VN - Ren'Py - Crimson High [v0.34.1] [Vertigo]

I'm really glad i picked this one up, the writing is so good, no doubt one of the best written vn's on this site.

The characters look great and original, as i mentioned the writing is amazing, every character feel very different from one another with unique personalities, motivations and backstory, really make you care for them and feel connected and immersed, also really good world building overall.

Sex scenes really are far and few between, but a good amount of teasing and building up surely will make it more rewarding when we finally get there, so i can't count this as a "negative" per se. What i do hate tho is the update ending just as something big would start, like last update where it ended just before you get some resolution with orianna, fuck cliffhangers, really. But overall, a really great game, highly recommended, i couldn't recommend enough to be completely honest.

Quite a fun little story, I don't even mind that it's so linear. The girls are all adorable by default, some are just too cute for words, and while I'm slightly miffed at some of the branches the story takes or the things I WANT to do but can't ( my God, Jun has no idea how lucky her tight little butt is that I can't.... ) I still enjoy the hell out of the story and was super depressed when I saw I only had 1 hidden scene left to collect, which meant the playthrough was almost over.

I love the art, the girls are all unique and have fun personalities, the writing is well done and the music is catchy. About the only complaint I would have is too little content at this point, but maybe I'm just being horny. Again, the girls are REALLY adorable. The subtle facial expressions are especially good, the number of times I laughed out loud over an arched eyebrow or a shocked expression is too numerous to count.

Hopefully one day I'll get my dream-team threesome with Okami and Claws, but until then this is still a great little game to sink a few hours into and wait for the rest.

I’ve written some lengthy and very in-depth reviews on this site before. This will not be one of those reviews.

This game is challenging in all the worst ways. It's not complicated; you don't need to be super attentive. There isn’t a gameplay loop that you need to master (it’s basically a kinetic novel). Rather, it challenges your basic human ability to stay awake.

I’ve played some truly awful games from this site. Games with terrible grammar and spelling. Games with awful, flat characters that serve no purpose except fetish-bait. Games with writing that make your eyes roll into the back of your head and your teeth grit. Just some abhorrent, low effort stuff.

I almost prefer those games to this one. At least those games are transparent wastes of time. This game almost baits you into thinking it’s good before you realize that, no, it’s just as bad as the worst games on the site, only differing in execution.

The writing in this game is perhaps the most heinous example of self-indulgence I’ve ever seen. The developer must love the sound of their keyboard, because I’ve never seen so many scenes that just drag on… and on… and on.. and on…

There’s zero substance or subtlety to their writing. Show don’t tell? Must be a foreign concept. Don’t treat your audience like an idiot? Skipped that day in screenwriting class. Subtext? Never heard of her. Edit the dialogue down to a reasonable length? No way! The audience needs to digest every bit of pointless verbal diarrhea and word salad.

What you’re left with is a dozen slides of painful dialogue, a dumbass MC who takes 7 slides to explain the obvious, 2 more slides of painfully unfunny fourth-wall breaking jokes, then 3 more slides of anime girl tropes instead of character development. Whereas a talented writer can probably express the entire thing in maybe 4 lines of well-written dialogue. So instead of getting crispy dialogue that leaves us wanting more, we get 25 clicks of RSI so they can indulge in the most obvious and formulaic of scenes.

And it goes on for chapter after chapter. Sprinkle in your cheap end-of-chapter cliffhanger (like clockwork), and your bait-and-switch lewd scene (didn’t you get the memo, it’s a “slow burn”), and get me out of this anime hell.

Don’t get me wrong, writing good dialogue is hard. It’s always a tricky balance to make the characters feel real and natural while paring down scenes to their narrative essentials. But the absolute last thing you want to do is try to capture every single word and sound that comes out of everyone’s mouths, along with every stray thought, and then tack on every stray trope or joke just because you as the writer can’t resist. That’s why in every Screenwriting 101 class, one of the first lessons is don’t try to transcribe full conversations. You use dialogue to tell a story, and that includes knowing when, as the writer, to shut the fuck up.

The developer of this game never learned that lesson, and everyone who plays this game has to suffer for it.

Copied from my comment on itch.io so please excuse the perspective.
"
I've just caught up with the latest update and I've fell in love with the lore you're building. I've not been this intrigued with a story in a while. It's very odd to play a lewd VN and be gripped by the lore more than the characters. Not to do your characters a disservice, they're really well written with consistency in their traits and personalities as well as the design of each being distinct and immediately recognisable.
Often lewd VNs fall back on their lewd scenarios because they have to, I love that your lewd scenes are used as a vehicle to progress the story further.
The mystery behind everything is so gripping.
My only semi complaint is that sometimes when the wee space hamsters pop up in steamy or impactful scenes it takes me out of the moment a little. but getting to find them in funny places or scenarios is so cute that I find it very hard to stay mad at them.
Please keep up the fantastic work.

PS. Copying the binary to get "beep boop very edgy" had be giggling very hard. "

Crimson High
Version: 0.17.1
Type: Story
Content: Quite a Bit
Pacing: Slow - Steady
Plot line: Main Charm of the Game - Detective - School Murder - Myths - Hidden Society : Non-humans - Discovering Hidden Society

Character Models: Really Good
Personalities: Shy - Cute - Bold - Weird but Wise - Tease - etc.

Music: Really Good
Animation: Really Good

Notes: Not that many H-scenes yet as there is heavy focus on the plot line
Thoughts: Those who enjoy the journey before third base will really like this. I would give 4.5 starts atm.

The game definitely deserves 5-star rating as of now, might be subject to change in the future depending on how the writing goes.

For starters, I personally really appreciate the slow burn the dev is going for and it's one of the points which game the game stand out. The character development has a lot of dialogue, but really focuses on the intricacies of their personality. Every trait is highlighted and every bit of dialogue counts.
The characters themselves have also been given very distinguishable personalities and there's a wide variety of them.
Aki is hot, Miko is cute, Suzu makes you want to protect her at all costs, Jun is adorable and Mana and Kagome are a joy whenever they come around in the story.

As of now, the game doesn't have many H-scenes which I kind of don't appreciate, but as much as I want to hate the game for it, the story elements overtake that requirement for the time being. I was personally really looking forward to Aki's advances since she happens to be my favourite character from the series, and the buildup to her "date" and the aftermath of it although left me high and dry, did create an initiative to think more about the characters' backgrounds and where they come from and what state of mind someone would be in their shoes.

As for the protagonist of the game, I have mixed feelings about the way the character proceeds with the situations sometimes but those are just due to me putting myself into first-person perspective and not keeping in mind where the dev wants to go with the story.

For the gameplay, it's as simple as a VN could get. Although, the hamsters for the hidden CGs are unnecessarily hard to spot and generally you'll always be running the hints since it's next to impossible to spot them otherwise in certain scenes especially those with visually dark settings.

I eagerly look forward to seeing where the story goes since the game definitely has a lot of potential.

To be honest I'm not really sure why this game is getting so many 5 star ratings. I've been watching / playing this game for awhile and am disappointed with the whole "slow burn" when it comes to the h-scenes. I know the dev wants a build up of the storylines, but with the lack of any real good h-scenes it's kind of boring. The inner monologue of the MC... I have no words to describe it without going on a rant. Way too much dialogue and no real h-scenes in my opinion justifies a low rating. Maybe in another 2 to 3 years there might be decent "sexy" stuff to give it a higher ratintg.

I like the different girls and their personalities, but with the MC being completely clueless with a lot of stuff, and lack of "adult" things, it's just an average game at this point. I'm sure it's not easy making a VN, and I've seen my fair share of really good games just falling off the deep end with the devs just making minimal effort. I'm not saying this is what will happen with Crimson High, but at the rate of somewhat lackluster updates since I played it more than a year ago or more, I won't hold my breath on this one.

Less inner monologue and better in-depth storylines for the girls could make this a really great game. Hopefully in the future the sex scenes will actually be worth watching instead of just fast clicking through the dialogue to get through them as fast as possible.

A must play VN. Great graphics, story, characters are interesting, MC is not only good looking but very intelligent, well written. The girls are believable, cute, tons of different personalities and the way it handles everything makes you hold onto the edge of your seat.

10/10 Plot,
7/10 "Plot"
If youre looking for something to substitute nhentai, no. If you want to be edging for 5 Hours, Yes. If you want to read an intriguing story by an adorable asshat who puts cliffhangers on every god damn update, Yes.

Giving it 5 stars for now. The character models definitely look way better than most koikatsu games, the characters are all decently interesting and unique enough, but I do wonder where a large majority of their development is planned to go, some already feel like they've peaked. I've heard the updates aren't super substantial so I might drop this to a 4 in the future if that's the case, but I only just recently played it and enjoyed what I did play

Edited at 0.31: Dropping it to 3 stars. The story is moving at a glacial pace and it's very odd how so much has happened within 11 days while also seeming like nothing has happened at the same time. The art is carrying this game, as there are still hardly any H-scenes OR worthwhile story updates that actually go anywhere.

I had a wonderful time.

Very interesting and incredibly engaging story.
The characters just wow, as always some better others worse, but even the ones I didn't like have an interesting and deep "past" and story to tell.
Graphically refined in every detail, I don't know how exactly the modeling of these characters works, but their emotions are wonderful, one of the few games where every click of the mouse forces you to look at the faces of the interlocutors and see if anything has changed.
The music is on point every time.

One more time thank you for a great "adventure" and wish you the best of luck in developing the game further.
ps.
The next game I check out will also be from you, good way with showing your other project on "TV"

This game is very good I was incredibly surprised by how much I love the story, the characters, and everything else. I mean for me it’s nostalgic with the art, and I could not help feeling a lot like I did when I played snow Sakura. Not that the stories are similar at all, but that the build up and getting to know each of the girls in a meaningful way. I’ll take a good story over a quick fap any day of the week. Each character is unique and has their own quirks. Not the typical jump into bed after five seconds of meeting. I was almost sad when I came to the end and did not want to stop playing and learning more. The main character is also actually a nice and believable person. I can actually relate to the main character and thought the way he comes to learn things to be believable too.

overall this is a very good game and I cannot wait to see where this goes. Definitely a creator to support.

Crimson High is excellent. Good soundtrack, good writing for an indie Visual Novel (not the best I've seen, but it's up there). It helps that the author knows how to write a mystery novel - there's enough that you can easily piece together and figure it out yourself, but there's also quite a bit that is a mystery even with the outsider knowledge being a reader allots us, and that you can't reasonably guess. The character cast is nice and diverse, with a nice dash of personal mysteries to each of the girls.

The MC is surprisingly decently written - he can come off as a bit of an idiot at times, perhaps too slow for a mystery VN main character, but that is understandable and the writing helps put you into the mindset that the only reason you as the reader can piece some mysteries together or find things out this quickly is mostly because you've the privilege of reading this knowing it's a sci-fi, imaginary work. If these things happened in real life anyone would be hard pressed to actually believe the existence of these things even when they're plastered on our faces, which makes the MC feel a bit less stupid. His willingness to accept it is perhaps a bit too fast though.

Good soundtracks to set the mood, and decent to good artwork (dude has a head that is too small for his frame in most of the shots though). The choices and flags feel nice to play around with and tend to become relevant in weird ways later on, which I particularly liked.

The VN loses points on one particular issue which I found a bit jarring and it's small pieces of the author trying to be quirky or funny or breaking the fourth wall that just don't sit right with me. Suzu doesn't need to say "At first I was afraid; I was petrified" while both she and the MC stare at the screen for exactly one line of dialogue right after telling me about her long and traumatic backstory that involves at least 3 different murders + homelessness. Come on, man. Other weird points like these were also sprinkled around, but this one particularly stuck out to me as being the most jarring; perhaps it's the author's way of trying to put some humor into the scene, but for me, it just falls flat and brings the quality of the whole scene and dialogue down.

Other than these points though, the VN is a very good read throughout, and definitely recommended.

Waited to dive into this one until 0.16.1, wanting there to be some real meat to it. Was not disappointed; despite misgivings about more supernatural aspects that popped up early on, the broad cast helped weave them into the narrative proper. Smaller animations are used to inject a bit of vibrancy to the characters where lesser games would call it good with nothing but static images, and even the more rote of characters are conveyed with just enough realism or sincerity to win you over.

At present, giving this one top marks. Suzu best girl, Jun best koala and goddamn those sneaky space hamsters are like the ninjas of the h-game world.

Crimson High is a VN about a totally normal human and the cute not-so monster girls he interacts with at Crimson High.

As a warning, it's not the type of game you should play for the sex. Crimson High leans much more aggressively into the mystery and psychological horror genres rather than pure smut. While sex and nudity does feature, it has been rare so far.

While the game is nominally a VN, don't expect much in the way of choices. There are occasional decisions to be made, but they're generally right or wrong decisions relating to getting close to the various girls in the game. There's nothing that determines the path of the game, or I missed it.

Nevertheless, I have greatly enjoyed the story and characters so far. While there are a few facts I feel like the MC is carrying an idiot ball on, the events which have occurred range between fun, dramatic, wholesome, and dark.

The characters are generally fun, with personalities deeper than your typical stereotypical harem girls. I personally get strong little sister vibes from the majority of them between their general youthfulness and the slight age gap with the protagonist. I'm honestly pleased that romance has been slow, because I'm worried it might feel a little squicky. Still, this is my personal feeling... and I'm getting the impression the MC might not have a choice anyway.

Anyway, between a good story, good characters, and more than good enough renders, I can easily recommend this game. While it might not be what everyone is looking for on a sex games site, it's a fun play in my opinion. I'm looking forward to more.

I love the game,a lot of nice characters especially Nagisa and Nene.
I also like a lot the small changes of expressions and what happens in the background as it makes it feel more alive.
The plot is also pretty good and the MC is very likeable.
Anyways 10/10 would recommend,if I wasn't as broke as I am right now I would definitely pledge on patreon.

Cute NPCs with interesting personalities/quirks, an MC who isn't an asshat, a refreshing take on mythical beings living among us, and enough mystery to keep it interesting. Some of the updates near the beginning were a little light, but nowadays things are moving along in interesting directions with every update. I'm glad I've been following this game, and I will continue. If I was in a position to patronize the game, I would. If they needed any text editing, I'd provide it gratis.

Having continued to play this vn through many updates, it continues to hold my attention. I continue to find it interesting, entertaining, and satisfying. The lack of H scenes is hardly noticeable with the engaging characters and intriguing storytelling.

Just a very good AVN. Characters are well constructed, with a nice over arching main story that keeps you interested. A bit heavy on the cliff hangers with each update, but somewhat expected from something still in development. The update timing has been consistent with about 1 month between releases, with each update roughly adding around 3 hours of gameplay depending on your reading speed.

Shows great promise going forward and everything already done is amazing.

Edit 2: Version 21.2
I honestly kept downloading updates after my last update and just refused to read them for a while before reading them one at a time yesterday to see if the way it's written changed at any point.
Rating up to 3 stars because the story seems to actually be trying to progress at this point but pretty much all of my other complaints still stand, the only one I can't verify is the lying about update length complaint from my original review as the word count bits seem to have been removed from the discord entirely, including old ones, in favor of a percent system on an image.
The progress tracker in the second link I posted is still clickable though and wasn't my own file, which prompted me to test and learn discord keeps images even if they're deleted for some reason and they can be accessed by anyone with the link.

Idk why I haven't gotten to this yet BUT here we go.

Story: 10/10
Okay so, Vertigo is a houdini when it comes to writing. That's also an absolute understatement. The story from the start immediately hooks you, because it starts off with a mystery. The WHODUNIT, if you will. Then continues to include more and more mysteries, while crumb feeding you the answers as to keep you hooked. ALL THE WHILE ADDING EVEN MORE MYSTERIES. The characters are all absolutely precious, which, isn't an easy thing to do without making some "carbon copies" so to speak, but none of them have any overlapping character traits which to me is absolutely wild considering just how many characters there actually are. Out of ALL the vns I've played, this game actually has some of my absolute favorites.

Renders and animation: 10/10
Everything has been done flawlessly here. Haven't seen any weird clipping or anything, which means he takes his time even doing renders, which is wild to me but I love it. Someone that takes their time and makes sure things are visually appealing and nothing's out of place (except the space hamsters lol)

Music: Everything in the game fits which means no complaints from me. Mood and all. I especially love the sound effects on the menu screen too. I always get at least 5 minutes of "wow" every time I start up a new update. Overall, there's nothing I could really nitpick other than cliffhangers, but he's gotta leave you looking forward to more so there's really nothing that can be done on that front lol.

This is a great vn and I love it, and I love that it actually focuses on the story and the characters story more than the smut. I know that it's an AVN but at the end of the day, I play these for the story and atmosphere more than anything, and even the sex animations are done flawlessly.

Edit:

A year later and things continue to only get better. Vertigo has greatly improved on character renders, storytelling and weaving stories together, and overall quality of the already good story. It's a bit of a slowburn as far as lewd stuff goes, but the quantity is certainly there. There's so much content to explore, and so many stories to put together and the world's really emotive, and I love that.