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

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!

Fantastic. Fresh plot, very well written for a AVN, unique character voices, and a ton of content. So the graphics might not be the best - who cares? This VN is actually going places.


For those who prefer story oriented VNs, this is a good one. Not a great one for those who want latest graphics and a fuckfest

SPOILER ALERT IF YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED THE GAME

I'm going to start by saying this game is not perfect. Far from it.
"So why the five-stars?"
Because even with its flaws, I still enjoyed the heck out of playing it. Idk how I've only discovered this a few days ago, or maybe I did find it a long time ago but didn't give it a chance. Either way, I'm glad I did because it's become one of my favorite games here.

The sex scenes, first and foremost, well... Would I like to have more with the main girls? Yeah. Absolutely.
(And by sex scenes I mean penetration, lovemaking, penis in vagina, and not HJs, BJs, etc.)

I just finished this game like a couple days ago, but IIRC, the MC had only have sex with one main girl, and that is Noel. I don't count Amy, not really, because until only a certain chapter, she was not one of the main girls. But if you do count her, then I guess she's on the list too. Another one I consider one of the main girls is Clara. While I understand the hesitation.... it's a porn game. Why are they still not doing it? They'd come very close, but yet again, nah. It's getting old at this point. And considering how we ended chapter 11... it's gonna be a long wait.

With that being said, I enjoyed playing through all of it, and tbh, I didn't really care much for the sex scenes in the game. But it's still nice to have them, because I'm a hopeless romantic and when it finally happened with Noel, I cheered irl. We're so starved for that kind of sex in the game, seriously
Almost forgot about Cia. MC had sex with her first before Clara bro istg
Don't get me wrong, I love her. She's one of us now, so you know, don't take her away. Please. But it's just so funny

I do have another complaint here about one of the scenes. Actually, make it scenes with a red-haired... girl and her companion. With the new update, it finally gave the MC the option to not be dominated by her, but in her previous one there was no choice at all, and the same thing also happened with her companion's scene. I understand some people like femdom content, I just wish there was an option for us non-enjoyers of it to have an alternative scene whether it's a neutral, or maledom. I get that it's probably to show her character, of who she is, and that's why it's femdom, but still, not a fan of it.

The story itself, honestly, is the main reason why I love the game. Well, that and the character interactions.
Is it perfect? No.
Do I scratch my head sometimes from it? Yeah.
Does it make me enjoy it less? Well... kinda. But it's still a fun story to read through, and , I'm already looking forward for more.

One thing that I do find kind of... disappointing.
Claire.
After the end of season 1, with a heavy heart, I'd accepted she was going to be the next antagonist. I was preparing myself to have to take her down, eventually. Then I got to season 2 and... um... that's kind of got scrapped so far? You have the option to still be by her side or completely cut her out of your life. Initially, I went with the latter path. Then after taking the tour around the building, we were given a second chance to change our minds about her, which is a nice touch, I like that. And I did change my mind. I want to see what happens if we do, and I'm glad you decided to make MC tell her that if she ever does something morally wrong again, he's going to stop her. Good! I thought he'd just let her do her thing again and just support her with a side of grumbling instead. I'm glad it's going that way in that path. But it also kind of makes me disappointed, because it feels like it's only done because, idk, I'm guessing here, maybe the dev got a lot of backlash for making her be... well, living up to her name,I guess, so that's how we end up here with her. I could be totally wrong btw, so could easily ignore that part If I was.

TL;DR, while I'm glad that the new antagonist is not her, kinda sad about the potential that was missed from not going that route. And who knows, maybe we are still going there after the mess with this current antagonist is over.

I've yapped too long. I wasn't planning to write this long goddamn review when I decided to do it, but eh, thought this game deserved more than just, "good game. I like it."

Good game. Could do with some improvements. But I'm already having fun with it. Could be even better though.

**Version reviewed:** Season 2 - Chapter 11

**General**
[x] Excellent
[ ] Good
[ ] Okay
[ ] Poor
[ ] Trash

**Story**
[ ] Deep / Emotional
[x] Decent / Engaging
[ ] Meh / Generic
[ ] Weak / Uninspired
[ ] None / Just Lewds

**Characters**
[x] Memorable & Unique
[ ] Likeable
[ ] Average
[ ] Forgettable
[ ] Annoying

**Choices**
[x] Real Impact / Multiple Routes
[ ] Somewhat Meaningful
[ ] Cosmetic Only
[ ] Linear with Minor Branches
[ ] Kinetic VN (No Choices)

**Lewd Content**
[ ] Frequent + High Quality
[x] Balanced & Earned
[ ] Sparse
[ ] Rushed / Low Effort
[ ] None

**Visuals**
[ ] Top Tier
[x] Good / Stylish
[ ] Mixed
[ ] Poor / Inconsistent
[ ] Unappealing

**Audio**
[ ] Great Music & Voice
[x] Decent / Fitting
[ ] Basic / Forgettable
[ ] None / Muted
[ ] Distracting / Bad

⚙ **UI & Polish**
[x] Smooth & Bug-Free
[ ] Minor Issues
[ ] Clunky or Laggy
[ ] Broken or Unusable
[ ] Unintuitive / Confusing

⏳ **Pacing**
[x] Well-Balanced
[ ] Slow Start
[ ] Too Fast / Rushed
[ ] Dragged / Filler Heavy
[ ] Incoherent / All Over

**Recommend?**
[x] Absolutely
[ ] Yes
[ ] Maybe
[ ] No
[ ] Avoid

Incredibly well-written story. The characters have well-developed backgrounds and are genuinely engaging. It leans more toward being a story-driven experience than a scene-focused one, but the scenes that are included are high quality. Definitely ranks in my top 10 AVNs of all time.

Oh boy. This is an interesting one to rate.

Pros:
-The concept for the plot is interesting.
-It has a very anime inspired storyline and progression, so If you tend to be a fan of anime, you will probably enjoy it.
-The character designs for the female characters are attractive and have a decent amount of variety.
-Renders are decent but not amazing.
-There is a decent amount of sexual content, so if you came to fap, you might have an alright time.
-Some of the combat animations are pretty cool.

Cons:
-The plot is currently full of holes, and not really executed all that well. There are several instances where if characters behaved in a realistic way, the story would have turned out differently.
-Anime storyline.
-Male character models are absolute trash. The MC especially looks like he came straight out of a TEMU k-pop band, and most Males just use the same model with different hair and clothes.
-Up until the last chapter, the sex animations are absolutely horrible. Clipping, weird jittering during "orgasm," unrealistic posing, absolutely weird things like flicking a girls pussy for some reason.
-The writing is not localized well. While it's not broken english, the wrong words or phrasing are often used, and the writing in general has that weird overly descriptive japanese vibe.
-MC has absolutely no charisma, but all the girls want to have sex with him for some reason. Then when they do, the vast majority of the sexual content is just weird and uncomfortable as if it was written by someone who has never had sex and has no idea how a normal person approaches foreplay or sex in general.
-Maledom isn't remotely actually dominant, it's someone who has no idea what being dominant thinks it might be. It's just weird.
-Sexual content rarely comes about organically, it just seems to be inserted whenever there seems to be a spot to shove it in.

Overall, it's just average. There is enough potential with the story that it could actually be really good if it was given an overhaul to up the overall quality. i.e. better dialogue, plugging plot holes, replacing male character models, and redoing animations.

As it stands now, it's worth a playthrough if you're bored waiting for a better game to get an update, but not much else.

It's been a long while since I've given a popular game a chance, and lo and behold. Yet another one of these...


Another one of these? What am I even on about?
Yet another pitiful... no... in this case, truly pathetic protagonist.
Instead of improving, or well, doing anything efficient, he just accepted that he is strong(-est) and goes on with that.

I have no slightest idea why or how he keeps winning outside of plot armor. As even any prepared opponent with decent strategic skills would be capable of tearing him apart, but nah, plot armor.

Anyways, even despite being a wimp, women keep throwing themselves at him.


Outside of the plot, characters and the one and only cardboard cutout of the protagonist.

The audio is decent with thematic music, which is nice.
For graphics, standard HS2 provides good scenery. Some people hate it, some people love it, I personally love it.

As for the erotica part of this game... lackluster.


I can't in my right mind give this game 1/5 due to how much effort has been put into this game, and anything about 2 just feels undeserved.

5/10 -> 3 stars being generous

I've played until the beginning of chapter 5.
I had started losing interest earlier, but I wanted to continue, as I was curious about the story. Even that didn't get me past ch 5.

For an erotic visual novel, the story is above average.
However, to me, this is not really a fap game, at all.
The porn scenes are the least appealing part of the game, I ended up clicking past them at speed.
For erotic games, I have a reduced expectation for the story and plot. This game is above my average expectation for such.
But as I cannot see this as such a game, my story and plot expectations revert to normal non-erotic - and here this visual novel does not compete successfully.

Positive:
- story and plot (for a fap game)
- music and sound effects

Negative:
- story and plot (for a non-erotic visual novel)
- some story developments and world building elements are too constructed, too artificial.
- many scene and background renders are at most average quality.
- character renders are at most average quality.
- most characters look way too young for my tastes (to be fair, they are clearly adults as per story)
- animated sex scenes are uninspired and at most of average quality.

Excellent VN, one of the best on the site, it's now my second favorite after Cosy Cafe and, like Cosy Cafe, I immediately went and subbed to the patreon upon completion. So far all the LI's are great. Clara is cute and helping her come out of her shell felt rewarding, Amy is fun especially later when she reappears. For me though the best two girls are Noel and Blake, I like them a lot. Blake is the reason I decided to go full on Brotherhood.

Thanks for a great game dev, excited for more. Hopefully that extra 5 bucks a month helps with the development of the game!

Always appreciate a game with a good story. images and animations are well made. Good work

(extra words here because i cannot submit without a longer message. extra words here because i cannot submit without a longer message)