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

Story 4/5
Its pretty good but the plot isent really anything new, MC is a kind of bounty hunter that gets a job to collect a girl and changes hes mind to help her instend of turning her in, its a pretty standard plot really with a side of super powers.

It is a little annoying having huge ugly tits trown in your face all the time when you arent into it, seeing girls in shower where they could have been anywhere else, going into a whore house being forced to look at extremly big tits for a long time and its just constantly pushed in your face, girls are nude all the time its like they cant have clothes on for more then 2 mins at a time before they just have to show their tits..... stuff like that just lowers the value and make it feel more like a b-porn movie then a good game, its to bad dev dont belive more in him/her self to let the story run the game on its own without forcing kinks/fetish on everyone, could atleast give the choice to look at the bimbos or not, i lost count on how many times game turned me off from showing Victoria topless, its like shes to poor to own any clothes and shes the worst looking LI in the game in my eyes.

MC is pretty decent for once, he still has a huge fail with being the standard caveman that thinks huge saggy tits is the best thing in the world and due to that finds the person hot, even girls in the game has a big tit fetish which is just idiotic, why not make him behave like that with small tits as well.....it just feels stupid reading shit like that when you hate it as the player, so lost some points for that, it also feels stupid turning down a girl MC loves so much but atleast you can so thats something and most of the times he acts a bit more like a grown up so thats good.

I might have missed something in the story but at one point around chapter 11 MC goes to Victoria for help which makes 0 sense to me considering shes one of the main players on the bad guys side, why or how it changed to MC starting to trust her felt completly idiotic to me, maybe its due to not being on her route i dunno but it just feels so worng and made absolutly no sense.

But in any case MC is way to soft, hes supposed to be this hardcore bounty hunter with no issues of killing people and such, but the way he act is just way to soft and way to trusting, atleast hes friends tells him hes stupid as fuck but its just annoying you dont have a bit more controle over MC in that regard, in the start it was pretty fun playing MC since you could tell people to piss off and be mean, but later in game he just lost hes balls and backbone.

Girls 2/5
They look ok, i dident really find them all that hot but thats a matter of taste, as for diversity in builds there is a little bit but it is mostly aimed for players with big tit fetish, its to bad so many devs dosent aim to give something for everyones taste.

Animations 5/5
Really nice ones with multiple positions, good head movements and such so it dosent feel stiff so really good, the only time it fails big is virgin scenes theres almost no pain and 0 blood so it dosent really give the virgin vibe.

Music 3/5
Pretty averge stuff nothing with lyrics or anything.

Choices 5/5
You deside who to fuck or not which is how every game should be, if theres any real choices to change main story i have no idea but thats not so importen to me really.

Cant give it less then 4 stars but cant max it out since MC was a mixed bag of weirdness and wasent a fan of all the big tits constantly forced on you since i dont have that fetish, but the story is mostly good and the choices are perfect in the way of being able to controle who you fuck or not, so i still enjoyed this one.

First: This is probably the best looking AVN I have ever played, so ignore my rating if that is something very important to you.

But sadly that quality does not extend to any other aspect of the game.

- the story is meh. The premise is there, but it becomes so extremely, unnecessarily convoluted that I lost most interest by chapter 6 (still played through the rest)

- characters are interesting at first, but after a while you notice a pattern that ends up making them all very boring

- there is also no real character development. Revealing bits and pieces of a characters background to the reader is not development

- the author seems to be unable to write even a single likeable character. Everyone is just so frustrating to interact with.

- the worldbuilding, something that people have been raving about in these reviews, is pretty mediocre. Nothing that hasn't been done exactly the same many times before

- the LIs aren't done well at all. You never feel like you get close to any of the girls. There is no romance at all. None.

- the MC has very little character development. Which is kind of astonishing seeing as there are a lot of opportunities for it.

So yea, overall I could not enjoy this sadly. After the masterpiece that was Depraved Awakening this was a huge disappointment. Maybe not all the funds should have been put into the graphics?

Of all the erotic visual novel games I've played, this one definitely ranks in the top three, cyberpunk style gameplay, cool! There's an amazing storyline and the modeling is very sexy, it's definitely a perfect score in my mind, definitely a game that everyone should play!

Story: 5/5
Modeling: 5/5
Rendering: 5/5
Animation: 5/5
Overall: 5/5

Considering that this game already has 395 reviews with an average rating of about 4.5. I doubt that my review will be of much use. At this point, however, it's more about wanting to contribute my grain of salt, when it comes to promoting a creator like Philly Games.

I've followed this creator since the early days, when they had released a few updates for their first game, Depraved Awakening. Back then, that game was one of the first to raise the bar significantly for adult games, by making an engrossing game that happens to have adult content, as well.

With City of Broken Dreamers, Philly has continued to deliver high-quality content. This has been accomplished not only with way-above average renders and animations, but through immersive storytelling and well-developed characters as well.

The variety of options offered in the game also contribute to it being such a good one, since they actually have significant repercussions, when it comes to how the MC's personality changes, how they relate and interact with other characters and what your outcome is, at the end.

In this game, you play as a ghost, which is the term used in this universe to describe a type of bounty hunter hired by the powerful to clean up their pasts or handle an adversary. The story takes place at a point where our MC is tasked with finding a young woman (Gloria) with a very troubling upbringing and a power that she cannot entirely grasp / control. As the MC progresses with his mission, he deals with several internal conflicts where, depending on the route the player takes, can lead to the MC becoming an extremely corrupted individual, or finding some form of redemption in the company of the outcasts he meets. Although the story has undeniable CyberPunk and Blade Runner vibes, it has an independent story that allows the game to make a name of its own, borrowing mostly for aesthetic and atmospheric reasons. While playing it, you will be compelled to explore multiple routes, as most of the characters have an appeal of their own, and none of the routes seem to have been neglected. Although Victoria and Katie are very popular in this thread, my personal favorite is Gloria. Whether or not you have a favorite, however, you will still feel compelled to explore various routes and the outcomes they lead to, because of how good the game is.

Even though I write this as we wait for the final update of City of Broken Dreamers, I'm certain that it's delivery will not be an issue, as PhillyGames has proven to be extremely consistent when it comes to providing updates, being frank about any holdups or delays, and in delivering a substantial amount of content with each update that is consistent with the time spent on it.

CH.14

Amazing game, had a blast playing it. It really is on another level in terms of visuals and music. Rarely I play games like this on full screen with loud music settings, but I had to this time. Both graphic and music are amazing. Renders are great, there are hundreds of smooth animations that make this world more alive (like driving cars, trams etc) and music is how I expected it to be - matching what's happening in the game and I really liked few of the songs used, that wasn't a level of music that I would listen to it later on on YT but close - really good.

So, now girls. I loved them all. All beautiful, interesting, with great characters. All paths are worth playing, my main playthrough accepted all opportunities and this game is amazing that way, when you can have a favourite girl but still have fun with Chandra, Abby, Sasha, Shanlon etc. You have to choose your path around chapter 12 and you can do basically everything until this point, there is no bad blood with girls that you're not following and I love that this choice is so late in the game, because you don't have to play the game from the beginning just to be on a different path.

Story - great. I mean, we all read/watched better, but this is "just" a VN and I think that looking at this from this perspective - story is amazing, really engaging, making you want to play again, to read everything, not just CTRL through this stuff. Dialogues may be a bit longer but I think overally writing is on a superb level.

Ok, now thing that dissapointed me the most and that is sex scenes. This is obviously only my opinion, but you don't play a game like this for sex scenes alone. What I didn't like is how short they were, I know animations take a long, long time to render and every sex scene is really time consuming, but you can do it in other way - you can loop your animations and add a lot more text so that a sex scene takes 10 minutes, not 2 minutes. You should be describing everything what's happening on the screen, how these two people feel, spend time on their emotions, add additional renders (maybe taken from animations), add a lot more text. There are a lot of games that do it good, and it's fairly easy to change, so I hope that dev will do it in his next game.

5/5

This started out as a AAA game, but it is not finishing as a AAA unfortunately. Visually, this is a good game, it also has a interesting cyberpunk style theme. There is a lot of total content (less so in recent years), but its sum is unsatisfactory.

There is no build up in this game, instead of having stages of a story it goes from 0 to 60 in 2 seconds and never comes down. All except maybe one of the LI want to jump the MC immediately. Considering this game has hours of content it is just far to much. It is not interesting to have a plot that starts and tries to stay at the climax for almost the entirety of the story. Player choice is also pretty minimal. You are going to be stuck with the Gary Stu MC who is an emotionless mercenary that every girl seems to love for no reason.

Finally, the past 2+ years has yielded 3 small-ish chapters that has the story racing to the finish line. It has been disappointing to see how this one turned out after starting out with AAA potential.

I have had to edit this as it turned out my first impression was all wrong. This is a good game. It starts out all cliché with tough guys and slutty girls and quite custom sex scenes but within an hour of play you don't care about the sex anymore you just want to know how the story proceeds. Very nice.

Post-finale edit: Yeah, I still don't find Broken Dreamers' story all that interesting to be honest, but once again, this game’s visuals are so good that they more than make up for its uninspired writing, so…

City of Broken Dreamers [v1.14.0 Ch. 14]

Pros:
+ High production value
+ Amazing renders and animation quality
+ Epic worldbuilding and storytelling
+ A strong plot and well driven narrative
+ Great story pacing with a lot of action
+ Some characters have good character development
+ Character interaction and conversations are well written
+ User interface is clean
+ Very immersive experience
+ Adult content fits in well with the story

Cons:
- Some character personalities feel one-dimensional


The game starts out as what most might think of as your typical cyberpunk setting. But even then, it does a good job of creating its own unique story and delivering details and background through a well-written narrative.

There's so much I could write about this game, but if you haven't checked it out yet, I feel you would be better off checking out the game than slogging through reviews.

The game is amazing and there's a little bit of something for everyone. Even if the cyberpunk setting may not be your cup of tea, it's still worth checking out for even a half an hour and who knows, you might be in for a pleasant surprise.

Overall Rating: 10/10

City of Broken Dreamers (Final)

Fucking Prime! In a Los Angeles that is far beyond “Hotel California’, corruption is everywhere. Corporations exercise extreme prejudice and power struggles between entities are imminent. While working as a merc for corps, you figure out your life is just another liability. Until one job sets off events that change the face of the city forever. Be cautious of everyone. This world is out to get you.

STORY
City of Broken Dreamers’ story is straightforward. Don’t expect an unusual story angle or twist. With those expectations limited, CoBD goes above and beyond to build a world complementing the Cyberpunk-ish Noir story. Memorable locations, in depth dialog based on what happens in the story and characters who interact with each other. This is a rollercoaster ride from Phillygames, going deeper than 2018’s Depraved Awakening.

In my 30+hr playthrough, I managed to complete the entire game. From chase sequences to stealth missions, sultry dialog to heartfelt emotions - this game runs the distance. You start out questioning what your role in Neo-Los Angeles will be. The Japanese have done a number on Americans and since, life is different. Citizens are living with a disease - and because of it, they’re outlawed to different parts of the city. Corporations prey on the poor as the elite bask in power. It all seems plausible in the wake of corporatism.

Along the way you will meet a questionable cast of agents and outlaws, either harming or helping your quest. It’s a set story mostly, but you get choices that do impact the ending of the game. Not every choice is labeled in a sensible way, which is frustrating - but rerolling saves you time. Save often. You are able to lose out on characters along the way, so be wary of the danger you put those around you in.

The worldbuilding of this game is extensive .Whether civvies are scolding Milchers, youngsters are yelling how ‘fucking prime’ things are or how conflict between Augmented and the Red Moon plays a part in your quest. Phillygames spent years building all these layers that help ground and enhance the main story. By the time you hit the middle part of the story, you instantly recognize locations and phrases because of the consistency. There’s even a special word dialect for one subset of inhabitants. It all helps to build that world.

Jake Murphy (MC) is quite a passive tool in the regular path, but there is character development throughout chapters. People get scarred and those scars will show. It does feels off spending chapters protecting someone who is ultimately stronger than everyone, until you realize this game is about building bridges over becoming stronger. Along the way people can get a change of heart and it definitely creates conflict for your mission. Sacrifices are powerful and if played well, sacrifices must be made. It will make Jake quite a bit darker than the regular path, which might feel unnatural but is interesting to say the least.

Information is everywhere. You want to know about Ghosts? Why are Milchers frowned upon? Why are news channels in this city corrupt? Why AI and VR sextoys change the face of pleasure forever? How drugs are getting flooded into the city? All this narrative is secondary to the main story, but helps sell the world and its characters. Side characters are hit and miss. Some are charismatic and unique, others feel like a jukebox on repeat. Dig deep enough and you’ll find something to explore for each character - even Glenn.There’s even a Glossary to read up on backstories.

The MC might be the blandest part of the writing. He’s never really allowed to develop, often sacrificing his own growth to further others - unless it’s about sexual encounters. By the end he sounds tired, but a far more responsible human than the merc he was at the start. The main antagonist is pretty one-dimensional too, but luckily there are more than enough distractions to make this story interesting. The antagonist might be the weakest part of this story, as you never really understand what happened and what it all meant.

Even so, the world in CoBD is so strongly set that you can’t help but love it. By the time you reach the end the game favors intimate moments over storybuilding and I would warn you to enjoy the ride rather than expect a great ending. Ultimately, the MC just wants to fuck all these women.

PRESENTATION
This game looks impressive. Characters have a doll-like look and it might seem cartoon-ish or anime-like at times, liking it is a matter of preference. The scenery looks as realistic as it could. Bright neon lights, sunny skylines, rain showers over characters, big explosions, futuristic cars - it looks larger than life. It might be the most impressive thing about this game.

You can often tell GDS-infected by their looks. Robots and augments usually lack human facial details. Apartments and clubs are styled appropriately and the supporting cast has so many wardrobe changes it borders a fashion show. Meanwhile we never really see the MC, who has one shoddy look and keeps it throughout the game mostly. This game is not about him, but about the world around him.

Sex scenes are often average in variety, but there are so many - especially near the end chapters. There’s about 10 sex scenes that are really memorable due to what happened in probably over 60 scenes. Animations are good enough for me and often look amazing together with the many renderings these scenes bring. There are definitely a bunch of filler sex scenes, but some kinkier ones if you’re daring to step out of the beaten path. Near the end, the game becomes a fuckfest - so hold out if you’re a fan for that.

Music! Usually sound is an afterthought, but this dev dedicated specific soundtracks for CoBD. It might be a bit repetitive after 15 hours, but it understands the ambiance of the city very well. Small sound design helps sell the action scenes without making it corny or too action-focused.

GAMEPLAY
Story choices let you collect points which in turn lock or unlock small story paths for people. It’s a visual novel and you’re in for the ride, but the way you approach the set pieces does give you a sense of individuality. You will get locked out of content with just one playthrough and because a playthrough is around 15+hrs, it might become a chore replaying to see all scenes. It is worth it though, because some key moments will change giving new insight to the story.

For completionists, there’s a scene and picture gallery - along with a picture puzzle game in some of the scenes. You look at certain scenes where the game tells you about a clue, you find it and you get a picture reward. It’s simple, but adds a layer to the investigative nature of the story.

OVERALL
City of Broken Dreamers is an outstanding visual novel and a feat in Noir Cyberpunk storytelling. It looks great, sounds the part and makes you feel a lot of things. If you can invest time to understand the world the story is set in, you will get the full experience of this novel. A world that is begging for more stories because there’s just so much happening it is easy to get overloaded. Take your time, expect mediocre endings and you will enjoy this giant of a game.

Renders 1000/10 : great renders created by the goat
Himself philly games
Great models Crafted with care

Animations 1000/10 : great animations that can
Make you get hard from seeing them

Story 10/10 great story which ends in a cliffhanger
In chapter, unfortunately it seems to be approaching
The end but as they say all good things
Must come to an end

Characters 10/10 great even the broken ones
Also I love mc who is a badass ghost

Length 10/10 between 20 to 30 hrs to chapter 14
Depends on how long you read

This game is great. I loved every minute of the story. The renders have some of the best lighting effects ever. There are also many paths to take which makes the game even more intriguing. There is a major cliff hanger at the end of the current version so be prepared.

With a cyberpunk aesthetic, of which I am a regular follower, this well-written and interesting story is worthy of being called a "novel" and could well be the script for a movie. The character design is of extremely high quality, with a variety of personalities and visual beauty like I have rarely seen.

As the story develops, several details emerge that describe the world of corporate conspiracies and social conflict typical of the cyberpunk style, adding depth and credibility to the interactions and dialogues between the protagonists. The choices made over the course of the story define the path (through a scoring system) that will lead to romance with one of the heroines, going through a variety of humorous, suspenseful, emotional or dramatic moments.

The erotic scenes are abundant and very well represented, they are very hot! (I really enjoyed Shanlon's and Victoria's scenes). Sometimes you want the animations during sex scenes to last longer. The quality of the renderings is excellent, true works of art.

I generally do not expect much from background music in adult games, but here the soundtrack is perfect with a selection of electronic music tracks and dark subgenres that fits very well in each scene and with the cyberpunk atmosphere of the game in general. My favorite songs are: "Burnin Star" by StrangeZero, "Cyber Twilight" by Hartwigmedia, "Visitors" by Linturaven, "Human Being" by Sublustris Nox, among others. The music fits so well with the scenes and some important moments of the game, adding emotion to them.

Summing up: The renders, The story, The charismatic and lovable characters, The music, all of superlative quality and together make this visual novel a true masterpiece. I have played until chapter 14 and I am looking forward to the outcome of this game of which I already consider myself a fan.

Review of v1.14.0

High production value. That’s the first thing you’ll notice when you start playing City of Broken Dreamers, and it’ll stick with you through the entire game. The effort put into the renders and animations is outstanding. But it goes beyond that; the game is a fully realised sci-fi thriller, convincingly told. So why did I find it so much of a drag?

This is a long game (though it does seem to be reaching the ending). A high production value can only get you through so much; in order to make players stick it out for the longhaul, AVNs need to lean on their story, characters and hot sex. The story is well planned out, but it’s often unfortunately told rather than shown, and it drags with quite a lot filler. Once it gets going, you’re supposed to feel like the characters are constantly in danger, but it was too slow to generate a sense of action. The sex is decent, though too vanilla for me, and strangely I didn’t find as many of the models attractive as I usually do in AVNs. Though perhaps that’s a symptom of the main problem: I just didn’t come to care about any of the characters. I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it was because of substandard writing. Maybe the mc didn’t do a good job expressing his emotions towards them. Jestur chose to never show his face, which has its pros, but requires stronger writing to establish emotion. Maybe the setting was just too gloomy. Most likely it was all of these factors and more, but the end result was quickly getting bored of the characters and just wanting to get to end. The mc was the worst; he was given next to no personality and little backstory, which is okay in games where you can shape the character into what you want, but in City of Broken Dreamers there almost no choices in which you can express yourself. You start as a blank slate but never have the opportunity to write anything.

A few miscellaneous points:

• At the start the music was impressive, but the looping tracks all sound the same and got annoying fast, so I had to end up muting it.​
• Everything is crammed into a very short time-frame, which always feels odd in a relationship building game.​
• The mc never does anything romantic for his LIs.​
• Why do so many AVNs insist on wisecracks during sex? Leave the comedy outside of the bedroom please.​
• FYI the walkthrough mod annoyingly steers you into a specific route with Victoria, so if you choose to use it I recommend supplementing it with the written wallkthrough. Not the fault of the game, I just wish I knew it going in.​

City of Broken Dreamers is a mark of how increased funding and better hardware has allowed AVNs to achieve production values we could only dream about 8 years ago. But while I don’t know if the game is fundamentally flawed, I do know it wasn’t for me.

Plausible story and I like the MC quite a bit. They even went with genetic engineering type stuff. I do wish there was more male domination play, but Shanlon and company was good.

Overall, solid game, for what it is.

A verry good game, one of the best ones for sure and yes i played a lot of vn's !
The renders are verry good, the story is verry well writen and has a lot of petential ! Dont hesitate a second go for it !

AVN with a mostly linear story and lots of romance options, told in a Noir style with a futuristic setting. The renders and the models are absolutely gorgeous. The story itself is thought-provoking and the characters are very engaging - it is extremely well written. The Dev typically does not write the story to allow for a Harem path, based on his previous work, and it doesn't appear possible as of chapter 14. You can, however, have multiple sexual partners and there are LOTS of high quality sex scenes. No real taboo content here. One of my top 10 AVNs, all time.

Honestly, this game without the visuals and some amazing sex scenes would be average at the most... It's a quite inmersive game too, to enjoy at night with lights turn off.

Leaving those virtues aside, there is a certain battle, where someone dies, early on, after that the story starts sinking. So I found myself just skipping text to reach new hot scenes...

Our MC becomes useless, so much blah blah blah Ghost duh duh.. but after all even the servant AI is more important for the story.

Story gets repetitive: we running, meet problem, meet new girl, new girl save our ass, we running again.

Antagonists are laughable.. the most "powerful" one just have a cool armor and stops fighting us after a few words, because some "honorable" shet..

The super duper dangerous mechs and super dangerous some places are laughable too...

So this is that kind of story where characters talk so so so much about something, but in the end that something is the opposite thing.

But still,checking this VN is a must do. It has hot girls and a nice cyberpunk setup.

Very high quality AVN. Here are some of my impressions:

-Story: It was interesting, intriguing, immerssive and engaging (couldn't stop playing it xD). Just fucking great. Only one complain with one plot "The PIT" because everyone mentions "hey, don't go there" "you're gonna die if you go there" but in the end it was just a freaking nightclub so It was dissapointing...
-Characters: MC and the girls are very well written, so, no complains here.
-Renders: Some of the best renders I've seen. Girls designs are fantastic. Once again, only one complain, I prefer AVNs that shows the MC's face I believe this way we can connect a bit better, but as I said this is just a personal preference. Luckily here the MC is pretty well written.
-Animations: Most of them are great but a few of them were a bit clumsy.
-Music: Excellent music. I've added a couple of songs to my playlist.

Overall I'd give it a 9.5/10 so far. Phylligames sure knows his stuff when it comes to this type of AVNs. This is a great job. Definitely, It's worth trying for everyone.

Accidentally came across this game while browsing and gave it a shot. I am truly shocked at how much I love this game.

The Renders are top notch, truly well done with enough animations to keep everything interesting and fun. The character models are attractive and vary greatly from the tattooed skinny model to the curvy models all are unique and attractive. There is even one Futa, it's not my jam but it is easily skippable but for those that are into it, it's there.

All characters have well written dialogue all things considered. Each character has a different personality that comes through in the writing. I did not notice any grammatical or spelling errors during my play through, they may be there but if so I didn't notice them.

The game has a great CyberPunk feel to it and if you like Bladerunner or CyberPunk 2077 you will feel right at home. The story feels like it is coming to and end but I hope it gets a spinoff if it does. The world and the characters are impressive and I would love to spend some more time with them.