Ren'Py - Completed - Braveheart Academy [v2.1] [Chrys]

This review is for v2.1

TLDR: Do not trust the high rated reviews, this whole "game" is a glorified VN in an empty world filled with terrible writing and forgettable characters.

I sincerely do not understand how this glorified VN has such a high weighted rating with so many well regarded reviews.

Pros:

you can easily and rapidly blast through each character's story by selecting the right options and rolling back your choices if you don't choose the correct option.

Cons:

Literally everything else.

The dialogue feels like whoever wrote it has never actually spoken to another human being, with some of the most awkward and cringey dialogue I have seen outside of anime.
That alone wouldn't be bad if the whole thing weren't compounded by all of the characters being literally insane with no reactions feeling logical or connected.

Every single character seems to have insecurities over their body, even though most characters weigh so little that I could literally carry them over one shoulder and are so short that I could rest my arm on top of their heads, but they are all apparently "too tall and too heavy" or "too small and too flat."

Seriously, the characters are extremely bland and forgetful to the point that I literally am only able to remember them from their stereotype rather than anything else about them.

I could honestly go on for a whole essay about the many issues with this "game" but that would be even more of a waste of my time.
I was lulled in by the weighted rating and the tags, but the whole thing is a low quality VN collection in a needless "sandbox" environment...you know, if an empty world with locations that do and mean nothing unless a character you can interact with just happens to be there counts as being a sandbox type game.

Seriously, do not trust the high rated reviews here, because there is NOTHING special about this game that others haven't done far better.

The singular thing I will say this has that is "decent" is the character animations, which are smooth for what games like this tend to have.

It is a well made game by all metric. Lots of contents, handful of girls each with unique story and scenes, and a simple and (comparatively) not so grindy sandbox mechanics. Sex scenes are all animated and many kinks are included, and are all optional. Models are old school HS style anime girls, but some of them are really cute (ETNA IS BAE) some really hot, some not really appeal to me but I am sure it is for someone else there.

I especially enjoy the sense of "progress" in this game - where you pursue each girl's story and become more and more intimate with them, and each girls come with their unique ending too. Side contents are ample (I did not even unlock all after 1 playthrough).

The only critique is the timed event system. I missed out on the first two time events and first carnival because I do not have enough affections with the girls involved apparently. But that should be fine for someone who is going for 2nd playthrough to unlock all contents.

Overall enjoyable, light hearted anime style campus lovey dovey harem dating simulator. ETNA IS BAE.

Braveheart Academy is a very simple dating sim that has almost no gameplay so it would be a mix of visual novel. You are a new arrival at this school that has many pretty girls and slowly you go through your days knowing more and more about each girl and picking some very uninteresting personal details like height and weight that will later be required to know for more relationship questioning. There is also a market with a couple of upgrades that can be useful, and that is pretty much the entire gameplay. You just have to click around the school/city to progress each girl’s relationship level and time it properly with the couple of timed events on your calendar. It is simplistic but it does what it was made to do well enough. A good visual novel is when the game gives you the slow build up and relationship progress of characters with very different personalities, and that Braveheart Academy nails it. Each girl is written with care and interest making them very unique. You will have your favorites without a doubt, the girls are so distinct that there is something for every taste. After the buildup the game rewards your patience with an abundance of scenes with each girl, more in events, some extras you get through a hookup app and more fanmade in a special section. Also a slightly hidden one. Mechanically the game features a common slide puzzle you need to complete to get some scenes, it's nothing too hard but after doing it ten times it gets too repetitive, but the game also allows skipping. The honey select models are very pretty albeit not extraordinary, and the animations are nice but many are too similar. Once you finish the relationships, you have to wait for the end of the school year and pick one of the many endings that add another layer of love for each girl. Also, the game could spice up a bit of the scenes with more than your basic tags. Overall is a good game, not fantastic, but a decently made one that will offer you plenty of entertainment.

Good game, best of 95% content out there are... I like illusion HS1,2 based games, as they look more beautiful, more alive. Even w/o good harem ending with finished solo rotes, it is a well developed game. And Hscenes made with love, passion, talks, etc. That's very good... It was nice to see chars from other games... Good thing that there is trap off, minigame off, functions, as everyones tastes are different, would love to have it voiced for scenes at least... and thx for no gring.... Recommend for at least one run in slow pace for everyone...

OMG ! i played this game without any expectation, i was blown away.
Each characters has a compelling story, the readers are beautiful, the animations are top notch. I don't have much too say except that this game is one of the best i played in this website so far

Really fun game. 10/10. The characters were obviously honey select models but they were integrated in a really nice way. The idle animations were also incredibly smooth and nice touch. The writing for this game is great. Really nice jokes here and there and the characters have an amazing personality to them including the MC. Every person has an incredibly diverse backstory which adds an amazing touch as opposed to just fucking every character the MC sees. I do wish this game was in another engine other than renpy since it lagged horribly at times. But it was manageable. Looking forward to the dev's next game. 10/10.

Rev @ Braveheart Academy [v2.1]

Alright, but overstays its welcome.

Art's fine, poser software used well .

Writing is average. Scenario's been done, narrative doesn't really work, characterization is fine.

Porn was fine. Liked the group options but the box-standard m/f/f threesome is less innovative than it could be.

Main gripe is the faux sandbox. There's a ton of bloat to the presentation and it serves only to inflate runtime

Average writing and models + 0 gameplay somehow makes for high reviews on this site, sometimes I don't get it... Honestly every stereotype just plays for the cliches, which we've seen too many of already. I'll admit the LGBTQ option is the most praiseworthy part of the design.

But still this gets an extra demerit because if you pick the start without incremental income you can literally lock yourself out of progression.

i dont understand the rating in this game. imo it is quite boring. even the tags i was searching for are nearly nonexistent. graphics are fine. but how is it so boring i have no idea. animations are very smooth too. they had everything to not make a boring game.

This is my favorite Ren'Py game so far.
I can only think of a one thing that is "bad" about this game, and that is that its not a longer game than it is

Story:
Simple, but not over the top. Same goes for the story plots of characters you meet. It doesnt try to overdo and overperform, but gives you enough info to suck you in without leaving your brain a muddled mess.

Characters:
MC:
This is by far one of the best MCs i have ever seen. He is not an asshole, but not some sort of white knight saint. Charming and silly, and not afraid to speak his opinion. While rather largely endowed, its more of a feature, than a trait. He does flaunt it and still does a ton of other things. Even isnt afraid to swing both ways. He incorporates pretty well what i aspire to be. Though i am not as charming. While he isnt afraid to step up to a dangerous position, he isnt some superman who can beat an army by himself either.

Girls/romance partners:
Mix of different characters and as mentioned earlier, a good twist/plot to all of them. Unique in their own aspects.
No doubt i would be enthralled just like the MC, if i ever met such a bunch.

Choices:
There are a good amount of choices. Some mean more than others. Some dont matter at all (like the meet'n'yeet) to the overall story line.
The NTR part of this game is FANTASTIC!

I would give this 6 starts if i could.

Though the are some parts and storylines that are rather feeling forced/stretched, and the scenes are rather short and with some barely having some erotic sensations; it is a game that is simply enjoyable. Even the bad ending that forces you to backtrack and do things right is made well and is, tan tan tan tannnnn...enjoyable. And I aborr NTR when it comes to watching a movie, TV show or a game, so .

The main gameplay of this is slide puzzles. It's a good thing there is an option to disable it as slide puzzles suck, but when you disable it, this game really becomes a visual novel with some relationship/time management.

This is not a bad thing inherently, but for the majority of the girls the story is kinda basic and did not engage me too much. I also found the MC dull. In hindsight, the scene gallery is probably the best way to experience the game, because who wants slide puzzles??? You do miss the limited events though, as the scene galley doesn't feature them (or at least I did not see them featured).

I was honestly falling asleep while playing this. The writing is bad and with the kind of game this is that just isn't excusable. There was nothing for me get interested, no story hooks, nothing happening at all. It was just stilted random meetings with girls with conversations that were meaningless, no one cares how much someone weighs or how tall they are, that's not how real people speak to each other and certainly not how good conversations are written.

The girls have some interesting designs and that's the only thing the game has going for it, the renders aren't particularly good, the game tries hard with a lot of gimmicky choices at the start of the game that just don't end up being interesting or helping the game whatsoever.

The music choices didn't fit the feel of a school romance game, it was more like funeral music.

What this game needed more than anything was a decent-to-good basic storyline and some bare minimum level of interesting writing. As long as it doesn't have that, none of the rest matters, but even then none of the rest is particularly interesting here. It's just a disjointed mess that felt like a chore to play.

welp, been playin this game weeks ago just to review it now. i guess this game fall at least under my personal favorite top 30, not to say its bad but the competition just tough in my book and top 30 among like 70+ avn games i played is awesome. since the game is completed i guess i`ll go short

+ story is simple and straightforward, no twist, just student life approaching girls, could as well be cons
+ art is ok, animation is ok, more than decent, personally still satisfying
+ free roam, free to pursue or avoid LIs
+ options in beginning of game to avoid grinding and mini games and focus on story
+ extra UI element : phone provide some depth like LIs database, event timeline, gallery and extras
+ in term of quantity the game rich of sexual contents including seemingly made to order contents
+ involve kink that many players kinkshamed but made to be avoidable
+ secret way to access extra LI that becomes not so secret thanks to gallery

- the simple main story had its drawback and with not so much twist and mystery to unfold some LIs story can feels rather cliche, especially those whove been play lots of avn
- the quiz thing comes unnatural, its rather forced into conversation and become off topic, there definitely ways to make the quiz thing more natural and inline with conversation by making it more diverse to fit in more variety of dialog topic and prevent repetitive topic
- the locations are only used as event background, most LIs arent tied with location which makes most locations dead unused, some LIs could spread across location/timeline and provide simple event, minimum conversation to no conversation at all but just to inhabit location during certain time, making the game world more alive and realistic
- sexual scene has no live repeatability due to many LIs not tied to locations/time and only tied to school location and event, most scenes only replayable from gallery
- gallery locked under extra ui element and not accessible directly from option
- the effort of side LIs and extra contents could be channeled to create more in depth bonding story with main LIs because some of em have rather short bonding events
- by added some plot to it, made to order contents could definitely fit in LIs storyline instead of just being extras

1 extra star alone for having a character whose story and background my perfect cup of tea. the kink it has right up my alley and to no surprise it has the most made-to-order content as well. In fact this character alone that makes me add this game to my personal "game i will not delete", and trust me i deleted most of avn games i played, even completed one and some with crazy beautiful graphic but craps story or weak LIs bonding, even games that have higher rank in my personal favorite. to me, this character alone that carry the whole game to be in my personal favorite top 30 because i didnt even finish most of LIs cause i think their storyline are too cliche and has nothing really special to offer.

i read there will be braveheart academy 2, if its gonna follow up its predecessor here are my suggestion:

> improve arts and animation quality
> add more twist, mystery to unfold surrounding mc/LIs story
> add more sexual teases, cliffhangers, to make players crave to dig more certain LIs
> focus on main LIs first and give each of em equal amount of storyline
> adds some humour for more appeal
> make the quiz thing become natural, make it more diverse so it fit in more topic and it doesnt even have to be like a quiz but more like natural conversation with some point counter behind it
> make the locations alive by spread the LIs, make at least minimum interaction that doesnt affect story or points but just to live up the location, live up the game world to be more realistic

> ultimately, add another character like blaire, and all kink it has, with deeper bonding story, raunchier sexual contents.

overall, good game, thanks for developing this game
good luck with whatever under development rn
i hope that dev get all the support they need and continue steadily developing more

cheers~

Its alright, the game definitely shoots for something more than just a standard visual novel which is appreciated but I think the execution isn't so great. The characters, while unique, are written in a kind of stilted way, the puzzles, while optional, are some of the only actual gameplay in the game, meaning that if you turn them off you're not really doing much. I think some other types of minigames could've made the game a lot better.

Nice, this is the good sfuff, worth to try it, it is a good ride, and the endings wow, over all the backstory of Vivi is one of the best for the implications, Blair face is the sweetest and of course Raven is the best.

I really like this game, it's fun and has a diversity of girls from which you can choose to pursue, a lot of great animations. The side events are also something to look forward to if you want some extra scenes. The puzzles can be tedious sometimes, but you can turn them off if you just want the story. You can also choose which kinks you would like to have. Overall, it is a heartwarming and great game, it's one has become one of my favs, that's why I am giving it a 5 star rating.

Ah yes. One of better games here but it has some weak points.

Pros:
+ Many sexy girls with many sexy ecounters.
+ Cute and well made models with lots of well made sex animations.
+ No sounds but some nice sountracks in the background making playing much nicer.
+ Trap and NTR-rape content can be simple avoided if someone is not into it. Turning trap content off will of course disable any shemale ecounters but some of the events will be aviable anyway with alternated versions containing fully female girls. Since I'm into neither of it I really appreciate options turning them off.

Cons:
- Game pretends to be sandbox but I think it's some real misunderstanding. Actually it's a visual (sometimes even kinetic) novel with RNG ecounters - only few events with girls are fixed while others appears in random order and player could pick one of the few aviable at the time. So it's more like start event and watch as it goes. Not much of a interactive sandbox, eh?
- If you want unlock everything you have to carefully plan your moves (getting enough affection before fixed timed events) and keeping eye on days limit. It's seems not that bad but since your decisions are limited to choices randomly picked you'll have to be lucky with RNG or abuse save/load option. Or you can enable easy mode - disabling automatic time skipping so you can run all possible ecounters instead of one (but by choosing this you will finish most content before you reach 1/4 of the days limit and end up with skipping time for the rest of the game).
- Sometimes you will be forced to play sliding puzzles with time limit. I don't know how about you but I don't personally like playing irritating minigames in the middle of romantic scene in order to see rest of it. You can turn them off in main menu but you will loose money rewards granted for them (fotunatelly most things in the shop are not not necessary anyway). I have no idea what's the point of that mechanic. Unless you really love sliding puzzles.
- Some dialogues are... I don't know. Out of place? Sometimes characters are talking some random bullshit that doesn't make much sense and neither fits into storyline. And most sex dialogues are actually terrible since characters speak, speak, speak and speak some nonsense all the time. Seriously they often say more during fucking than outside of it. Really? It would be much better if they were replaced with descriptions matching animations or there would be no text at all.
- While animations looks really nice... Pussy lips are not animated at all. So MC's dick simple passes like a ghost through closed pussies instead of spreading them. It ruines experience a bit.
- Most characters are not well written. First they are shy virgins who have no idea what sex is about and one scene later they fuck like seasoned whores with years of experience. Doesn't make much sense at all.
- Some main ecounters are just short dialogues with not much content and story impact and because of this story chains for each girl should be longer.

Despite all the flaws it's still a really nice game. I personally enjoyed playing and can recomend to check it out.

I'm disappointed... It seems that the rating is good, and there are a lot of views, and it's not a visual novel, as it were, and there are animations, and the tags are good: anal, interracial, ntr, rape, sandbox, etc.... But where is it all here ??? For the whole game, someone was stuck in the ass a couple of times ... ANAL! All these tags for which I played are only in the bad ending! All the girls just masturbate, with their hands, feet, then suck, well, and then you fuck them in the pussy and that's it ... And if you turn off the puzzles and don't take into account moving around the map, then this is the most ordinary visual novel! What are these fucking visual novels for??? Do you like to watch, watch porn, 3d porn! Do you like to read, read erotic/porn books, comics! If you are making a game, then make a game, not reading, not a slideshow, but a game!!! And the game must be interactive! FUCK!!!

Nice game to play! The stories are pretty well-written, and I appreciate the endings for each girl too. I guess that the "true" endings are only with Rika and Raven, since you will be able to have a family with kids with these 2 routes - not that I complain though.