VN - Ren'Py - Companion of Darkness [S2 Ch.11] [Berkili4]

I loved Companion of Darkness. I thought story is too good and exciting, I have not much cared for LIs Or sex scenes. But, gradually, along with story, LIs starting impressive, especially Noel (my best LI ever). The total episode of she gone missing and we get to reunion with her is fully emotional and the reunion sex scene is one of the best vanilla love scene ever. And the sex scenes also have improved quite well in quality, duration and also lewd writing too. One of the longest lewd animations I seen in AVNs after Badik.

easily in my top 5 avn of all time, especially if you like fantasy and supernatural themes you are in for a treat, one fo the few avn i cannot stop reading and the characters are unique and very human

While it feels kinda all over the place sometimes and has a bunch of plotholes, this still is one of the better fantasy VNs story-wise. This and some great looking LIs are definetely the best parts of this game.

The gameplay and character writing are pretty bad tbh. Apart from one LI there is no progression, tension or anything. Most girls just like the MC from the start without any reason, which is also reflected in the gameplay: in the entire first season, there is not one choice with real consequences. You are constantly on every girls path and can basically only choose if you want to see a certain scene or not, which is really unengaging.

The worst part is the MC, he is just so f*cking weird, why anyone of the characters would like him is beyond me. Literally completely soulless, not nice, not funny not any good character trait. This makes moments where other characters, some that I actually think are great (like Rule-B), sacrifice everything for him or proclaim their undying love just feel stupid.

10/10 one of the best AVNs, literally i was really sceptical with COD, because of earlier chapters, school etc. But after that my jaw flew away with how insanely good this game story-wise.
And it becomes even better with every new chapter.
Li - insanely good,
Story - as i said earlier is mind-blowing
Animations - meh at first chapters, but in later chapters they become much better. And H-scenes in season 2 is leagues ahead almost every other AVN.
World building - holly molly - its too good for AVN, hell, its on level of top Novels (not AVN).
Humor - extremely good.
10 out of 10. Masterpiece

Fantastic game!!, love the story even tho i have to carefully and slowly read it since my english isnt good at all. and the plot regarding the origin of the dark one, primordial etc can be confusing as hell.
Unfortunately the renders and animation isnt something special in current time and it can boost the popularity if it was, but still one of my favorite developer also didnt have a good renders and animation on his first game. so this game still deserved a 5 star ratings despite all the flaws imo.
Best of luck to the devs hope the game can get more support with how good the story is.

The first season, in particular chapters 1-7ish are brilliant, 4 to 4 1/2 stars, everything looks great, the story is fantastic and the sex scenes are fantastic, where you choose every time what you want, in a way that I hadn't seen before in another AVN. You can cut down some of the cast, so it's easy to get rid of Clara and Jacky to make things more manageable. There's also some bad ending options that are always great to see. However the end of the first season and the second season, chapters 8-11, everything starts to go downhill; being depressing, slow and a boring 2 stars. All the fun went out of this VN as soon as Arsa stopped being in it so much. It's become a turgid tale about a pointless war, discussing the morals of what's right and wrong. Who cares, this is an AVN, not a lecture, where's the fun, sex scenes gone. Added to this the MC is in love with Noel and only has eyes for her, to the point where they just stare at each other longingly. FFS, even when you get to a sex scene in season 2, it's short, declared pointless and meaningless, being stated "as it not with Noel" - urggh where's the sick bag. Why? As a reader I don't think it's pointless. As a reader I'm not in love with Noel. I don't mind her but she's one of my least favourite characters in this VN. I would have chosen Arsa as my companion, given the choice. At least she's fun and we can end this lovey dovey crap! The VN has lost it way from a gripping page turner, to I'm not sure I can stomach reading on. My advice, just read season 1 until the end of the fight with Az and close the book and you will get a 4 1/2 star VN.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story and world building. One of the better games that I've played on the forum.

The only negative that I will give it is that, I haven't played the update in about a year and half, so basically the end of season 1. Either I went through this too quickly or it felt really short. Besides that's I'm fine with it and I want MORE!!!

I'm just shocked by how well-written this VN is. This is what Fate Stay Night would have been if instead of a tropey anime, it was an engrossing, adult (in more ways than just "eroge"), hilarious, heartfelt exercise in world building and character development.

If you had told me even a couple years ago that the absolute best writing - by a light year - in escapist entertainment, could be found in the genre of Amateur Western Eroge, I'd think you were a gooner in denial. Today I know better.

Arsa is best girl!

ch.1-ch.11 review

+ Models and character design are great!
+ Interesting setting

- Animations are horrible
- You are not an MC, but rather a side character
- Story is obvious, because most of plot twists you may predict long before they will actually happen
- Sex scenes are soulless, it's like "lets fuck!" and this is it
- All characters are flat. No backstory, no emotions, nothing.

Conclusion: I leave 3/5 only because of original setting. If you're bored and want to play something just to kill time, try this novel

Companions of darkness is easily amongst the tier of BADIK and Eternum.

It's a very story-heavy game with great sex scenes sprinkled throughout.

If you're into things like Jojo or Shaman King, then this game will be up your alley.

story really catches you quick and then you can't stop and wonder when the next update is finally going to come out (which would be chapter 12 now, but with how ham the animations are going (in the best way possible) in the latest chapters it might take a while unfortunately)

Possibly one of the best not only AVNs, but VNs of all time. The story is exciting and the lore is deep. I'm honestly considering supporting this game on Patreon while broke AF haha. Play this game already.

It's the kind of game that takes time for you to warm up to in my personal opinion. Review for S2 Ch.11:

Companion of Darkness is about the main character being capable of breaking the typical rules of magical contracts between humans and Dark Ones (demons). He manages to always somehow find himself in trouble protecting and caring for the people he loves. Multiple factions play this tug of war trying to gain control and authority over all the Companions (Contractors) and their demons. Along the way, he finds out that people around him are also deeply involved with this underlying magical side of society.

The characters are memorable for the most part. The antagonists are a little typical and boring to be honest. The LIs are pretty nice. I think that the dev sort of found a good balance of characters to revolve around by the time of the second season's release. My favorites being Amy, Noel, Cia, and Emma. I think that if the game added more, it could feel like too many characters to handle and would detract from the overall main plot. The primary reason Amy, Noel, and Cia work so well is because they're always with the MC and the story can always sneak in screen time to develop their personalities and relationships with one another. The "main crew" if that makes sense.

The art and animation aren't amazing. They get better over time, I suppose. As with most games, the dev slowly finds the sort of style they're trying for after multiple updates. Gradual improvement is pretty on point here. I think the animations for the battle scenes are very mediocre. If I'm being honest, they're not exactly "animations", but slide shows that can look a little silly at times. It feels like MC is using his telekinesis powers to ragdoll enemies around. The animations for sex scenes are serviceable and see a lot of improvements in the later updates.

Don't go in with huge expectations. The story and writing can feel very "anime". I wasn't expecting god-tier story, but it was sort of neat later in the middle updates. I think that the best part of the story is that it never goes into 5 different directions at once and tries to be something it's not. The MC has clear goals and it's pretty impressive that the author doesn't get off-track at nearly any point. I would rather have a middling VN that knows what it wants to be, than a highly polished turd of a VN that doesn't really have any meat to it's story.

Version Season 1 Chapter 9

Intense modern fantasy story that goes beyond the usual fighting against evil or harvesting sex energy for Succubus. There are still elements of that in COD, but the focus is primarily around MC's relationship with the people around him and how he navigates a hostile environment.

COD also features many action / fight sequences which are done reasonably well given the constraints of an AVN and RenPy engine, definitely beats reading a WOT with static background and character pose.

Story
After recovering from an earlier trauma, MC heads back to school and begin his life anew when he witnesses a fight between supernatural beings. One thing leads to another, he gets bonded as a Companion to a Dark One, Noel, securing supernatural powers.

The lore of the Dark Ones is well structured and I like that world building is paced evenly with nuggets of information revealed to players along the way as and when the story needs it, i.e. no awkward info dump at the start.

The first few chapters might give an impression COD follows a standard RPG format where MC forms a growing party of many female Companions of Dark Ones to go on an adventure, but delightfully this is not the case. The story features multiple twists and turns along the way.

Game Mechanics
AVN with choices that either allow you to reject certain sex scenes, earn points with LIs or skip interesting codex type information.

Background / Character Renders
Backgrounds are mostly stock HS assets with some customizations that works. Character designs are varied with highly distinguishable and attractive human and Dark One LIs.

Point of note is the developer actually brings out many male characters important to the story. No cutting corners like coloured shadows or blurred out backgrounds with third party narration just because they are not fuckable characters.

Character Development
Highly competent in this department - MC has a troubled past which is hinted early but details only revealed much later in the game. It is interesting to see how his bond with Noel gradually develops into love and even his brotherly love with Gabriel is a nice touch without being gay.

Nael is another well-crafted character, fun to witness how she behaves differently between MC and Gabriel while alternating between being a loving sister / girlfriend to brutal terminator.

Credit also goes to some other characters like Arsa and Eda who provide most of the humour and not to mention the comically unlucky antagonist Horsemen trio. On the whole the way both major and minor characters are sculpted in COD is a departure from the usual tropes and refreshing.

Sex Scenes
Quite a good number of them and all come with decent animations, lewd dialogue backdrops and appropriate BGMs. I would classify them as somewhere between average and good depending on your preferences.

A couple of scenes offer an option to select a maledom or femdom approach which is a nice touch. Only thing I would comment on would be if sound effects can be added in the future, that would be perfect icing on the cake.

I suspect the last lewd scene with Noel in Season 1 is done by a different animator as the quality sky rockets significantly in areas like camera angling, lighting and facial expressions. Whatever the case, I hope future scenes in Season 2 onwards can maintain or even exceed what we see at the end of Season 1.

BGM and Sound Effects
BGMs are ok and do their job, the track "What is Love" used in selected love making scenes with Noel and Amy is emotionally intensive and drives home the passion.

There're quite a bit of sound effects on magic and action sequence scenes which certainly helps in the overall immersion.

Conclusion
COD is a game that takes time to warm up - it starts off like a typical unimaginative succubus cum slice of life story in a school and takes a few chapters to fully warm up and get into groove.

Once past the surface, players will discover a much-enriched story world populated by a gamut of varied characters each playing a role to build the game into something more. It starts off somewhat lacklustre but consistently improves along the way.

I'm not one for leaving reviews, but I have to on this one.

The H scenes are at just about the right pacing to leave room for the incredible world building and character development. Honestly, the dev has done a wonderful job with this one. And there are fun easter egg references to other games!

Recently discovered this AVN and found the storyline kept me captivated from the very beginning to the current endpoint (end of chapter 11). There's a good amount of content, the story progression keeps ticking along at a good pace throughout .

The scenes and animations are good, and I found there's a good variety of characters. Looking forward to seeing how this progresses in future updates.

Stands out as a benchmark in the adult visual novel genre, blending mature storytelling, memorable characters, and visually stunning animation into an emotionally gripping experience. From start, it offers much more than fan service.

This VN is perhaps the best one i've had the pleasure of playing through. The scenes are extremely fluid. The plot is *chef's kiss*. The story is so well done i forget t hat it's supposed to be an adult visual novel. The characters have their own personalities, motivations etc. IMO this is one of the top 5 VN's on this site!

**Arsa is best girl**

This game is just excellent!
I love the plot very much tho some caption need fixing because of jumbled sentences but it's bearable.
And I love the fight scene it's just epic !
Absolute cinema ✋!
And intimate scene's also very good, have better animation in the latest update.
Can't wait for the next chap.

Why does one need to play 10 lemon of VN before finding masterpieces like this?
There's very few VNs that have gotten me this hooked for a straight month. Seriously. I have not been able to read anything else before finishing this up until chapter 10.
One of those VNs I feel very early in the project that this is one of those to support. And I am a person that can only afford to support 1 or 2 VNs at once.
In fact, when I went to sub on Patreon, I saw that the new chapter is releasing already. Abolute legend this dev. Consider supporting too please!