VN - Ren'Py - Completed - Chasing Sunsets [v1.10a] [Stone Fox Studios]

Imagine that you've spent a good chunk of your life creating a masterpiece like the Mona Lisa. And then at the end you decide to draw a handlebar mustache on her.

That's Chasing Sunsets.

For 90% of the game, you're playing a VN (it doesn't have a lot of choices, but has enough to fit the VN category vs KN) that has witty dialogue and engaging, sexy characters. Which is great! And yes, you can tell that this game started years ago in the renders in the first chapter or two. And yes, the two main LIs have almost the exact same body type to the point where they might actually be the same render model. But OK. They have different enough personalities. It works. Renders get better as the game goes on. It's good.

And then you get to the end. And I'm sure I'm not the first to discuss it or mention it. Don't read further if you're worried about spoilers!

For the entirety of the game, it feels like as a player you're being given a choice of Mallory or Jaye...or both. Yes: the game presents a throuple or polycule or open situation as a possibility. But then in the blink of an eye,
It feels like the devs decided it was time to end this game, no matter what, in this chapter. It's abrupt and it is silly. It is the kind of plot development that made another VN about thespian lessons so outright BAD. (At least no love interests died in this game.) I get it: some people will love Mal. Some will love Jaye. Some will love them both.
So hey, let me provide some universal advice for game creators in this particular space: you ain't Bertolucci, Zeffereli, Brass, or Pasolini. Your audience isn't here to discover greater truths about the human condition. Your audience is here for a fun, interactive, engaging sex fantasy. Know what you are, and just LEAN INTO IT! Chasing Sunsets is at its very heart an unrealistic but incredibly fun and very sexy fantasy. And then it decides that for "depth" or some such nonsense that at the end it has to lose its way and lose the courage of its conviction to that fantasy does what is becoming an all-too-familiar and idiotic "Well, that's unrealistic" rug-pull.

For now this is a 3-star game that should've been 5-star. Maybe with an epilogue that can sort the final story.

Don't have anything new to add to the bigger picture, but I will further emphasize that this is a high quality game that is completed with not an all too long development process.

Furthermore this has easily one of the best dialogues... And yes while the Li's aren't that many, it is the quality that counts.

So to keep my Review short easily a 10/10 it is worth a try and there are only few games on this site that truly match this game.

Masterpiece of a VN. Splendid writing, superb art, and fantastic (also witty) storytelling.

I noticed many negative reviews that had a lot of misguided/objectively incorrect opinions, but I'm glad they are very few in number. This work is up there among the best VNs you will discover. A healthy mix of brilliant character interactions and sexual elements. A "complete" story with no plot armor behavior. Thats hard to accommodate into what technically classifies as smut

The only thing I wish is that it had is more content! Can't wait for whats cooking next!

P.S. Those of you turned off (or on) by the incest tag, I don't consider this incest at all. But that doesn't stop the characters from fully adopting the concept well into their bedroom activities

This game...damn...this game is the reason I play VN's.
It is excellent...the beautiful witty writing, coupled with natural character building based on choices made...so many tributaries and choices that subtly nudge you in ways you don't realise until much later on in the storyline.
I connected with the characters absolutely, they were all unique and interesting, people you could meet in real life.
The protagonist has a douchebag hairstyle, but he's actually a really great MC...depending on your choices, obviously. The great thing is you can mold him into the character you want, and choose who becomes his love interest.
The storyline doesn't break convention, however, it's entertaining and has enough twists and turns to keep the fires burning.
I've cried a lot playing this game, it touches on deep stuff sometimes...but I am not ashamed, it's all part of the journey and I absolutely loved it all.
This game is one of those rare gems you find on this site, after playing through endless hours of shite.
There's not a whole lot of sex scenes, but I never missed them really...I was invested in the characters, the world-building and the storyline.
An excellent experience all round.

The plot of a VN can be anything and still be good as long as it has good writing which this one fails badly. The art is between poor and average. The jokes... fuck, perhaps the dullest I've read. 1 positive point to the animations.

It's a nice story-focused VN with beautiful visuals. I've only played through the game once (thus far).

As the tags suggest the VN doesn't explore very many fetishes and a couple of other reviewers have described it as vanilla. I don't necessarily disagree but at the same time I don't think you need to fit every possible fetish into a single VN. The erotic scenes that exist are good and have a decent amount of animations as well.

The creators seem to have had a clear vision in mind and put a lot of effort into both the story and visuals, and it shows. All in all I very much enjoyed the VN.

I only have one small complaint:

Chasing Sunset, despite some small flaws, is a valuable work for me. The strengths of the novel include a well-thought-out plot, good music, solid character development, very beautiful models, and of course, its arousing sex scenes. One of its clear drawbacks is the rushed ending, which I completely understand since I know how much time and energy these works demands. The story is a bit too vanilla, and even the scenes and animations are few. However, as I mentioned, none of this stops me from giving this work a perfect score, as it is one of the few works truly worth watching and reading, because the creators have put in a lot of effort to make it.

Huge disappointment.

Imaging being a young kid, your parents hype up a weekend at Disney Land in a few weeks because you are doing good in school. So you just can't wait and everyday, the anticipation is killing you.
Then comes the fated day. During the whole road, all you can talk about is which rollercoaster you will ride first.
And finally, your destination is there. You are at the dentist and you father tell you "remember when I told you clean your room last month and you didn't want to? I warned you about the consequences, so here they are."

That's more or less what you will feel playing this game.

The premises are great and the models looks gorgeous. Even if sometimes the story feels kinda wonky with it's scifi elements that come out of nowhere, it's a nice road and sex scenes are nice even though not animated.

Then comes chapters 8 and 9 that feel super rushed, like the devs wanted to be done with their game and move on, so most plot points get on the starting blocks to speedrun a conclusion where the big conspiracy is dealt with like a fart in the wind and where every problems are resolved in a few minutes.

I won't even talk about the controversial ending that makes no sense when previously, the main LIs hints at some threesome and sharing with their friends, to sudenly make a U turn to dump you like nothing after a concert where they are supposed to have had a blast and both super horny.
I mean, you can't even say it's not some random arbitrary choice that locks you out of the polyamory ending because if you go before chap 8 ending and you cheat your stats to put 100% points on both main LI, you are still locked inside the bad ending.

To wrap it up, if you are not into "ahah gotcha" endings (because dont't believe the devs, if you play this game in a standard AVN with multiple LIs way, you will get burned), just don't play this game.

Same thing if you want a real ending with real closure, because majors plot points are just solved like they are nothing and important ones get forgotten (like what happenend to our mountain girls? what about your gay dildo business?).

Such a waste of time and talent because the devs are talented and the game is not bad if you don't factor in the ending.

Seems like the game isn't finished yet even if it's tagged as completed. I will wait for the real end before editing my post.

Chasing Sunset - a below average game.

Pros.
- Good looking and somewhat pleasant MC. Even if some times he acts (without player's choice) like a goofball or an imbecile.

- Good looking renders, like body textures and animations.

- Pleasant and believable mature women (Linda, Lisa, Bianca and Tanaka) even thou their models looks too young, but that just my personal preference.

-Heterochromia (Mal). But that just my personal fetish speaking.

And here it gets finicky, as those above, are the only good things this game has to offer. So now I'll pass to the...

Cons.

- Story (1) is plain stupid and boring, with cringe si-fi pretense and anticlimactic "finale". In all my life I have never read so much bullshit on biology, tissue reconstruction/regeneration, DNA reconstruction and genetic engineering. It take just a little bit more than a Wikipedia article and some si-fi movies, to be able to even begin to understand how genetics works or how to treat, for example, Rett syndrome even IF Trofinetide was approved, till this day it hasn't produce any kind of meaningful results.

- Story (2). The sister. God I hate Jaye and in this story she IS one the two main LIs, you have to be laser focus to create such an unlikable, arrogant and plain bitch character. How she treats MC, she just asking for a kick to the face. I dumped her sorry ass as soon as I was able to.

- Abrupt love arcs (Linda/Fiona/Bianca), at some point they just vanish from the story completely, no meaningful conclusion.

-Phasing is all over the place, one moment the MC speaks to his bitch of a sister the second after he's training with Tanaka, and just a moment forward he gets pissed, literally, on his face by Mal on a beach (oops, spoiler).

- Game isn't finished, even if it has "completed" tag, no resolution, some LI just vanished from the story and no epilogue.

In the end, I was hoping for a good story, some hot scenes and likable characters. But in the end I got a hot poorly written garbage, with some decent graphics (even if that is the last of my priorities), pretty hot looking girls (Linda, Lisa, Bianca and somewhat Tanaka).

My rating for Chasing Sunset, is 2/5. It could have been a great game, but it is what it is, as I could have point out another 10-15 points where this game falls flat on it's ass, but I won't as it already got more attention than it deserves. Nuff Said.

Cheers.

So you might call me a closeted AVN guy, 47, own my own business, two kids and have been married for 26 yrs (happily I might add). I've played thru quite a few games and I've not found one with a better story than this. I'm not sure if the developers will ever see this post, let alone read it, but I literally cried when the MC told Jaye about how David died. I out loud laughed so many times I lost count. I cried again when the MC gave Mallory Bandit 2.0. I'm not big on porn or AVN's that are just stupid dialogue over the top of animated sex scenes. I feel out of place most sites that have AVN's but if I could always find the kind of quality story telling that this had I would gladly wade through all the other stuff again and again. Look, at the end of the day it was a great game, awesome visuals and an amazing story. Keep up the quality work. Hopefully you'll be getting other things out there soon. Thanks!

Very vanilla. The story is vanilla. The kinks/fetishes are essentially nothing....and unless my computer is broken, the renders aren't even animated. It's 2024, unless you're giving me something REALLY hot or unique animation, then it's just kind of boring.

A complex story with believable characters that never gets boring to play through, exciting and at the same time empathetic dialog between the different characters. Even if the basic plot seems familiar, the characters are very different and believably developed in the flashbacks. Fun to play, right to the end. I can only recommend it!

It is rare that you encounter an adult visual novel with a serious plot--and by serious, I mean interesting and engaging. This game delivers that in spades. Add to that relatable characters and even humor, and you have Chasing Sunsets. I am a stickler for well-rendered characters (no cartoon anime or 2-d characters for me). The artwork is photo-realistic and beautiful. The female characters aren't carrying around watermelons on their chests and the male characters look age-appropriate and not GQ models. This game/AVN hooked me in the first 3 minutes and I will definitely be scouring the web for other work by these creators. If your priorities for an AVN even remotely align with mine, you can't miss this one.

I love the overall story here and how a lot of it is fun but still with serious undertones. Depending on the choices you make, the relationship between MC and Jaye is fantastic, and then Mallory adds something special to the mix as well. Visually, the girls are great, although Jaye is not quite to my tastes, which for all her impact on the game, is a shame. It makes a nice balance though – Mallory is stunning and Jaye has the story. Both do well on the other side of their coin, but nowhere near as well as the other.

Despite the inclusion of several side girls, make no mistake, this is a game where the expected choice is between just two. There are paths to the end without picking either Jaye or Mallory, but for my eye, those are for the completionists who want to see the extra scenes you would get from that. Personally, I wouldn’t say it’s worthwhile, but we all have our own tastes. The epilogue that is (currently) pending might change my mind on that, as scenes with some of those side girls have been promised, but there are few scenes with the side girls throughout the game so far.

That epilogue is an important part of the game to note, as Chasing Sunsets is currently marked as “Completed” on these forums, despite the epilogue still being worked on. With that in mind, some people have been disappointed at the ending of the game, but in fact, it has not yet been finished.

Overall, this is one of the games that I expect to stick with me for a good while, even if I don’t think the replayability is as high as some others. The story is quite linear, so it all comes down to those LI choices, and a small number of (expected) endings.

Great visuals, very advanced writing and engaging story with great dialogues and witty jokes.

Not much of an ensemble cast of LI's to choose from, there are some for one time fun

Now the game relies too much on Jaye and MC's relationship, if you don't like Jaye it doesn't make much sense.

Animations are also just bad compared to visual quality of the static renders and to other top VN.

I can say more, but overall it's a 5⭐ top page game list!

The storyline of the game is one of the best that I've played. The first 2 chapters are little of general quality of AVNs but then skyrockets in quality and in h-scene animations.

The girls have great personalities and feel unique. The main storyline is more of a harem route instead of a single girl.

TL;DR The writer/dev fails to maintain the emotional tension effectively established at the beginning of the game, ultimately undermining the story with a poorly executed, inept confrontation.

The game begins as a commendable production, featuring a fluid narrative, high-quality graphics, and a story that effectively employs emotional connections and conflicts between the main characters.

I recall starting this game with enthusiasm last year, but then I lost interest. Last week, after encountering it again in the latest updates list, I found myself trying to remember why I had stopped playing. I skimmed through the comments and screenshots, but I couldn't pinpoint what had gone wrong last time. The only thing I could recall was that it ultimately left a bad taste in my mouth. My curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to give it another try. Voilà! It wasn't long before I found myself at the exact same point once again, disappointed.

Exercising the same disappointment for the second time prompted me to write this review. I wanted to share this mostly negative critique, which is well-intentioned at its core, because I believe that there are other players who share my perspective and don't want to see such disenchanting and obvious flaws in the fiction.

Based on game version 1.0 with Joker's mod.
Plenty of other reviews to say how great this one is, no need to be overly redundant.

Great story, great characters, great scenes.
This is one that might make you reconsider some others you've rated 5*...
Yes, there are things that I'd like to be different with this one, personal preferences and all.
But not a lot of objective negatives about this one.
Most complaints seem to be because many did not get results they wanted, or some minor interaction didn't play out as expected...

If you're just looking for a porn story to jerk off to in the first 10-15 minutes, this isn't for you.

Positives:
+ Small introductory tutorial about the scoring system and other things
+ Some very emotional scenes
+ Pretty characters from face to physique
+ Lots of expression through eyes and facial movements
+ Beautiful images due to depth of field
+ Interesting story
+ Unique environments, no feeling of having seen places or objects before as assets in other games

Negatives:
- First 10-20 minutes with a lot of flashbacks while talking to the bartender (hang in there, it gets better after that!)
- Small font, could be bigger, would be more pleasant to read
- Rather not for pure sex fanatics (although that's more of a positive thing when I think about it )
- Sister's name cannot be changed
- MC could be more masculine (beard growth, wider and more prominent face) for someone who has been “traveling” for 5-6 years
- Jaye's skin color too dark, based on the fact within the story where Jaye is from
- Spoiler: No marriage and no children at the end (at the time of this review with version 1.0)

Personal thought:
I love emotional stories and games like this one. Where most of the action is the story and the characters. Sex is a bonus which is then introduced with a lot of dedication at the right time. In a way that doesn't seem cheap and the sex scenes convey the love, the mood, the feeling that the characters should be feeling.
In this game, everything is just right if you are prepared to let yourself go emotionally and let a few tears flow.

Last word:
Spoiler: Thank you for the emotional moment when the MC leaves the party and sees the mother standing behind him.
I will never forget that image. So sad, so many of your own memories going through you at that moment, which can be more important in your life than arguments and accusations.
This image has caught up with me so often in the game, the memory of it. If the developer reads this, you've done it perfectly!

It's Good, But ...

This game was a pleasant surprise, after playing the first chapter and the prologue i felt quite invested with this title, so much so infact that i tried playing it in small doses, and with each pause, i kept growing impatient, nearly at the edge of binging on it in one sitting, so let me start with the story

STORY

It starts with a lenghty introduction of the MC and his loved ones and their story, this at the time, felt kinda boring and forceful at the beginning, with very fluffy and soft undertones, i say boring because there's very little agency on the part of the player, but that changes rather quickly as the prologue starts unveling more and more characters, all in all, i'd say it lays out a very solid foundation that suggests the story might take center piece here, which is fine ... if the story remained consistently good until the end, which in my opinion doesn't once you reach the last 3 chapters, my issue comes to a few plot points that gets dropped and a few characters getting side-lined so out of the blue it feels jarring, and because the way "affection" with certain characters are structured, that kinda becomes a problem for the purpose of watching the scenes *OR* with simply following with the narrative of the game, i want to keep this review relatively spoiler free because i'm of the opinion this game is good and the story is worth exploring, so to keep this section short and on point :
1) It starts off solid but there's a drop in quality
2) said drop is caused by a few rather unfortunate plot points getting side-lined and a few narratives not pursued properly
3) because of how this game is designed (Love/trust points) you may be cut off from certain scenes, and that may give of a false alarm that the story isn't finished

the Affection values

Its hit or miss at times, i don't have it but at the same times it feels rather unrealistic and way too punishing, which is not a big deal
because you can always reload a save, but at this point, what was the point of emphasizing at the beginning of the game that Chasing Sunsets will be generous in regards to that, but then, once reached a certain thresholds in terms of relationship, the game will definitely lock you off certain scenes, even though you already WAAAAY past the point of intimacy ? in my experience, i was locked out of the last scene with someone because of my previous deliberate choices, both didn't result in notifying me of affection damage with the involved party, so in the end, the end chapter finished like that, with a no love lost, even though i previously bonded with the same character.

The MODELS

I'm a fan, honestly, i like the girls and most characters, i only have ONE problems and that concerns the lightning and the colors, Mallory appears wayy too grey, almost looking like a Zombie at times during the sex scenes, it's a minor complaint, but other than that i don't have complaints, i like the girls a lot and i think the models are waaaaay up there.

Conclusion

This is my first review, i liked the game a lot and i'm not sure what the future will bring, the last chapter left me with a bit of a bitter taste because it felt rather rushed or incomplete, with a few compounded issues that truly tarnished my final experience with this game, that which, i was really invested in, time will tell where we're going from here.

(Played from prologue to CH.9)