VN - Ren'Py - College Kings [Act 2 v5.3.0] [Undergrad Steve]

This game started well and it was a bit entertaining til the homecoming event, after that its just boring AF. One big problem is that because of the different paths and girls, the game feels very fractured with the constant feeling of the scenes just thrown out there, especially in later updates. Also mc looks and acts like a moron and a wimp, and many scenes feel like they are forced just to be there, no feeling and atmosphere at all.

This is my first review ever since I joined these forums, so don't hate me.
Act 1 was so good, actually had a feeling of a college, good storyline but it went downhill from there, Act 2 is all over the place, and too messy

(Haven't tried Act 3 yet)

Words fail to describe how HORRIBLE this game is, characters with no personality, generic LIs you don't pay attention to, a totally forgettable MC with no personality, your choices have 0% impact on the game's story, the sex animations are fired the worst that exist in a Visual Novel, not counting the HUNDREDS OF BUGS that the game presents,

Almost every update comes with more bugs that make The AVN hard to actually play. The storylines are all over the place and speaking as both a writer and a player, it's pretty terrible in terms of quality. The LI's have absolutely no depth to them. Their personalities were constantly changing from episode to episode. Things are brought up, only to never be spoken of again. Emily cheated, yet she faces no real consequences. Aubrey had sex with another guy right in front of The MC and his reaction was something along the lines of "damn that chick is hot". The writing is horrendous along with the ever-changing storylines. To further add to this, the pacing was not good either.

I formerly supported this developer on Patreon, but only for a short while, because he does not listen nor take the time to think about what his patrons are saying. It's frustrating when you're putting your money towards something and are totally discarded. Steve didn't listen to anyone nor show any concern towards the reviews. This is why I'm not at all surprised at the current state of The AVN. The kicker is that I was not the only one to approach him with concerns for this AVN.

Plot: 2/10 (no set plot and too many abrupt changes... tends to leave everyone confused)
Art: 6/10 (the only good thing coming out of this AVN)
Dialogue: 3/10 (it's almost as if no effort was placed here)
Characters: 2/10 (this rating is this low because the characters are not written consistently. They also have no depth to them. They don't feel realistic or as if they had any quality to them. There is no natural progression when it comes to forming relationships with the LI's. They're so inconsistent, that it makes no sense to pursue them. Why would I pursue an LI if she turns around and starts bashing me anyway the very next update? This rating is also because the dev kept saying that they were aiming for realistic LI's when they were literally the furthest thing from it.)

Overall: 4/10 (the only thing I have to say here is that I am surprised it isn't lower)

I don't say this often, but this AVN is just a waste of time. Please don't waste a few hours of your life playing this.

One problem irritates me the most in this game:
Why does the MC look like a kid ? Isn't he supposed to be 18+?

Please let me mention that I appreciate the work that the dev has invested into the overall appearance and renderings of the game.
There are also some nice looking girls who are worthy to be chased after.

This game generally gives the impression that it has great potential.

However potential is worth nothing if it is not realized.

This is my first review ever since I joined these foruns and its more of a rant than a review, but I feel I have to warn people about to start this one. Basically my feelings: You know what? I've had it with this game, I just had it. Its simply too much.

I dont know what happened since the earlier updates, but damn if this one just got literal shit at this point (v11.0.1). Its not even the storylines getting destroyed, the characters being dumber and dumber, the grammar and the writing, the constantly worse dialogue, in the same scene the MC and others characters swapping clothes, the useless render (how many times you need to see the MC go to the freaking bed!?), the billions of useless scenes that make this game be 16gb worth of nothing, the constant bugs, the unplayable fight system, the choices not being recorded properly...its the sloppyness of everything baked together to make this game into a shit cake!

Nothing, and I mean NOTHING works as it should! And it feels like Steve doesnt care at all. Shitting out beautiful renders does NOT make this a good game.

Seriously, I dont know if Steve roams here on F95 or not, but please, grab this KCT system or whatever it is, and trash it. I mean it, TRASH. IT. Its literally terrible and its making the game even worse to play than already is with the bugs and the wacky, non-sense storyline. The build up for relationships... which was the best thing about this game... is god damn awful and buggy because of it. Hell, almost everything its just so sloppy made that this game gets unbearable to play, because I am never ever sure if I am going for the right path that I am aiming or not.

Example: I mean why would you be able to choose to room with a certain character if you're not specifically on her path? Imagine being building a playthrough path with a character, do all the scenes with her, but at a certain point, your KCT changes, and because of this retarded... and I cant it enough... RETARDED SYSTEM... you get out of said path! Because of WHAT? Because I'm "Loyal"?! The fuck, that doesnt even make sense! Characters shouldn't just stop liking/have feelings towards the MC because of that! You cant tell what the characters even enjoy. You will get shot down by tons of characters if they dont "enjoy" your certain KCT... AT THE MOMENT.

HOW FUN, STEVE.

After the last couple updates I decided to give this a go again, but I am just fed up with it at this point. This one's going to the trashbin until its completed and fully fixed because otherwise, its a freaking waste of time, stomping through the spagetthi code and systems to get where you're aiming to. God this is so... unsatisfying to role-playing because everything is so buggy and messy.

Games like this make me value devs taking their time to get their heads straight and provide good, functional products. Garbage like this doesnt deserve support... and it break my heart saying it because I did enjoy College Kings in the beginning, even tho its was a carbon copy of the "one who shall not be name" (which no wonder people compare it too, because the product quality its DAY and NIGHT)... but just forget it, its not worth the hassle. Save yourself the disappointment and go waste like 8 hours on something else. Until this gets fixed, if ever. I repeat, if you plan on supporting, save your money for whom actually deserves it. If not, save your time, and play something better than doesnt mock you in the face.

This game was fun at the start. It was college themed, which wasnt bad, but the fighting aspect was nice. The characters were relatively good. But now, some of them just became frustratingly unlikeable. Just an update and all of a sudden they seem to be against you because some random character says so. Add this to all the bugs that's been showing up more and more on each update and the massive amount of file space this is taking, without a reliable download source. Come on...

Let's keep this one short:

1. Bad mix of assets leads to funny and terrible looking characters.
2. Story can't keep you interested in the game more than first 20 minutes...
3. Badly written codes often leads to the game not being compatible with the next update (which in this case is horrible because this game is huge)
4. Dry animations, using a few images with some emotions, would be way better than a 2-second loop with characters looking like a fish out of the water.
5. Game size would've been much smaller with Sprites instead of Scene-Renders. I mean, there's like 6 images with the MC alone in a room from different angles each worth around 2.5MB not only that many small interactions which could have worked with 10 sprites now it's using more than 80 or more images...

I'm not trying to do this developer dirty, but it seems like he’s bitten off more than he can chew.

Better luck next time.

Review is written on version 11.0.1

For the first:
This game started great and had a lot of potential to be a great one.
The graphics are nice, why i give 2 stars.

But that's all positive for now.
After several updates, the dev added more and more bugs and doesn't even bother to remove the multiple times reported ones. The gameplay is MEH - and the storytelling is under average.
The character of the girls are not fix and they change from now to then from friendly to villant or vice versa.
There is no real continuation and everything seems just random patched together.
For me it feels like the developer has no clue what or where the story should lead and he just writes scene after scene how he feels like in that moment.

BIGGEST ISSUE:
The gamesize - for such small amount of content so far over 16 GB - i mean REALLY????
There is no reason for renders of that amount - the renders are not of such a quality each way to justify that storage consumption

Instead of listening to player's complaints, the dev is just ignorant and convinced of himself that he overlooks the simplest and basic needs and complaints.

I must admit, that when I started playing this game, I thought it was a diamond in the rough. But since roundabout half a year, the game and story somehow stopped evolving. The game started to contain bugs which amount increased and got worse, every update. Also the size of the game has gone completely wacko. As of version 11.0.1 it's 16.91 GB in size. People playing and supporting the game have been asking the dev to do something about this and the bugs, but he doesn't seem to care. In fact, he expects (future) patreons to pay for fixes, rather than fixing what they already paid for. So all in all, the game in itself had great potential, but the dev managed to screw it all up big time making the game more and more unplayable. It's a real shame, really.

I believe this is the first game in which I've bothered to rate poor. Normally if a game is bad I will just delete it and move on. I'll explain my reasons and why they can improve but need to act in the next update.

Graphics: The renders are great and will draw new players in. What I cannot understand however is why they are packed in a lossless uncompressed format. It doesn't make any sense to do this when you can reduce the size significantly by choosing a better format.

Audio: It has some sounds and music as an afterthought which is always appreciated. I don't feel it's necessary for all players but for some audience it enhances the experience.

Story: Meh, another college game with no interesting twist. The formula is tiring out slowly and there's only a few new teams that are making games in a different setting. If you like games where the MC goes from dork to chad as soon as he whips out his big cock then you will enjoy the harlem content. I don't have any complaints with this because it's personal preference.

Summary: The game comes with a small amount of entertainment but has a stupid file size that would make new players assume it is as packed full of content . I'm not impressed by the lack of structure for each update, some recent updates are a couple of scenes at most and don't expand on the story.

Every update comes with more bugs and confusing storylines with character of LI's completely ruined turning them from nice girls to whores who are done with mc after having sex with him (especially Riley) and I supported dev on patreon but realized writing a review or requesting him to work on issues which many players found irritating is of no use bcuz dev ain't gonna give a shit about the reviews . I am done supporting him from this month on.

Story is getting more confusing and their are LI whose character literally changed from good hearted to a little arrogant (riley) .
needs work on story telling and character's nature , specially riley , whose character is basically being ruined , let her be the good nice person she is

Gofile download attempted to install several malware programs. game is 18+ gigs ridiculous. Unless its packaged better with a better download source my rating will not change. Would not recommend...............

Version: 11.0.1

Playtime: Hard to determine. 3-4 hours for one playthrough but many branches.

Quick Review:

Visuals 4.5/5
Story 1/5
Characters 2/5
Gameplay 2/5
Technical 1/5

Breakdown (no spoilers):

Visuals: Overall good. The renders are high quality the models are nice and the animations are smooth (though choosing the position is weird and pointless because it plays in order anyways). If you want to be nitpicky the characters faces are almost always blank slates n ever smiling or showing much expression but still visuals is where this game shines better then 90% of games.

Story: Non existent to the point where its pretty much just sandbox now. They tease homecoming in one update and you think that will be a cute little arc and the next update homecoming just immeadtly happens and nothing about it mattered. Don't get me wrong I hate when authors draw out plot points but here everything happens and resolves instantly so it's like there is no plot. The MC goes from pledging a frat to becoming a full member in one update - one flipping update! They go from knowing nothing about fighting to kicking an elite fighters ass in half an update! There is zero progression at all in this story. There is no build up there is no tease there is no tension - there is no point to playing this game.

Characters: You have all your stereotypes the nerd the slut the jock the ex the sjw etc. Not a single originally written character and the dialogue is just uninteresting. Nobody is really interesting or worth getting to know as no one shows any depth beyond their breakfast club archetype (hehe I know the point of that movie is the opposite).

Gameplay: One of the worst in any game I've ever played. 2 Stars only because it doesn't have grind. Every choice is an exclusive choice between a girl. Not in the sense of "oh boohoo you can't go harem" but more like you have to exclusively date one girl - even if it's the slut - because she only wants to hang out with you at the exact same time as everyone else. Author has this huge file size updates with only 5 minutes of gameplay and the game is only 3 hours long because everything is locked behind another path. That's not fun. I don't want to play the same shit 10 times to experience the paths of the 7 different girls and 2 different frats and 9 different personality combinations. Maybe in 20 years when the game is complete (if its not abandoned) that sounds cool but right now it really stipples the game.

Technical: As everyone else has said the game is buggy as shit. Was subbed to patreon for one hot minute until I realized I was beign cheated to pay for a game on release only to have to wait a month for a patch to make it playable - barely.

So this one is extremely difficult for me to score.

So let's start with
The BAD.

The game is buggy, BUT not so buggy as to be unplayable making the bugs more annoying .

The UGLY
With the bugs comes a high level cool, but incomplete and therefore frustrating features like:
1) The phone messages bug that keeps on wanting you to reply on old messages.
2) The Kiwi App, that's so promising, but ultimately disappointing in the lack of use for it. The MC is on his phone all the time, but nothing happens on the Kiwi app, making it unrealistic.
3) The fighting minigame. I actually like the fighting minigame, as it's actually rooted in in a mechanic similar to fighting. (Tekken Style). BUT again buggy in some fights where the animation does not complete.
4) The whole fight night was pretty bad, with non-sensical events and skipped fights.

Apart from the above mentioned issues, the game was still pretty good.

The GOOD
Definitely inspired by one of the most famous games on this site,
The game is very ambitious.
There are lot's of content.
The pacing with the girls are good.
The decisions are very meaningful and actually makes lot of sense determining your personality(Loyal, Confident and Popular)
The girls are very pretty and non generic.
They have very distinct and consistent personalities (Feminist, conservative, popular, loyal, flirty, Friend, Friend With Benefits etc. etc.)
Not all the girls will want you and you can not get all of them.

So my conclusion (TLDR):
The game could be one of the greats, but the bugs, although not game breaking, does detract from an otherwise great game. I enjoy playing the game a lot and the bugs are something I could live with. A mild irritation that makes the game good, but not GREAT!

With all the negatives, the game is still a cut above most games. Giving it the benefit of the doubt, I give it 4 stars. I will review the game towards it end again. Hopefully it will be more polished near completion.

Man... It took me THREE (!) updates to get past that Riley/Lauren phone loop bug. Also, had to start a new game. Here is a little tip for those who stuck there as well: start a new game and try out alternative routes.

Anyways, been a fan of this project from the very first release. The novel gave me "Never Break Down" (2008) vibes. Watched the hell out of this movie when I was a kid. Everyone's in this college is into fighting and the fight king is the coolest guy to hang out with, who gets all the chicks? Count me in!

However, with few updates in, it got pretty rough. That phone thing really bugged me. I got anxious every time MC had to pick up the phone lol. The writing's pretty goofy at times as well. i.e.: When Lindsey slides her number to you, somehow she's the first one texting you. And the list goes on and on.

On the bright side, this game doesn't claim to be "the big brother". It is light, the plot is pretty interesting. A couple of girls are really cute. My favs are Chloe and Nora by far. The fact that they are polar opposites and have problems with each other, makes it even more compelling.

I've been thinking a lot on how to rate this game. It was either 2 or 3 for me.
At the end of the day, I'm pretty satisfied and enjoyed it. I'm also excited about what's coming next. So, if you're into college lifestyle/frat parties type of novels, you should definitely dig it!

Every single release is plagued with bugs, and for an 11gb download it's honestly not worth it anymore so great game, if it weren't the buggiest thing on the site. Hard to enjoy when you know it's going to be unplayable...

One destined to be one of the greats. Its also great to be in a universe where you are not the only man in a world of women !!! The fighting part ads that something extra .Great game cant wait to see where it all goes .5 STAR GAME!!!

I started with version 10.1 and I haven't had any bugs in my two playthroughs.
Great character models, good animations and scenes.
There are tons of characters. They're not all interesting, but there's something for everyone ! (and they're all smoking hot!)

The only disappointment came when I played a second time. In my first playthought I had the impression my choices really mattered (committed to Chloe almost entierely), but I realized that you can actually go after all the girls without any changes. Kinda disappointing !

Anyway, I'm looking forward the next update !