Ren'Py - Completed - Callisto [v1.00] [Xavster Gaming]

Based on the (as yet) unfinished v0.41.

My usual disclaimers when writing reviews on here are that A. I am here for the "plot" not the plot and B. I generally dislike visual novels. So take both of those into consideration for my review when thinking about this game.

Pros

• Setting - This is a rare one for me, but I actually LOVE the setting of this game. It's very, very blatantly doing a homage to Firefly but there's a whiff of Mass Effect/Star Trek there as well which is pretty great
• Characters - All of the female characters/crew members seem unique and for the most part have their own drive and motivations (although at this stage largely unexplored for the vast majority of them). As much as I am here for the fucking, this sort of thing can really elevate a game. Plus, they are hot as heck
• Plot - Gets a little bit wonky a bit later on, but broadly speaking it's straightforward and engaging. It's not trying to be complicated, but that actually suits porn games better than overly convoluted plots
• Looks - Just about every aspect of this game looks good. The renders are great. Animations are a tad stilted but definitely not bad and the UI is super crisp and clear

Mehs

• Trading mini-game - This is easy enough to get to grips with and make money with (AS LONG AS you make sure to do the early story missions first) but currently is basically pointless because there's literally nothing to spend your money on and you get tonnes throughout the story missions too
• Prologue - Mentioned this in a comment but it's a bit weird that the prologue can only be viewed as an optional thing after you've started and isn't automatically offered up front when you start up. Just a weird decision...
• Level of interaction - Very, very limited sexual content in terms of the girls you can interact with. Despite having 7/8 crew-members you really can only make decent progress with 2 currently

Cons

• Sex scenes - Just sliiiightly too few for my tastes (possibly due to it all still currently being in set-up stages) and also they are largely unfortunately VERY short with VERY little writing. I.e. you get "hi captain, let's fuck" and then "oh my god you feel amazing" and then "wow thanks for cumming". So it's hot... But could really use a bit more time spent on them to make them better (plus, while I loved the interactive sex scene, this is only one with very limited options)
• No choices - Currently your level of interaction is choosing whether to view a scene or not. There are no branches, no dialogue options, heck no options for whether to cum inside a girl or not. Currently this isn't a huge deal though, given that the game gives you plenty of room to mess around with the "dating sim" aspect, but if any of these things got added, it could really improve life
• Animations happen as a block - A more technical complaint here. Essentially, while playing you click and it moves to the next line of text. When there are animations though, there is often several different animations back-to-back and if you click you skip through ALL of them (instead of just the one you're currently on). This is frustrating because sometimes you want it to move a bit faster but also sometimes you can't tell if an animation is part of a block or just one on its own and whether you can safely click to move on...
• Early game - When you first get throw into the game, it's genuinely confusing as fuck what you are supposed to be doing and how to progress things. Given 10 minutes of clicking around and you'll figure it out but if, for example, you think you need to focus on trading at the start before doing any story stuff, then you're gonna have a bad time

Callisto overall has the makings of a top tier game on the site. Has the promise for being an excellent harem romp with your sexy crew of your own starship (and honestly that setting alone is fucking class). Add in the fact that most of the girls are interesting, there is a relatively engaging plot and you might be onto a winner here.

Moreover, it feels like a LOT of thought has went into the framework for the game. Moving around the ship and investigating/finding new events is (mostly) easy and intuitive and it very clearly gives that impression of being scalable. Like now that the framework of the ship/travel/interaction is there, it will be very easy to expand and add a lot more cool stuff in.

For me, the biggest reason I am not giving this a 5/5 is the sexual content. As someone hoping for good fap material, this only just delivers. The sex scenes feel a bit rushed through for the most part (despite looking great) and at the moment there just isn't enough of them. Nor is there enough variety. I sincerely hope that as time goes on it'll get much more kinkier stuff (it hints early on at the options of roughness but that's never really delivered).

There is also, currently a lot of setup that has no real payoff. A lot of the characters are unexplored and one of the main mechanics has no real purpose. For instance, one thing which genuinely bothers me a bit is that there is currently only one girl for whom you actually need to a tiny bit of "grinding" in order to improve your relationship with her. Moving through training with her of several different options, where you have to train multiple times to get to the next level... And this doesn't go anywhere yet?! I mean, godamn Xavster, talk about giving me alien blue balls...

However, I'm maintaining the high rating under the hope that these are both something which will be delivered on in later versions and in the final product.

I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this.

I would say that the game doesn't have ton of depth and the story can stall at time just cause you run out of filler stuff. But the story and progression are great. Art and animations are great as well. I am hooked I can't wait to see what's added to this as I am impressed with it as it.

The Setting is good, Artwork is really great and the animations are very smooth unfortunally the characters are very basic and the story is one of the worst ever.

The "missions" are boring, obvious and way too short with more plot armor than all the star trek episodes put together.

None of the decisions do anything on the missions or outside of them and there is no choice of women either they are all forced on to you, the "captain" has no control over anything so far in the game.

The crew act on their own doing anything they want and why not the "captain" dosen't discipline them, i didnt see a point in even having the captain around, he dosen't make any decisions, dosen't manage the crew or ship, dosen't do deals, what is his purpose in this game?

I had hoped that since the MC is a captain he would have some balls but the robot attack incident shows he is just another wimp, 3 crew members fucked up(1 bringing the robot on board, 1 messed up repairing it and 1 didnt protect you from it) and MC gets stabbed so how does he react, oh well i know you didnt mean anything bad lets just carry on as if it didn't happen, pathetic man.

Even when one of the crew(which MC hired for a specific job) decided she didnt want to do her job anymore and just handed her job over to a robot(which she used the ships resources to fix) then promoted herself to a better job you would think MC would be pissed and fire her immediately but no for some reason the "captain" dosent see anything wrong with the crew doing anything they want.

Story seems interesting, altough everything happens to fast, renders are great, writing in general is not bad, but sex scenes are one of the worst parts of this game, too short with only few lines of dialogue, they are made like an afterthought, sandbox-like gameplay is ok.

Good Points
+Story seems interesting.
+Girls loks sexy.
+We have animations.

Bad Points
-Story seems interesting but its to much fast peaced everyting happens to fast. Some times feels low detailed and off. Just one day pass and Tanya starts telling ''Dont be stupid we are crews you cant deal with that alone.'' like that things or they becaming close friends to fast etc... Come on man? I'm not big fan of slowburn stories but that much fast peaced story dont make sense...
-It doesnt have any walkthrough and its sandbox with not any tips system. So its like blind run and its pretty boring to...
-Some characters are not well writed and annoying AF...
-We have animations but nearly all of them are not well maked and looks weird...

For The End
So for the end this is not bad game but it need some fix about story and game system. If i was DEV of this game i will make this more VN like game. It doesnt suit that much this game being sanbox. Or good walkthrough or tip system could be helpful. Right now i dont suggest you play this game.

---- Characters :
---- Renders/Graphisms :
A really good job on that side, the characters have their own looks, own personalities, own quirks. They are not lambda and you enjoy getting to know them more

---- Story/Writing :
---- Background/Atmosphere :
The space/aliens background is well built and "believable". The story could be a little more epic but makes sense overall. There is a lot of effort in context. In fact it could be a story suitable for a scifi novel, less for a scifi movie. The writting is very good, and the humor is there.

---- Animations :
---- Sex scenes :
It's above average, the renders and animations are ok, but the high speed pace is making them a bit futile. It's over in 3 secs or 3 clicks, then you get back to business. The results is a lack of intensity which could be negative in the long term as we might not care much if we get some sex with her or her.

---- Gameplay :
---- Contents/Updates :
Heavy in both ways.
Lot of contents, but a lot of time spent to get those, although the prologue is quick paced and intense.
That said, the mechanism of the gameplay works well, and comes out with some context, but it makes the main story kinda slow and hard to follow and remember. The music is a great match.

===

I usually don't like sandbox system, but the map of the ship with the stars saves it from being a total hassle and as the background, the music and the characters fits very well to the scenario, you can bear it pretty well. The actions makes sense and the writting is qualitative.
However it's not one of those game that you can't stop playing until you reach the end. Here you will have many occasions to say "geez again trades, showers, training ? No more, I stop for today, I want to sleep"

review based on version 0.41
pro:
- not bad CG
- good enough animations
- very good UI and navigation system
- not bad story
- code is ok
cons:
- grinding money is easy, but in current state- its useless
- not real flaw, cuz game in early development stage, but player ll feel- some content missing

in declared genre, considering early development stage- game very promising and curently very good.

As I like Sci-Fi in general, I was kind of excited, when I stumbled upon Calisto.

The Game manages to deliver a good Story with nice looking models and some simple, yet not obnoxious feeling mechanics.

yus... onto details!

Renders:

The models are well designed, the motion scenes really good and no character of the novella struck me as ugly or weird. Even the smurf.
Except: Wetlooks. Scenes like the showerfuck look kinda weird thanks to the wetlook, which needs improvement.

The Cast:

MC - Ah the poor, rather frivolous Marine who doesn't fit into the core. It made me giggle actually, as the characters in the prologue are rather over the top in the way they act.
Getting MC fired from the core just because he had sex with the commander's mature daughter... uuuuh... rather thin ice. no matter what problems those two had with each other, but to get someone fired from the core takes a bit and proof xD
Ah well. It's okay as it is, as a story starter.
So our Marine gets fired and tried to get himself a freighter.
Shady loanshark later the fun in space finally begins.
So to say he is an okayish MC. Nothing extraordinary, some illogical background things, and a rather nice and openminded way to handle things.
For an MC really likable. A minor point to dislike another horse stud. ugh...

The Girls - Okay, I dunno how many words can fit into this review tool, so I will keep it brief.

We have our Ex-Stripper Pilot, who is a bit inconsistent as a character in herself. On one hand, she starts off wanting to take it slow with the caption, on the other hand, they end up fucking rather quick.
Kind of like 2 Days from "Let's take it to slow please" to "fill me up" escalated very fast. The rest of her is rather enjoyable. She is openminded relationwise, rather smart and reliable.

Next, we pick up the masterpiece of the novel, Lia.
This girl is, despite her age - coming from a very long-lived race - is rather innocent and pure. Or more like... Outright adorable. In her ways, she stays logical as a character, true to her innocent shyness and the design of that race is interesting as a bonus.
Although the change of color when she climaxes really made me crack, it fit her perfectly.
Later on, something happens that comes along a little bit of over plot convenient, but okay. If one wrote oneself into a dead end, there's nothing like a Deus ex Machina to save the day, aight?

After that, we pick up the ex-pornstar, Medic of the Team.
She comes of mature, cares about the mental and physical health of the crew, and offers stress relief. The last thing made me raise an eyebrow as this is a bit... uh... typical for more fuck focused games.
In my books, I could have lived with leaving her on the planet. She doesn't really add much to the Story plot and characterwise.

With the reason to meet the Medic, follows the one to encounter our soon to be a bodyguard. The Pandoran smurf-copy *giggle*
Kara is an oddball in my books. On one hand, she is a really strong and cold-blooded bodyguard and fasts on the trigger to pull. On the other hand, she is written like a small kid in some situations. Which annoyed me. So she isn't really one of my favorites but if I ignore those strange inconsistencies, as a bodyguard she is a good pick and crafty.

Next in line is our lesbian Duo.
The rather trope like redhead, easygoing, loves to look beyond her mate to fool around and the rather trope like aggressive lesbian due to past happenings.
Plotwise both are enjoyable, stay in their boundaries as characters and for the grey mouse crusader lesbian, we get a glimpse of why she is like that and so far I deem it acceptable.
For the redhead no background is given so far or I overlooked it somewhere.

And last but not least, the little stupid lovey-dovey princess from the station who got us fired in the first place.
I laughed about how the story played out with her.
Stupid good for nothing Girl runs after her big love, gets crashed hard by reality and hires herself onboard of MC.
Oof. I'd have loved to get a say as MC if I want to take her or not.
Later on she actually becomes useful. Kind of. So I guess lucky me... woho.

The Storyline:

We start of indebted, hunted and manage somehow to get away with busting a major deal, not only netting us the best castmember, in my books, but also your freedom later on, as the one putting a bounty on your head gets his own problems.
The base setting is that two major factions, earth and Kraal are kind of fighting with each other, which reached some form of truce.
The Kraal now try to grab a planet with rich helium-3 deposits as a major asset for fueling their fleets. Thanks to the truce though the earths hands are tied for helping the poor inhabitants of the Planet.
That's where we come in thx to our ex-career.
Of course it is a rather bleak trope that civilians get asked to do covert missions for the military but it fits in the story nicely so I don't care about the trope. Would it be a novel though I would have called you out on it as that is rather lazy writing.
The rest ensues nicely and thanks to the dialogues we get, is quite enjoyable.

Gamemechanics:

Oh joy... run around and search for what to do.
Luckily that rather pissed thought subsided quickly. Events are marked with stars, so it is kind of hard overlooking them.
The Game sports a simple yet not obnoxious tradesystem to raise funds for yourself and your crew.
After you got the lesbian couple and raised the findings for the shipscanner you can start salvaging wrecks, which sadly isn't nearly as lucrative as the simple trading. So I'd like to say this needs balancing/improvement.

For what it tries to be, I am missing a few things like upgrading the freighter. Or changing ship and stuff.
There is kinda literally nothing to do with your money, after you bought the Shipscanner. So it would be nice to add, in futureupdates, more stuff you can waste money on. Shipimprovements, comfortstuff for the crew or even new ships etc.

Language - found a few typos, but nothing that would have annoyed me or killed the flow while reading.

On to the final rating:

Renders: 5/5 (Dont really see the wetlook as a big impact on them.)
Characters: 3/5
Story: 3/5
Language: 5/5

Result: a solid 4/5

Overall a good experience to read it and quite enjoyable. Nice renders, a very beautiful firefly as crewmate and a decent trade/salvage system.

P.S.: Forgot to mention a good and fitting soundtrack!

My Rating of this Game (v0.41) is:

Pros:
+ Good Renders
+ Above average story
+ Nice animation
+ Interesting Sci-Fi environment
+ Interesting characters

Cons:
- One of the worst gameplays i have seen
- Non existant tutorial that the game desperately needs
- Complete lack of Hint system
- The Mission tracker actually goes against the player

Explanation
The visual part of the game is very good. The Prologue is well done and does it job in setting you up into the story and introducing the characters.

The problem comes right after you finish the Prologue. You get thrown into a semi-sandbox gameplay, with aspects like a bad trading, navigation and quest system, without the game explaining anything to you or giving any hint.
You have a mission tracker, but the misssions names are A,B,C,D, etc, absolutely non-descriptive and even tricks you, because it gives you an impression that they are secuential when in reality they are not, which leads you to missing some missions (and therefore scenes).

Conclusion:
The game has potential, but needs a complete gameplay revampt

This review was written after the release of v0.41.

Characters are attractive and visually distinctive. Some characters also showed decent development. Of course, multiple female crew members being attracted to PC is an obvious fantasy, but it's blatant enough, so I wasn't too bothered or annoyed. (sometimes, you don't need to justify acceptable breaks from reality, if your reality has fucking spaceships and interstellar empires) Playing as captain of a freighter crew and making a buck works for me, but the central stories are nice too.

Took me a bit of time to figure out how the game works, but I do enjoy doing things like purchasing resources, shipping them elsewhere and earn the difference between regional prices. This part of the game may be appealing to players who enjoy trading simulations, as it's simple yet effective (it will become better as the story progresses). Of course, I prefer treating them as minor elements as I would rather focus on character drama than farming for money. Some possibly new animations are a welcoming addition, so keep up with the good work dev.

I also enjoyed the background music. While the track is not especially inspired, it provokes the sense of wonder one would expect from the story, so if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

All in all, this game is enjoyable so far.

The animation and writing for the characters are great. Trading and salvage aspects were intuitive and easy to get into. This is an excellent game, could do with more unique interactions with members of the crew but that's something I assume would come with more development time.

The only think missingg from the game is a Quest Log to direct you to your next step , other than that , nice story and Renders , navigation no to Chaotic .. The future will tell if the game worth it .

Overall really great game. The animation loops are a little bit short, but hopefully with more updates they get improved over time. Great character build up and stories for the MC and the girls. The events are a little shy but only being version 0.4 I can understand there's a long way to go for hopefully a lot more of them and storyline build up. Not to keen on the whole sandbox but hopefully more locations open up besides the 3 stations and the scrapyard and junkyard that the crew can visit.

Definitely a game I can see supporting on patreon so the dev can continue making this a really great sci-fi oriented game with great characters and storyline.

Pretty good. Very nice models and renders, prologue writing felt a bit rushed but its understandable, as you needed to fit a lot of information in a short space. Dont really get the golden and silver star things in the map and crashed one time when i clicked 1 of them. More Lia and Kara please.

This game features a great work on character/universe building, very liked the overall writing!

Awesome cast, nice animations (videos) and renders (shower scenes <3). I also like to point the nice work on music.
The free roam is nice tuned and actually cool to play, you feel like a captain checking on girls and do stuff.
I really liked the overall quality of life this game have like the pad to check prices, girls, prologue,... and the navigation shortcuts!

Looking forward for more content, I only played the Prologue before and played whole night the new content since, hope Xavster can continue this project and growth it healthy, it's a nice piece of Sci-Fi in good hands and there are no limits!

Review during v0.31

I think more people should know about this game. The story is original, the characters are diverse, and it has decent animations. The gameplay can seem a little grindy at times but it makes sense, fuel ain't cheap. The navigation is a little wonky in some places but I like that you can see the rooms from different angles sometimes. It's refreshing. The soundtrack is nice but could definitely use more songs. I enjoy the "repeatable content" such as checking up on the girls because without it the game would feel really empty and lonely. Lia is my favorite girl. She's super cute and shy, and I really like that her lights change color when she's turned on, I think it shows attention to detail. Speaking of attention to detail, I noticed that during one of the shower scenes the soap bubbles would actually wash off the girls as the scene goes on. This game seems really promising and I can't wait to see where the developer takes it from here.

I would not normally rate a game this early in its evolution, but I'm going to make an exception as this game deserves promotion and attention.

Pros:

- The almost complete absence of the tired and boring tropes and cliches that are used in the majority of adult VNs.

- Artwork. Very few of these games can come close to what this team/person/android is producing. If you look at these games and other 3DCG works around the internet you will see how difficult it is to create wet or sweaty skin that actually looks remotely realistic. Most of the time the result leaves the impression of some form of plastic. But this author knows how to create an accurate specular layer and should be commended.

- Animations. Again, very few games in this genre are on this level. The katas/forms of the fighters and MC performed in the hold are superior as are the shower and other intimate scenes.

- Speaking of intimate scenes. Lia's nocturnal visits and animations are just superb. Very nuanced and all-around superior artistry.

- Story/plot/premise. A foundation has been laid that will allow a huge amount of content to be produced resulting in many, many hours of play. New planets and salvage areas can be introduced. More commodities and characters, if need be. The author has not boxed themselves in with a restrictive script.

- Interesting characters with detailed history. These characters are not as shallow and poorly developed as most in these games. Keeping them all happy and functioning will take work and thought and that's a good thing.

- Complexity. Again, alluding to what I've already written, the game will require the player to use their grey cells. There aren't many intellectually challenging VN's out there and that's a bad thing.

- Above average coding. The addition of a commodities-based trading system with price fluctuations is appreciated.

- Excellent English translation with on a rare grammatical error. Easily read and understood.

Cons:

- For now, the lack of content and the navigation/sandbox feature. This game uses different colored stars (not space related) to highlight where one should visit (eg, as which room on the ship). I'm not certain if the system is yet to be fully implemented, though, as I only rarely was able to get any dialog beyond the standard "hi and bye" greeting/response. Maybe the stars were added early in anticipation of future dialog.

In conclusion: I can't say enough good things about the talent expressed in this game. There will always be detractors, of course, but in this case I would remind the author to adhere to the vision and realize that we can't make all the people happy all the time. Keep up the good work. I am looking forward to the progression of the story.

What else do I need to say? This is a great game. You can tell that the developer really spent time and energy on the story and world-building. Each girl is beautiful and unique, which is especially hard to see in a lot of recent games.

I have enjoyed replaying after more than a year and I must say that the developer has done a great job, both from a graphic and content point of view. Animations are much smoother and well cared for. The depth of the landscapes, the charming realism of the girls and the attention to detail raise the level of this product very much. The story has been enriched a lot, the characters are always better defined and characterized, random events make everything more varied and playable. Very varied music, pleasant and well integrated with the contexts.
Last year I had reviewed this game still in its embryonic stage evaluating it 3 stars but, given the remarkable progress, I gladly raise it to 5 stars, to reward not only the result obtained so far but also the developer himself who, in addition to having evidently committed himself a lot, is proving to be a level artist, because this is not a trivial fap-game, it is art!

Allow me to make a single constructive criticism as I have noticed that it is too easy to cheat by going back after making the wrong choice. For those who love the harder game, perhaps you could insert an optional hard mode in which you can only go back for the texts and sex scenes but not for the choices made.

I leave the old review in the final, testifying to actual progress.


( Feb 8 2020 - At the moment it is still scarce of content, but considering that it is work in progress I would expect to give a premature judgment. The animations are discreet but I have definitely seen better, it would be necessary to work on a little more adding frames to make them more fluid and realistic. Free roaming is limited and the trade options are very boring and repetitive. In my opinion, random events should be added to make the product more interesting. The music is nice and makes the atmosphere well.
At the moment the playability is minimal, I reserve the right to review it in the future hoping for an improvement. )

Awesome game! Engaging story. Great renders and animations. Diversity of crew and looks. Playing the prologue and seeing the crew joining one by one, I couldn't help thinking of old Star Trek Original Series and Next Gen characters whose job roles these new characters were stepping into. The MC even has a greenish shirt that reminded me of Kirk in some STOS episodes. Ship wise, Firefly came to mind. I very much look forward to seeing more of this game! I only support a handful of games, but just added this gem to the list.