VN - Ren'Py - Crimson High [v0.38.1] [Vertigo]

When a Ren'py game running mostly basic Koikatsu models pops up on this site with cute characters, I download it and expect to just kinda take a break from real life for a bit. If it opens up with some intro text proclaiming itself a slow burn for people who want a "good story", alarm bells start going off. That's usually an excuse you find on a game made by somebody who's gonna end up ripping people off on patreon as their characters are still holding hands two years into development as they report armageddon has unleashed itself upon their lives, causing slower and slower updates with less and less content. So when I downloaded this game, I booted it up, saw the content warnings, saw the intro text, got to the central focus being about a murder and... I closed it. A few hours later, I opened it back up out of boredom and not being able to find something else to do at the moment.

13 hours later, it is 7 AM the next day and I have completed all of the content.

Now I'm not going to say this is a masterpiece, I'm a stingy asshole who doesn't even say that about shit I've enjoyed for far, far more time. What I will say is that this is potentially the best example of a story that keeps a handle on its scope. The author clearly planned this shit out to a solid degree ahead of time and it absolutely pays off as you go through the story. Somehow, in a cast of ~30 characters (with more seemingly popping up all the time), the game manages to not be overwhelming. Each character has a fun degree of intrigue just upon meeting them. Even if you think you've figured out their backstory, there's usually an extra layer of it that isn't immediately obvious.

Again, I don't want to give anybody the false impression that this is a masterwork of writing and worldbuilding. It isn't. Most of the girls are very clearly some variant of "shy and cute". That is very clearly the author's preference. However, in my opinion, it's varied enough and usually has an extra layer to keep it from getting old. The author seems to understand that characters need to go through an arc to be interesting. I'd say their success rate in making this happen isn't perfect, but that could also just be a matter of preference. If every character in the cast was my favorite, I think that'd cancel itself out too.

I'm rambling a bit, but I imagine you get the gist. If you're looking for a long story with cute girls and a plot that strikes a good balance between comforting and intriguing, this is worth giving a shot.

A good game with a great story. The characters are likeable and the MC is a likeable character as well. Its a light hearted story about mythological beings and investigating weird shit. There are alot of characters and side stories that happen that sometimes feel really random, but that isnt really that bad of a thing.

Very good read id say, the story is immersive and had me excited many times. The story has good pacing and it has a LOT of content packed into each day. Though I would say, the MC being a detective and all really ignores the fact that he does something supernatural is kind of irritating. Every time he has the chance to explain some of the weird stuff he was able to do, he doesn't. With all of the context clues someone should have realized something right? (nope) Everyone is oblivious to the mc and it mostly feels like a plot hole. I believe I didn't come across any typos and I had a lot of laughs. I like that the game kind of eased into sexual content instead of blasting the reader into a sexual situation without any build up. There was a lot of character development for the MC, but mostly development in the characters around him. I got more than I expected with this read, and it surprised me, But yeah the author did a great job on this story altogether!

I absolutely adore the writing in this game. It's such a well-written story and the different fantasy and mythology parts add a lot of depth to it. Also Im a sucker for the art style and love how different the girls are.

Review v0.24.1

Highly recommend. There are way too many girls and the plot feels more like a series of vignettes for each girl than a single coherent story but maybe it will all end up tying together. The girls are very cute and all manage to have distinct personalities and the writing is very good except for the intro which I found super cringe. After that it was great, though.

For a game that opens with investigating a murder and leads into all sorts of conspiracies, it's a very light-hearted harem romp but the journey is fun enough that I was mostly able to shrug it off.

Great game, love the characters (maybe a bit too many love interests and side girls), interesting story and well written dialogue. I wasn't a fan of the art style at first but I quite like it now as well.

If you like slow burn AVNs, you should definitely try this one.

This one is a banger.

Main character is fun and a good person. Isn't taking advantage of anyone.

Characters have their motivations, some bigger than other and yes, most of them wants to fuck or be really close to Ren, but it is a Adult Visual Novel, so I don't know what people expect.

I didn't enjoy the renders at first but they got better or I just got used to it. Facial expression are really cute and most of the characters are adorbs.

This one is a banger.

I really like and care for each and every main character and can't wait to learn all of their stories. This is my favorite game so far. Just like the mc, I can't choose, I want them all haha. These slow burn games are my favorite and this game is the best among them. My only concern is increasing number of side characters, they are great and I hope you know what you are doing with the number of side cast and I hope in the future updates the quality remains

PS every time Nagisa shows up it's just pure delight

Wholesome light-hearted with some dark moments though harem novel with monster girls.

Character's design might seem simple, but still attractive. Girls are sweet and likeable. Story itself has deep lore but it manages to not fall into lore boombing and still stays fun. Yeah, according to in-game world rules Crimson High is a slow-burner, but that growing temptation between MC and girls is awesome.

Updates are regular, which is big plus. Yeah, they end with goofy ahh cliffhangers, but hey, you can just play until lewd scene and then come back after 4-5 updates. Works for me.

Kudos for dev. I'm patiently NO waiting for new updates with solution for sweet vampire girls

This is a fairly standard Ren'Py VN with Koikatsu renders for visuals. On a purely technical/visual level it's solidly in the top 10% of its kind. However, I absolutely cannot stand how the game claims that the protagonist is a prodigy who became a full-fledged police detective at an early age yet writes him as a bumbling everyman who has absolutely no sense of how to look for clues or solve a case. If any other character had this sort of disconnect it could be forgiven, but you can't escape the protagonist.

I would rate it 4.5 if I could, but I'm rounding up.

I'll start off by saying that Crimson High has all of the tropes that you've seen a thousand times in every other fantasy harem VN, but it also has a lot of charm and heart, something that is lacking from so many other games. There's clearly thought put into the world, the characters are in many cases more than just walking archetypes, and the MC is more than just the typical perfect male power fantasy self-insert. It's not just another harem game.

The art and characters are typical Koikatsu-render fare. There's none of the dark wizardry that a few standout Koi games use to get visually stunning models, but it's at least on par with most other Koikatsu-based games. The characters are cute, but perhaps more importantly they're distinctive. It's easy to tell characters apart visually and remember who is who even though there are a LOT of characters introduced in a pretty short span of time.

The prose is good enough. I wouldn't say that it stands among the best on the site, but it may as well be Shakespeare compared to the majority of western indie VNs. All I ever ask is that the quality of the writing isn't bad enough to distract from the story itself, and this more than achieves that.

All in all, it's certainly worth playing even if you've played other similar games, and I'll be watching like a hawk for updates because I'm excited to see where it goes from here.

Crimson High is a very well written story-focused AVN. As the developer says, it focuses more on character building than sex scenes. There are a few scenes in the game that are of good quality.
I don't want to say if you're in it for the porn then you shouldn't play this game, but if you are in it solely, 100% for porn, then it probably isn't the game for you. If you like relationship and character building, then it is the game for you. The main characters are well fleshed out each having their own unique personality. One complaint I've seen throughout the reviews is about how much the main character has inner monologues. While that is true, they're well written, typically push the plot forwards in some way, provide insight into the main character's thoughts, and in some cases provide some comic relief. The story itself is fairly linear, but there are choices you make along the way that have varying levels of impact. Currently, the vn is only written to the beginning of chapter 3, so I can't say how much impact they'll carry as it moves forward, but there are callbacks to earlier choices.
The author puts a unique spin on a few common myths, which leaves you questioning and wanting to learn more.

I would definitely recommend this visual novel if you enjoy story-focused games.

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.