VN - Ren'Py - Completed - Darkness Revenge [v1.0.1] [Deva Games]

tbh, for some reason I had low expectation, but it turned out to be quite good, short but good.

character designs are decent if not great
story has nice twists and interesting endings
progression is great, I met couple of unexpected early endings
lewd scenes are decent
even though short didn't felt left you hanging

Old & short game , so I'll keep it short.
Honestly I wasn't even gonna do this but the ending(s) surprised me & made this worth leaving a like.

Visuals: 3.5/5 stars.
Nothing outstanding, a standard game with standard good looking models. Same with stuff like transitions & animations, Average-above average.

Storytelling: 3.5/5 stars
It was a mixed bag here. There was a good story, but it's execution was average in many aspects. To arranging the scenes to the scenes themselves, it was very standard - nothing to heavily criticize or praise.

Endings: 5/5 stars.
Honestly, this also suffers from the average storytelling, it did not build up to it in the best narrative arc possible. But the endings, (the 2 related ones excluding the Annie ending), on their own are a great twist to the expected plot. Good guy is bad & bad guy is good is nothing new or praiseworthy on its own, but the 2 endings had a surprising character depth to it that was lacking from the overall story.

If the story had been arranged around this theme more consistently, if the overall game arrangement quality had been up to par, if Annie had been included in this setup, it could've been a great game.
Exploring the 2 sisters & their different but similar motivations, the change in perspective proportional to the information received/uncovered, the choice being made more equal & blurring the lines a bit... That could've been a 5/5 star game

Edit: This is about the male mc path.

Don't know what that last reviewer was smoking but the game is the opposite of what they said. Maybe they got their genders confused?

Female MC has half as many love interests, and half as many endings as the male MC. Pretty much half as much content, which is a real shame, because Goth Vampire Quinn is gorgeous.

Gets a mid-review because it's worth a play but could have been much better.
Renders and lewd scenes are decent, though some erotic sound effects in the sex scenes, would have been nice.
Writing is not terrible, and the story is interesting, though the translation is pretty bad.
Stats seem pretty meaningless, and it's clear the game is rushed to completion, at the cost to the female MC.
Kudos to the Dev for trying something different and actually finishing the game though.
Female MC path could have been so much better with an Annie and/or Isabelle route. How did she forget she had a sister?
Worth a play for a Fap or two, though it's a real shame it's not what it should have been.

One one hand you have dicent renders, and the game was showing promise from the very begining.
On the other hand the imbalance of choices and excitment between male vs female routes is staggering and said promise was delivered only for female route.
As a sister you have nearly two times the sex scenes, far more choices when it comes to actions, and way more lore. Not to mention the feeling of badasery and empowerment, to the point where, if you dont like the endings presented you can choose to ride away on the bike while flipping people off.
As a brother you get two times less choices, more grinding, almoust no option to be dom and abuse your powers (as an example your sis was able to kill her former boss, send her to jail or summon rape monsters to break her. Worst you can do with the same bitch is spy on her twice as much while having horny troughts, and then decide do strip her naked, stick a knife handle up her ass and take pictures.) Also, playing as a guy, you dont get to be a proper dom and clap your sire from a position of power like your sis. Instead you have 3 unique rape scenes 2 of which are poorly executed and 100% driven by porn logic to the point where it is more laughable than fapable, and 1 scene where you are ment to ingame feel like a piece of shit. Even if you have a maxed out sadism and probably shouldnt care as a character.
All in all, the part of the game where you chose to play as a sister is 4.5 out of 5 for writing a good power fantasy where you can feel said power. The part for brother looks like some sort of lazy lineral shame fest in comparison with 2 out of 5 for effort in writing.
If the games were separate i would have barely given a 3 for male route, and 5 for female route. Since I was in this mostly for powerfantasy from male POV and that was executed poorly, compared to ther sister route, ill give it 3 stars instead of 4, and keep it that way until the quality of routes, as well as quantity of choices and sex scenes will be increased for the brother route to match the sister routes in terms of feels.

giving 4/5 because renders, story, protagonists are amazing.

(only played female part)

story would be much much better if it wasnt rushed. every endings felt lackluster and didnt satisfy me at any kind. if story was more developed i would easily give it 5/5.

overall its def worth playing the game even if the game is short.

I just want to support what @Luna Blackheart wrote before me.
I played this VN a couple of months ago and quite liked what was there, but especially the female part seemed really underdeveloped so I was pretty surprised when I suddenly saw it was apparently completed.
Turns out, it has an end, but it's kind of rushed. Still, I've seen other "completed" games that are in a much worse state, so I think 3 stars is a pretty fair rating and imo the game is absolutely worth a look. It's just that there was definitely potential for more.

As mentioned the male MC has much more and better content.

I had really high hopes for this game after the first few minutes.

Having the choice between M/F protagonists was a big plus. I picked Jill first and as I started playing I liked the whole vibe going on with the vamp rebirth thing...the renders were good....Jill is gorgeous in her reborn form. Overall I felt this was right up my alley.

Then as I progressed through the confusing at times location menu (which had me wondering what order to do things and didn't realize you keep picking the same location over and over to further relations with someone)
something felt off. Jill just seemed to get situations where she would either have to be a total slut or lose vamp energy to avoid rapey stuff.

After getting to the end, the lack of lesbian stuff was pretty evident. My Jill ended up with Amanda through lack of options mostly. I would have loved her to get with Annie. Jill's sister never even came into this playthrough.
Content was very skimpy on Jill's route and could tell it has been thrown together in a rush.

Playing as Nathan showed a lot more content, also romance choices such as Annie and Jill's sister. Plus the style, Nathan doesn't get the "Submit for sex or lose energy" hard choices that Jill finds herself in constantly. Nathan gets much more content with the love interests like the dates with Annie which were fun. Again, the ending felt thrown together but the male path definitely was the main focus by the dev and it shows.

After completing the game on both paths I felt disappointed at what could have been a top tier vampire VN on here. Instead is starts off promising and just kind of falls flat as it goes along. This could definitely benefit from improvements/extra content but I guess the dev decided it's done. Oh well.

Overall an average vamp story that felt rushed and could have been so much more.

How did I miss this? This is how a VN should be done. Choices with consequence, but not to the point where you don't know what you are doing. Great art, a concise story without unnecessary baggage.

This is an exceptionally well done VN, that I wished I had found sooner. Support the artist if you can.

[first hour of playing ] .. this review using the male protagonist Only notgoing to try the female one
- the story starts soo good so much entertaining
- some of poses not related to the story ... like when he wakeup he was standing hand crossed while saying how am i alive in a shocked pattern no one shocked while cross his arms LOL
[to be updated ]

This is one of the most touching stories I've ever played! It's also funny, I found myself genuinely laughing multiple times. And it seems to be set in a glorious and blessed world where all attractive women constantly display their midriffs, take me there!

Review for version v0.18.0
Good, intringuing, mystery plot. With the addition of a supernatural element, vampires.
Well executed overall and I like the idea of being able to choose between male or female start.
The game is still in the beginning, so there is just a little to do, but still playable, you can get a taste of it from this version.
Now why this game isn't excellent for me? As always the case in these types of games, I chose to play as the girl because I like some lesbian action, but while playing, although you get some lesbian hints it seems you only have options of straight sex (with a male) and while that's ok for me (more options is never a bad thing) I became a bit bummed for not having a true lesbian route, at least for now.
After that I played as a male and there are plenty of options with girls right away.

TL DR: The game is very good maybe a 5 stars for you, but no true lesbian route as of now makes me wanna drop it, as that is how I usually play these games where you can choose your gender. Will come back maybe at the end of this year to see if the author is implementing a lesbian route or if the female protagonist will only have straight sex.

I find myself very intrigued by this game. It is a interesting premise and story. The twists are great and the characters are good. There are some areas for improvement, such as a bit easier to understand where you are in the pathing menu. Would like to see better/more info on those screens.

The graphics are good and the animation is solid. It is the story that draws me in and has me hooked. I look forward to future releases!

Darkness Revenge [ v0.11.0 ]

Actually it's a good game nice renders. And multiple protagonist means you don't have to control two characters at same time. You can choose whether play as male or female character. I played as male character. Also tried to play as female character yeah it's not my cup of tea. It's typical humiliation path. Ofc you can avoid it but it will take more vampire energy and core concept seems humiliation well many like so that's it. So I played as male character.

This is more like a sandbox game but not your usual sandbox where you have to roam through different doors and rooms. No need to click on map etc. But choice wise sandbox you can choose which event you can do first. But after completing each event in an update it shows WIP or it will take you to the main menu. So save after each event. In male playthrough play that lawyer's event last if you choose to play it then seems like it will cut off many options seems like a bug. Also if you play Annie's first event then visiting Annie again is not available there. To make it appear again play or repeat any other event and continue doing this until Annie event reaches WIP. Actually it's a good game but these interactions make it hard to play. Surely this is a big problem and many will avoid the game. Hoping dev will fix this

Since this is with multiple protagonists it was doomed to be this way. Still doesn't explain how choosing a certain order of paths leads to most things being cut off. Once I talk with the rich man's kids, everything else is unavailable. This should have less choices in that matter if it means I have to forget about some.
Too bad since I love mind control.

I can deal with the rougher content, in a game with this concept I'd be disappointed if it wasn't dark, but it's a pet peeve that if your game has choices that can hard end it you need better guidance that those choices lead to restarts. In the scope of things that happen in this game, some of them don't even seem that out of the realm of what an acceptable choice would be. Right now the game lands somewhere between a 2 and a 3, rounding down since issues with core gameplay out balance that I do like some of the fets and their inclusion in a vampire/modern horror genre story.

I think Darkness Revenge is a good attempt at a vampire VN. The transformation happens rather quickly and doesn't play a big role in the later stages yet. But you get certain abilities and it is foreseeable that they are depletable and that there are consequences to exhausting them.

Especially at the beginning, there were significant translation problems that could perhaps be circumvented by using DeepL or other proofreading software for the English language. I don't understand how people can still make such basic grammatical mistakes nowadays. I'm a bit annoyed by this because it could put off interested players from an otherwise very solid experience.

The story itself is interesting. You try to infiltrate an influential family to bring down a criminal network. In the process, you worm your way into the circle of influence of the individual family members, which sometimes has its price and may also have the potential corrupt the protagonist. The use of vampire abilities is a kind of shortcut, but with possible long-term consequences.
In my opinion, Darkness Revenge still suffers from some teething problems at the moment, but if the developer can get to grips with these, DR can really become a good game.

By the way, I think the fact that I can play DR with both a female or male protagonist is amazing. I wish all VNs had this option.

Ps.: There is a rape scene in the prologue. It's completely avoidable, but even if it's not avoided, you don't see the gruesome details, thank God. It's probably intended as part of the redemption story, but one can only speculate at this stage.

Pps.: downgraded due to the rushed ending for female protagonist players. (final version)