VN - Ren'Py - Completed - City of Broken Dreamers [v1.15.0 Ch. 15] [PhillyGames]

When i first saw the rating i was curious enough, read the reviews and prepared myself for the unequivocally shit last third of the game. What i was not prepared for is how bad the game is in every other regard. There will be spoilers all over, just a warning.

General plot is the most basic possible cyberpunk stuff ever, so basic it's barely worth noting at all. Girl got special thing, gruff seasoned mercenary looking for girl, start protecting her cause past guilt, corpos are bad. If you ever experienced ANY cyberpunk media since 70s, be it a book, anime or a game, you have experienced this plot and in much better fashion. Calling it even decently good is a big stretch and it left me yawning for the entirety of it.

In the footsteps of the plot writing follows, and boy it was a majestic garbage pile. First several chapters actually show decent promise with setting up the world, characters, trying to set up a mystery (which, as i said, is just the most baseline cyberpunk stuff), but around chapter 5-7 it all just slides downhill and never recovers. Extra points for thinking swearing a lot makes dialogues more "mature". Pretty much everything past Henry part is just garbage. Glossary stop updating past this point too, like the developer gave up on fleshing out the world, so many things are just... forgotten. Meredith and police chief blackmail video? Never mentioned again. Super healing juice? In the motel it was specifically mentioned we used just a tiny bit and still got the rest, absolutely could use it during the final assault, fully forgotten. Specifically came back to the house for ammo and 3 more flashbangs, still had only 1 during final section. The entirety of Chandra, just all of her, i will get there too. Victoria just falls out of the plot for around 10 chapters in the middle (of a 15 chapter game, mind you). Then just overall situations are beyond stupid almost every time. The most egregious case of it was the attempt to kill Victoria, they sent out a gunship, armored vehicles, dozens of people, but they sent one guy on an elevator, one guy on the stairs, didn't even secure exits, what the hell is this kindergarten nonsense writing? It was very, very, very hard to take anything happening seriously because no situation was remotely beliavable and it was just like watching a cheap theater play. The last third of the game is especially horrible as expected, i was prepared for it, the ending is just rushed and dissapointing, clearly made to slap completed status on the entire project and move on. There are so, so, so many bad things about writing that i can spend all day here, but i need to move on at some point.

Which leads me to "love interests" and HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BOY this is one of the worst set of "love interests" or people in that regard i have seen in a VN. Out of main 5 (i count those who got points tracking in the info part) only Katie sort of filles a niche of being a love interest, the rest are just bang buddies. There is a critical lack of any care, feelings or nuance in relashionships between them and everyone just jump on you because you are the only guy around i guess. Why is Chandra here? What does she add? You can completely scrub every single line of her dialogue in the game and NOTHING will change, not a single event, not a single instance. Why Sonja isn't amont trackable love interests? Why Victoria is just gone for 2/3 of the game? None of the girl potential is ever explored, not a single one. Katie is a good example, a cyberpunk doctor, what she could struggle with? Accepting that she sometimes heal bad people, that she cannot help everyone, that she assisted in creating horrible shit for corpos, moral struggles of a doctor and toeing moral lines and paying the bills? None of that, her being a doctor is completely irrelevant by the second half. Victoria SHOULD be the most interesting one, but even if she wasn't gone for most of the VN, do we dive in into her mind? Her lack of individuality, should she try to find herself or stay a tool, does she even want power, is anything she doing worth it, her love for music? None of it is explored of course, all of her potential is in the trash bin. Ellen is... there. Like that's all i can say about her, former rock star, now fixer, she is mostly useless and barely contributes anything. She is there. Gloria is the only one who kinda matters but everything about her is unexplored too. Chandra exist kind of, Chandra does not matter, Chandra is irrelevant. Secondary characters are just body counts for extra sex scenes, and yeah, about those.

Scenes are not great. They are extremely repetitive, lacking in variety, animations are stiff, there is no sound, option to pick any of the actions suck because flow of the scene is sustained only if you go from top to bottom in that strict order. Developer got a very clear preference and doesn't afraid to shove it down everyone's throat.

This was... just an overall bad experience, absolutely not worth wasting a day to read. Nothing about it make sense, connects well, is satisfying or well thought out and executed. How this got such a high score is beyond my comprehension.

A great game overall with distinct, likeable and interesting LI, great renders and animations, very well made sex scenes and lots of content. In terms of renders and animations it is one of the best ones around and the story is ok, good even, specially considering AVN standards.

Definitely worth checking out. Even better if you are a fan of big tits/asses, anal and rough maledom.

Great sex, hot thicc characters, lots of anal, maledom, just great sex scenes.

visuals are amazing, story great, extremely well made game that can keep you going for hours. personally think they could have added more endings for some characters that were left behind.

I was worried about a cuck choice with Shanlon that talked about a possible mmf scene in the future, but I am glad the dev didnt add cuckshit like that in the end, even if it would have been optional.

My review on city of broken dreamers

Story:

Personally, I find it really intriguing and I believe the story was told very well. Engaging characters, the art of the environments, the sound, it really elevates the experience and story of the game. Furthermore, I didn't expect there would be lores in this game Though, it can be overwhelming to understand which lead to be uninterested at first but I'm beginning to get good grasp of it as I'm progressing with the story.

The paths/branches aspect in the story however was kind of alright. Whichever choices you make, it will eventually lead to same outcome. The ending and the score point with other characters however does make it up for it as there are few different endings depending on the choices you make near end. As for the good stuff, they have a pretty good amount of it. You will likely missed a few scenes as it is depends on the choice you pick and the score/chemistry you have with them. Will need to explore the branches to unlock the scenes or by mod.

Characters:

The MC of the game is somewhat depressing. I don't know why he has to wear mask most of the time. I get that he's a mercenary but seriously, he wears it everywhere he goes, clubs, food places, even in his house.

Most girls here are gorgeous, the visuals on them are top-notch. Each with their own traits and characteristics, which it was shown really well throughout the game. From my experience, some of them are cool to be around with, and some others are just really annoying, like I wouldn't even want to have a scene with with a 10 foot poll.

Graphics and Visuals:

The art, lightings and visuals are well-done to say the least. It really sets the mood of what thay want to capture. Right off the bat with the opening scene of the story, gave me a very good first impression. I also can't ignore the cutscenes, not particularly from just intimate scenes, but from the whole story like walking, driving, preparing for action and so on. Despite of it is just a few seconds cutscenes, it really makes it outstanding.

Final verdict:

I really enjoyed my time playing this game. While it has some flaws here and there, it's hardly noticeable and the story, it was a well-written and captivating sci-fi story overall. Highly recommended game.

9.5/10

Absolutely love this game, great surrendering, and the cinematic camera works are fantastic. This is one of the 1st sci-fi type AVN I played, and I'm afraid this might have set my expectations a bit too high to start with.

I really enjoyed this. It's enjoyable and engaging, and the graphics are fantastic. The girls are all very hot without being over the top all unnatural tits and ass.

Honestly, this was the first game/avn/whatever that I think could easily translate into a movie. Obviously the XXX stuff would have to be toned down to Adult, but I don't think that would take too much away, and the story and script would definitely make for a very good dystopian Sci-Fi movie, in the same genre as Blade Runner or Total Recall. I'd definitely watch it.

This game offers a captivating story that kept me thoroughly intrigued from start to finish. The narrative is rich and well-crafted, drawing me in with each new twist and revelation. Intimate scenes are beautifully done, and the character visuals are simply stunning, adding a layer of emotional depth that enhances the overall experience. The art direction excels not only in the characters but also in the scenery, with each environment contributing to the mood and atmosphere of the story. This attention to detail in both art and narrative creates a truly immersive experience.

Also I want to briefly highlight the originality of the story concept as it is also great reason for my high rating yet one of less engaged territory of in-game decisions design, which might add even more to the experience of playing.

However, while most of the characters are engaging, there are a few who feel a bit underdeveloped, leaving their personalities feeling somewhat hollow. Also, the personal motivation of the villain seemed somewhat vague and unfocused. Additionally, despite the game offering branching paths, I found the story's linearity to be somewhat limiting. The different choices mostly seem to lead to variations of the same outcome, with few significant shifts in the overall direction of the plot. This makes replaying the game less enticing, as the core story doesn’t change much based on decisions, in my opinion.
Still, this was one of the best games I got my hands onto yet.

There are already countless reviews, so just making this one quick for me to remember this was really great.

Small complaints on like a seemingly avoidance of true lesbian sex content and I think endings are slightly rough if you were not loyal to just one, and could have used a more big loyal to none ending and maybe it could have used just a touch more content that was not sex.

But otherwise this I would say is easily somewhere between 6-20/well beyond 100 things I played here and better in some of categories like sex scene transitions and of course animations even including non sexual ones.

Thanks maker, for completing it and not leaving it unfinished and thanks for sharing, really enjoyed it and loved the story.

The writing and visuals of the game is great. If you're into cyberpunk sci-fi stories, this is great. Each girl has their personality and individual endings that you can pursue. An issue I have with the game is that there's a lot girls content, but you really have to suspend the disbelief since all them practically throw themselves towards the MC. There's one other male character that's a part of the male cast that was a good balance to the dynamics, but it'd been better if that dynamic could've kept continuing throughout the game.

This is what quality work looks like. From the visuals to the writing, everything is top-notch.
I'm a sucker for a good atmosphere, and this is as atmospheric as it gets—you can really feel like you're in the future.
There’s a lot of diverse content, so I guess there’s something for everyone.
My only complaint is that I wish it never ended.
I'm looking forward to replaying it and making different choices.

I didn't really liked Depraved Awakening, previous game from this dev, it was pretty average for me, and before playing City of Broken Dreamers i was wondering whether this will be more of the same but with different setting or it will be something more interesting and just better all around. Unfortunately it's the first option.

City of Broken Dreamers proves yet again that darker themed stuff like crime, death and drama doesn't fit well with porn genre. It just doesn't work. Especially if nor the story, nor the characters are that good. Plot have some potential and combined with pretty interesting cyberpunk setting it should work but it doesn't. MC is being hired to find a girl and bring her back to his employer. We found her but we don't bring her back. So for the rest of the game story runs in circles, when we hide from our pursuiters, fight with enemies, search for the girl again because sometimes she just leaves us, change our hiding place cuz we're under attack and then fight some more. It's not really interesting, nor engaging. Characters are also not that great, some of the LIs are fine, some other are pretty bland and shallow. You don't really care about those people. Love interest selection definitely could be a lot better. Even my favourite girl was "only" 7/10 so she wasn't that great or anything. Some of the side girls seem to exist in the game only to provide sexual content. They lack some depth. This girl we have to find, why can't we just deliver her as contracted, get a paycheck and move on? This is supposedly a dark and not very pleasant world, so why we should care about some random girl, which is a pretty dangerous person, who could just end us anytime? We're doing our job, there is nothing wrong in that, right? Depending on our choices, we can try to take the girl back but that attempt fails, and we have to go through all this mess regardless (this also shows that our choices doesn't really matter), dragging all our friends and allies into danger. That is just not a reasonable thing to do. Second half of the game is definitely worse than the first. Game gets boring and uninteresting to play, writing is getting worse, dialogues get more and more skippable. At this point there is nothing in the game which would grab the player attention anymore. Endings are also very short and disappointing.

Render quality is pretty solid, with really good looking models, with some nice details on girls body. Animations are ok for the most part, but some of them are rather stiff, sometimes movement here and there looks very robotic and not natural. In some cases characters hands are in weird, unnatural positions. More polish would definitely be required here. In terms of sex scenes, its pretty common in porn games, that they're getting better with time, the dev improves over time but here sex scenes are getting worse later on. In the second half of the game, there is more sex scenes but they are shorter, and honestly pretty emotionless, without any passion. Also, there is no real diversity in those scenes, all of them pretty much look exactly the same. Only the girl and background changes. The previous game have issue with out of place sex scenes, here is a bit better but still, you're being chased, they could find you any moment and kill you and all your friends, but sometimes MC just randomlly bangs a girl among this mess. I don't know, there is very severe lack of intimacy and privacy in those scenes. Like, they are just a distraction for a MC, just a stress relief between other things. Some music is there, that's good but the music itself is nothing too crazy. Some sound effects but only during fights like explosions, shooting etc. Nothing during sex scenes.

Ultimately City of Broken Dreamers is a huge letdown. Promising story in interesting setting never reaching it's true potential, disappointing LIs, solid visuals and pretty ok sex scenes getting worse later on and finally unsatisfying endings. It's not a good game, it's below average. Definitely not worth 15 hours of playtime.

Review based on [v1.15.0] Completed

City of Broken Dreamers by Philly Games was a bit of a letdown for me. Right off the bat, the background music felt repetitive and lacking in variety—there’s this constant, monotonous tone that starts to feel annoying as it keeps playing from scene to scene. It felt like the BGM was more of a distraction than an enhancement. 1/5

The character interactions also fell short, sounding dull and uninspired. I found myself unengaged with the story and disconnected from the characters; it lacked the excitement or the kind of sexual appeal you'd expect from a top-tier AVN. Even the female characters, who should be one of the major draws, just didn't stand out. Their personalities felt flat and uninteresting, which made it hard to care about their development or relationships. 2/5

The story itself felt like a missed opportunity. Despite the potential in a cyberpunk setting, it didn’t dive deeply enough into the plot to make it truly compelling. The pacing felt uneven, with certain scenes dragging on without much happening, while other parts felt rushed, glossing over moments that could have built up tension or intrigue. For instance, there’s a scene where the protagonist and a lead female character discuss a mission at length. The conversation drags on with generic dialogue and little added depth, making it feel like filler rather than anything that advances the plot or develops the characters. This kind of scene happens more than once, leading to a sense of detachment from both the characters and the overall story. 1/5

On top of that, the renders, though high-quality, didn’t do much to elevate the experience. Despite the detailed visuals, there was a lack of variety in expressions and poses, making scenes feel stagnant and repetitive. The visuals looked polished but lacked the dynamic energy to truly bring scenes to life, making the overall experience feel flat. 4/5

Conclusion: It’s surprising that this game has such a high rating. disappointing to see ratings that don’t necessarily reflect the game's actual quality, as it leaves players expecting much more than the game delivers.Overall, City of Broken Dreamers didn’t live up to my expectations, and it left me wanting a lot more from the story, characters, and visual presentation. Wouldn't recommend it ,I rate it 2/5,

Great game with good Cyberpunky theme.

Very good graphics, story makes wonder what happens next, plenty of both sexscenes (with pretty females) and action scenes.

Might feel bit hurried in the end but still endings are nice.

Brilliant writing combined with some incredible women and fabulous skin realism and they way they move....DAMN!
Cannot recommend this highly enough.
I played through with as much help as I could find (WT and mod) but of course it would be possible to play without (as long as you save frequently), some choices have very long range repercussions.

City of Broken Dreamers [v1.15.0 Ch. 15] review for Gloria, Victoria and Ellen routes (good ending)

TLDR; This game is just amazing in every aspect. You will be glad if you pick it up.

Visual/Audio; 5/5
Amazing rendering quality with very spicy and intimate sex scenes overall but not flawless only if I decided to nitpick. Extremely sexy love interests and the clothing looks natural if this makes sense. The music choice really fits well with the game's theme even though, with the length of the game, can be repetitive.

Character Appeal; 5/5
I've never seen any VN has the similar consistency and depth of the character personality as is this game.
Gloria develops really well throughout the story, from a scared victim of her own power to a determined, strong, and loving young lady.
Victoria and Ellen also developed similarly. Not to mention that almost all side characters are having pretty solid backgrounds and lore to back them up.

Story/Scenario 5/5
Literally Cyberpunk at home and IMHO heavily inspired. The pacing is really just right.

Enjoyment 5/5
Outstanding story, amazing sex scenes spicy characters. What is the reason not to fall in love with this game?

Final calculation 5/5
This is a true gem of AVNs and is now amongst the top if I would be recommended to be anyone's first VN and will recommend even more for anyone to pick it up.

I think this is a gem here, the story is great, the characters are great, character designs and development are done quite well too. I really enjoyed the story, has multiple endings so has good replay value. Has good volume of lewd scenes, caters to fan of hardcore stuff.
While the positives are there are negatives too. It feels like the dev rushed at latter chapters, some good potential were really wasted.
Would love to see some more story in same universe, if possible connecting some of the characters of this game.
Inspired me to start writing too.

(Review of Ch. 15)

Pretty solid and engaging story with some concepts and style borrowed from Deus Ex (certainly a good source of inspiration) but adding a decent amount of sex scenes, most of them smooth though sometimes certain movements are weird, like the girl is having a seizure or her tits are being pulled in random directions by invisible strings. Presumably this was meant to prevent animations from looking too simplistic and mechanical as seen in the average adult game; the result is certainly better than the average but IMO the amount of truly hot material isn't that large considering the game filesize.

I don't think the models were put to their best use. I mean Victoria is clearly the favourite in promo material and at times it would seem most of the others were just along for the ride. It's not like there's a world of difference between the bodies of most LIs anyway, the only futa character isn't even an LI (sounds like she lost an user poll...) and the love/lust points aren't consistent with the sex you can get with each one. In a way it reminds me of playing GTA IV where you finish the game while the general progress of the story is still at 80% or so, something doesn't add up.

Anyway... There are references to several movies such as Akira, the Terminator or Die Hard, as well as multiple cutscenes that give the game a cinematic touch, including the main menu. A very slick product for sure, understandably ranked among the best the genre has to offer. A complete playthrough should keep you occupied for at least 12 hours.

Holy shit! Philly Games are two for two between this and Depraved Awakening. I love a good Noir story, and especially a good Cyberpunk story! So cool that the bar is called Tech Noir! Been awhile since Sarah Conner was there... Beautiful characters, great sex animations, awesome story, great dialogue. I see why so many people have City of Broken Dreamers in their sig file as a favorite.

The overarching story was quite engaging and it was hard to stop playing in its early chapters. It did become a bit stale in the later chapters though and the ending was a bit lackluster.

My critique is mostly focused on my Ellen centric playthrough. I chose Ellen pretty quickly as my love interest. It was easy for me to get on her route thanks to the MC already having an established open relationship with her. She was also one of the few who actually looked somewhat original and fitting for the futuristic setting, unlike the other LIs who gave me the impression of boring middle aged house wives at first glance. I get that this game was started relatively long time ago so I can somewhat understand the overused DAZ assets, but it's also why devs shouldn't take on such huge projects that take them at least half a decade to finish - they'll look dated by that time. Still, I think the girls in Philly's previous game looked more attractive and had more memorable looks.

As my Ellen focused game progressed though, it became increasingly evident that the dev didn't give enough love to her route. Despite that early kiss in chapter 5 nothing came of it besides a couple more quick kisses until the very end of the final chapter when their romance actually seemed to take off. I also thought there would be more to Ellen's path, like a throuple route with Gloria since all the groundwork was there, but nothing came of it.

Maybe the lack of progress was because the dev took a larger bite than he could chew, because the branching was a lot more complex than your usual interactive story game here, and there were a lot of girls: 4 main ones, some side chicks with possible endings and many casual flings. That's a lot of work to juggle for a lone dev. What comes to other technical aspects, then I think the separate LI score and lust points were largely wasted on Ellen and probably some other girls too where the lust points did nothing major. I was quite disappointed to find out I had missed out of a few options during the lewd scenes in Ellen's scenes. The subsequent and bothersome replay of half the game effectively ruined my immersion and getting invested again in the game was difficult after that. I would get if those points caused a major branching on each LI's path but that for such a little change it's pointless. One should not have to rely on a walkthrough to get the most out of a single path.

Coming back to the lack of meaningful progress with Ellen, then I also suspect that the dev was playing favorites or relying too much on the wishes of his Patreon supporters. I already saw Ellen missing in the game's banner nor did I notice her in any promotional images at first, but I became suspicious when I noticed that all the other LIs appeared much more often than Ellen in those secret images you can collect. As it turned out upon closer look into the game files, it was true and even some girl with devil horns, who I'd only seen for a moment in my playthrough, had more pictures. Victoria seems to have gotten the most attention from the dev when you look at the promotional material, the number of scenes involving her in the gallery and more complex branching made for her. I hate when the devs favor one LI over the others.

Other remarks:
- The static renders were pretty good if not too dark at times. Some scenes could have used better lighting.
- I can't decide if the animations were average or just above. The boob physics were definitely better than a lot of games here and the dev liked to flaunt with it in gratuitous scenes at every turn. What I didn't like at all was the way the characters moved. They were stiff, clunky and I often found myself questioning why the characters were flaying their limbs so awkwardly during sex. More simple, fluid and rhythmic movements would be much better.
- The MC could receive blowjobs in every scene but there was a severe lack of going down on women. I don't think the MC performed oral on Ellen even once. It's like the dev is allergic to pussy or something. I know it's an immature porn game but at least give players the option to be a gentlemen and always return the pleasure, be it cunnilingus or orgasm.

Still, it's a decent game and I'll likely check out some other branches in the future. Best Wishes to Phillygames on their upcoming project!

Animations are almost perfect, the music is awesome. Writing and immersion is top-notch. Characters have personality. Played it through twice with different decisions.

I was not let down.

This is a game, many game creators should use as of how games should be done.