the the brother shows up and just fucks all these people up. My hopes aren't high though because this reeks of "well the only way to obviously write this female as strong is to have her kick the MC's ass." We've already hit three different shades of "male character wants to fuck his sister" and its already foreshadowed the Diego comedy is not gonna stop anytime soon. I swear Marvel writing has ruined a generation. The fact that he's already coming in with the semi long hair and dead eyes gives me no hope seeing as we aren't even following him as a character yet. Hell we don't even know who we should be rooting for yet. I'm kinda on this Victor kid's side.....get these people away from each other.

I am generally interested in the story, but you need to tone down these ridiculously over done personality types. Subtlety goes a long way. I know what this is, it's anime in VN form. The problem with anime is when you don't know it is, the troupes don't land. Especially the comedic ones. This comes off as a western VN, but if you imagine all these characters as 2D animation set in Japan it feels like it works. I hope I'm right because this can be good, but this start is.....well its like the first episode of an anime, but the allowances people give anime don't work here. In western VNs it comes off as half baked. In anime you think eventually it'll be explained. If it is then my rating will go up, but until there and the track record of the dev, this is getting a meh.

Honestly if it wasn't for the super high quality renders and character models id have given this game a 2 star.

Pros:
High Quality Renders and Character Models

Cons:
Pretty Confusing writing and intro
Unnecessary Narration

Story 3/10: I'll be honest, i had a hard time following the prologue. I have no idea what happened, or what's happening. It felt like a really vague movie trailer. Short and confusing.

We are introduced to the MC childhood where he brutally beats the shit out of someone for saying he wants to bang some girl. so we've got a Schizophrenic's Protagonist with a slightly disturbing childhood, Who went missing as a child and is also possibly a criminal. Other than that not much is said. We are shown a few other characters, but not much detail on them so far.

The rest of the story is the MC Narrating the town which I'm assuming where the majority of the story will take place. Personally i would have liked to learn about the town and story more naturally, instead of the MC just breaking the fourth wall and narrating things to the viewer.

Overall not much of anything on the story to be said, except that the writing so far is pretty hard to follow.

Sexual Content: No Lewd Scenes as of now.

Renders: Now the renders are fantastic, honestly some of the best quality out there.

Character Models: The Character Models also look great, they are great quality along with amazing looks in terms of who I'm assuming is the main cast.

This is just the Prologue of the game so theres not much sense rating this, but i still will, cuz of some other ratings i read. Lets talk about whats there:
The renders lokk absolutely amazing and can be counted to be nearly as good as the best ive ever seen (Where it all began remake). The Women also look absolutely beautiful so thats definetly a selling point.
What we see so far from the story doesnt make a lot of sense, theres talk about a boy went missing which seems to be the MC, there are hints of the life you live now and hints of the life thet people you left behind are living. So far you could say its an introduction to the relevant parties in the story which will be connected and make sense later.
So all in all i would say you should definetly wait with the judgement and see where this is going and the rate it again when there are 2 or 3 chapters out, when you can see where the story will go, how the people will behave, if they have character and if the dialogue is well written. All that you cant really tell yet as you cant tell if you will be able to influence the story with the choices you make.

So id say wait a bit for more updates and lets see where this is going.

After a year of development there's just a reworked prologue, rather short (and still confusing, with that peacemeal storytelling).

✭✭✭✭✭ Renders are great, models are cute. 5 stars.
✭✰✰✰✰ Story might be interesting, but too fragmented to make sense. 1 star.

Conclusion: Apart from seeing a couple of pretty girls, nothing to do here. 2 stars + 1 more for the potential.

[Prologue Rework]

Holy shit dude, this is what I call perfect render quality, all of it.
The story is a bit confusing, but since this is just the prologue, there is a good chance this will have a good readable story in the future. A lot has been introduced, let's see where the journey goes. I'm hyped to see more of this, even if this takes really long.

Renders are top quality imho, I like the girls design especially Claire...Claire FTMW,,,, looking forward to Chapter 1 cuz im very intrigued on what's the story is all about and looks promising.....Good Luck dev.

4 out of 5 stars for the renders, and nice looking females. Minus 1 star because I just wish I knew WTF it is about based on the Prologue!
Prologue seems to consist of three main scenes:
1. A scene with the MC , as a kid, beating the crap out of another kid.
2. Then to the MC becoming the narrator and giving a very brief clue as to what he is currently up to.
3. Finally, we see the grown up Claire (MC's sister?, I hope so!) talking to her father about a compulsory sale of their property.
Don't know who any of the other characters are and hope that the next update makes more sense.
The quality of the renders and character designs are the only thing making me want to see more. Let's hope the next update gives us an idea of what this is supposed to about........

I've never reviewed a game, because honestly I usually don't care much or if it's bad I just fuck off.
But my God, am I the only idiot who has, for the most part, 0 clues as to what's going on?

I don't want to be an asshole, but the only positive thing I can say is that the render's look good. That's it. Everything else in my eyes was terrible.
Even though this was apparently a Prologue Remake, I really think the Developer should rethink the structure of how he want to tell the story.

Of course this are my 2 cents and they're worth what they're worth.

I still wish all the best for the developer and the future of the project.

My Reaction for this game : Amazing i love it !

★ Gameplay : ✭✭✭✭✰
★ Story : ✭✭✭✭✭
★ Spelling : ✭✭✭✭✰
★ renders : ✭✭✭✭✰
★ Potential : ✭✭✭✭✭
★ Overall : ✭✭✭✭✰
★ Girls physique : ✭✭✭✭✰
★ Graphic : ✭✭✭✭✰
★ Creativity :✭✭✭✭✰

Note :

Definitely you should try it .

◉ All the best to the developer .

Renders are amazing and the story is confusing because its a prologue and kinda rush on introducing characters. Hope there will be choices that matter and have impact on the story and with the relations with the girls, hope there is more choices to choose (instead of 2 to have 3), hope there is more girls that we saw on prologue,hope the girls arent all slutty, and hope the dev makes a story that explains everything. The game has potential to be great but the dev needs to pay attention to the progress of the story.

I typically like to rate games on their potential rather than what we see upfront, particularly with new games since things are early enough to change and improve. This game has really nice renders and new environments you dont really see a lot. The sounds and music are fitting. The character designed are spot on the girls are really nice (the ones introduced so far) Everything presentation wise is great. Narration wise is a bit trickier. Its a bit confusing to understand whats going on. It does jump around and characters are discussing things without context for the player to fully grasp the situation. I know its a prologue and this is a given with any new game but it seems to be more so the case with this game. I dont doubt it will better and more updates with more plot comes out but for now it was a bit confusing the timing pacing etc. Grammar/english wise its fine. Seems to want to present itself more as a movie style than a game, might be hit or miss in the future.

Either way, its setting itself up to be a great game. Lets see how the dev moves forward.

Prologue

Little gameplay well what do you expect it's prologue. Good renders that's a big plus. Well can't say anything about the story at the moment. One thing I understood by playing prologue is story is not cliche. Waiting to see how dev will execute it in the next updates. Absolutely loved how MC is introduced by beating the hell out of a douchebag. ( Not like waking up on hospital with no memory, not like saying about future plans etc. ) Not a cliche introduction loved it. Yeah MC got some attitude. It would be nice if you add some extra thud sounds while fighting.

one req is don't give us faster and meaningless sex scenes like many other games here. It will ruin the game's standard. Keep up the current pace. Good luck dev

Overall it's a good start. Waiting for next updates yeah surely change the rating according to updates.

EDIT :

Prologue rework

With this rework some confusion are gone about the story. But stil there's only little content. Dev did a good job with credit giving scene. Dev did it like it was in movie.

Edit 2 : sadly there's no update so far. Seems like it's abandoned.

It's probably a bit early, but here's my review for the game so far:

Tested:
Game prologue

Positive
The renders, and also the models of the girls.

Neutral
The game' s technique. Nice start screen, but long loading time. The game runs without problems - however, since there are no choices in the game yet, this is to be expected. No animations so far. Some nice audio effects, but no music (-> KoGa3...?). Maybe the story - but we don't know so far (see below)

Worse
Definitely the storytelling. It's a confusing hopping between - I think - different time periods, locations, whatever. Maybe this should be stylish as in movies like Pulp Fiction, Sin City etc... but it does not work here. I got quickly bored because of that (even the prologue is really short!) I had actually no clue what the story is about. Not good: the devs already had to explain that these "scenes" are somehow tied together in later updates...
Also a bad sign for me: the game uses an ingame narrator (maybe also imitating some mentioned movies...)

Conclusion
The game is confusing so far. It has its good parts (renders), but the storytelling in the prologue (where you should actually get an idea of what the game is about) is all over the place. In my opinion needs a complete rework in that.