VN - Ren'Py - Defending Lydia Collier [v0.17 Beta 1.6] [White Phantom Games]

VERSION: v0.17 Beta 1.6 (WTF WITH THESE VERSIONS )
SUMMARY: Was good once, but never went anywhere, 5 years later, still nowhere.
RATINGS: (out of 5):

NOTE: The following categories and scoring method are my own criteria and may require more context. Additionally, scoring is based on the state, and what is in the current version and not what may or may not be.

1. Model Visuals..................... : ⭐⭐⭐
2. General Visuals................... : ⭐⭐⭐
3. Animation Quality................. : ⭐⭐
4. Character (Persona)............... : ⭐⭐⭐⭐
5. Story Quality & Pacing............ : ⭐⭐⭐
6. Writing Quality & Dialogue........ : ⭐⭐⭐⭐
7. UI & Game-play Mechanics...........: ⭐⭐
8. Playtime & General Quality.........: ⭐⭐⭐
9. Sounds & Music.....................: ⭐⭐⭐
10. H-Content & Fetishes.............. : ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Average: X of 50 possible points giving a X% rating i.e. X stars.

PROS:

1. Relatively good looking models.
2. Good writing, structure and reads well.
3. Interesting and semi complex story
4. Good narratives and dialogue
5. Interesting and in depth characters or rather unique
6. Good kinks and fetishes, albeit mostly centers around one LI
7. Choices with impact BUT (see cons)

CONS:

1. Choices make this game good, but also annoying as you can screw your playthrough up if you not careful.
2. Tedious investigative sequences and quest line with more frustrating that good UI and navigation that brings nothing good and meaningful or fun to the game.
3. Renders are good but are getting dated and this applies more to the world and its renders than the LIs but overall its just not that good anymore.
4. Kinks are good, but many center around the LI you choose to persue and you also inadvertently can screw yourself with other relationships unless you follow the walkthrough for a particular LI.
5. Sounds, music and lewd sounds are few and far between or simply do not exist at all.
6. The main plot falls away easily as it doesn't feel like it driven well nor does it tie into anything else the MC has going on in any meaningful way. I find myself more interested in which LI to screw next than follow the story. Only Lydia has some intrigue and maybe her sister. The rest...meh

FINAL REMARKS, OPINIONS & SUGGESTIONS:

NOTE: The following remarks are my personal opinions and thoughts, which may provide more context and could be useful to the developer.

• If you just go in without a walkthrough, you can screw you playthrough up badly enough to have to re-roll a old save quite far back. At least thats my experience.
• You also get locked out of certain LIs depending on game choices, this is both good and bad, bad simply because it would have been nice to play the field long enough to get more content from several LIs but the game is split into at least 3 very specific LIs and their stories meaning you need to replay the game to see the other content. Which, ill be honest is kinda boring to me as it doesnt really change anything toward the main story or drive that story.
• I feel this VN should have rather thrown all its LIs into one linear story and playthrough where our MC gets to play the field for a while and maybe later start tieing himself down. The way the game plays now its content is very limited to the LIs you decide to persue and the main story has little going for it and does not progress in any interesting or meaningful ways. Which based on a game from 2019 is just very bad.
• I believe old reviews skew the actual relevant ones which will point out what I have said and more. This VN is just not worth supporting IMO. The only thing it does however that is good is its kinks, but even that is getting stale simply because its now old and renders are not keeping up with new trends and standards. At least not for what the game set out as which I believe was high fidelity renders.

TLDR:

I never rated this game, realised now that I should because waiting for it to actually return to the roots and get on with what made it good will never happen. This game/VN is so long winded and never comes back to the main plot or follows on the intrigue created early on. It tried to be more but couldnt deliver and this is seen through the investigation and the convoluted way it plays out. I had high hopes but its just not worth it, there are much better games out there that do better jobs at driving story with investigative elements that are strung together well. A good narrative with investigative concepts and ideas that is done well is e.g. Shattered Dreams Redemption that tells its story much better.

I very like this game. Dialoges during sex actions, visual, main plot, characters - everyting is rly good and intreseting.

But the main thing i apreciate in game is many kinky stuffs especially with Steph. Steph as a pervert girl covers so many fetishes that i love in porn (ATM, DATM, and different slave games like piss drinking, humiliation, spanking etc). And almost everything of them are optional.

Look forward to updates with Steph and it would have been cool if author add more similar kinky stuffs with another girls.

this visual novel is definitely in my "Top 10", great plot, multiple plaths, choices do matter here, if i have money i definitely would support this developer, this definitely deserve more patreons supporting than some other visual novels in this site that have less quality and still have lots of supporters.

Definitely a hidden gem. Updates have slowed down, but quality hasn't in every facet is still of the highest order. Stephanie is best girl and probably the kinkiest out of any game on here. I'm sure it would be difficult to implement, but if there's ever a "Definitive Edition" release then the ability to start from different chapters of the game would be great, because my only criticism is that there's too many characters now and basically 3 or 4 paths that lock you out of all the others. Have to start the game from scratch to see it all.

I've played hundreds of games on this site and this is so far the best I have found Sex and fetishes are really well done dialogue is more believable than most games renders are good. The mystery elements feel a little shoe horned in I'd rather they were just elements of the story rather than impactful choices but that's really my only criticism.

v0.17

Absolutely fantastic. MC is great, girls are gorgeous, varied and interesting.
Very rarely you see an adult game where both the porn and the plot are great.

There's a lot of fetishes, and you can be as kinky or vanilla as you like, provided you play your cards rights.

5/5*, easily.

I've played through one character and am looking forward to playing with the others. The first play-through didn't get far into Lydia's story. But the action was good and the women are ...interesting.

Really good VN i highly recommend. Hot girls, lots of kink and engaging story. Love that its set in England and is full of english references. A refreshingly good visual novel and i cant wait for more updates!

Boring game, the only postive it has is the renders, nothing else.
Story is unimaginative, writing, dialogs boring and cringe and everytime it is getting worse and worse.
Even like that it was a 3/5 game that you could play to waste some time but it seems that at some point something changed for the dev and started bringing the game in another direction, started adding voyeur cuck tapes, adding whore background for characters for no reason, so the little interest one might have for those already mediocre characters was gone, and thats not stopping. Another positive is that at least it has a decent amount of content.

Anyway: story: 1/5
Characters: 2/5
Renders: 4/5
Dialogs: 1/5
Makes for a 2.0 game that will only get worse with time so I take my leave here.

Engaging story, hot scenes, and well worth repeated playthroughs to see completely different things each time. I originally played the Steam version, and didn't realize half the things that were in the game before looking at a guide. Also 'Defending' somehow manages to be both down to earth in it's 9 to 5 kind of vibe while also having a large scale plot. A very good avn.

Visually, the game looks boring and uninspired, and it plays exactly as it looks. I mostly blame the stale writing style, which harms both the plot (and it is a plot-driven game) and the various kinks this game offers to the player. Yet, it's ambitious enough to be worth checking out.

While the game is not yet complete, I believe it merits a review.
The author presents a scenario in which a lawyer becomes enmeshed in a complex web of political intrigue, following what initially appears to be a crime of passion. The game's romance options and sex scenes are notable for their darker tone, which sets them apart from the majority of other games presented here. I would like to state that the storyline is well-structured and offers numerous options. With regards to kinky sexual encounters, I must admit that it is precisely these elements that draw me to this game. In terms of visuals, there are other authors who demonstrate greater artistic capabilities. However, the female characters in this game are generally appealing.
In light of the above, I would like to recommend this game without reservation and award it the highest possible rating.

This is a fantastic game to play, if you can handle the challenges that come with it.

Defending Lydia Collier is a very Traditional Visual Novel. Old-school Japanese visual novels traditionally had dedicated branching storylines, where you could only see all the endings by playing multiple times. And sometimes could only see the "True Ending" by playing multiple times and fulfilling specific choice or action qualifications. For a modern game comparison, think of Nier: Automata. Unfortunately traditional VN's do not, generally, have the difference in story and gamplay that Nier has with repeated play. But, you will get into relations with different LIs, so there are many differences each play. Stephanie is completely different from Vanessa, as is Ellie's path. And we're not just talking about vanilla or "phoned-in" differences.

It is clear that White Phantom Games has put and has to put an incredible amount of work into this game. The choices they've made in the making of this game set it apart from at least 90% of the games on here for the discrete paths alone. This is something you don't see often anymore in VNs because it is SO much work. It takes longer to do updates. Since this is all an Early Access development cycle, eventually, based on player's choices, they may end up "stuck" in their current chosen path because it may be several more updates before their path will get an update. This can piss off a lot of players, as you can see in the discussion threads, Defending Lydia Collier doesn't seem to be suffering TOO much because of it. Reviews are high and mostly positive, discussion thread hasn't had to be split due to comment spam, etc.

If you are like me, however, and don't like multiple Replays and not being able to see everything all at one go, it's tough. KoGa3 has us covered with their Settings/Gallery Unlocker mod. I would recommend this if you are like me. It does lessen the impact of things, so if you end up with a favorite LI(s), I would make a play through focused on them and see that to the eventual end. Seeing things from the Gallery with the build up and context hits differently when you're in the story and, hopefully, invested in it.

There isn't a walkthrough mod anymore, but there is a PDF walkthrough that will be necessary for your own sanity (at least it is for me). Making a WTMod for this game is A LOT more work than most other games because of the complexity involved in the game script and structure. I would love to see it get picked up again, but I'm not holding my breath.

Play till the overhead in the game mechanics and organization frustrates you, and then fill in the holes with the Gallery Mod. Or sample the gallery mod and then use the walkthrough PDF to figure out what story line to focus on and play focused on that and use Gallery to catch what you miss.

Edit: Formatting, bold bled through the rest of the review from the first linked item. And following update.

Update:
I didn't address aesthetics. This is an older game that is still going. So there are familiar models and set pieces. The quality of renders does reflect experience level as time goes on. I probably forgot to cover this above because it doesn't stand out.

Writing. I don't know, a number of recent reviews list this as "bad" or sub-par. Each to their own, I guess. Maybe I just haven't gone deep enough. But I've played Stephanie, Ellie, and Vanessa to the point of either getting a Ren'py error that stops that (I would assume is my fault due to using a WTMod back then), but I know there were/are some errors with the recent updates that don't involve the Mods. I don't know. I'm not floored by the writing, but I don't think it's sub-par. Just maintaining and keeping this script going at the level it is at is incredibly hard. I'm just not seeing bad writing, corny sex dialog, or grammar errors (WPG is from the UK, no Google Translate involved, sometimes "their" is used instead of "there", but it's only a few times) . Certainly nothing to nitpick about. Again, in comparison to a lot of what I've seen this year, this is good. None of the typical tropes are present.

I respect the levels that WPG is going to with this. For example (incoming spoilers),
I can't think of a potentially more divisive mainstream (on F95)game. You'll either love it or hate it for what it is. As I said earlier, I hate games where I can't see everything with one play ( I judiciously use mods), where relationships aren't silo'd (no consequences for cheating, the girls only know about and interact with each other if it makes sense for the story, not the typical harem because those seem impossible to finish satisfyingly), and I feel open world/sandbox is a gimmick/crutch style stolen from MMOs who could only build worlds and quests that way but that allow Single-Player game developers to use them to get some development freedoms, but it always seems to create more work than it saves and bites them in the ass at some point later in the development. I should hate this game. It's not open world, but there IS so much that frustrates me playing it (I don't see the point to the Teams minigame, I look for the answers in the Walkthrough and hurry through it). But I respect the work put in and if I control my exposure to what frustrates me, I do really enjoy the game. But, yeah, I cheat (Gallery Mod, settings, etc)

A wonderful VN that does a good job of mixing lewd stuff with an engaging story. The different love/corruption routes are well fleshed out and fun. My personal favorites are the Steph Bimbo and Ellie corruption routes.
There is a lot of content and plenty of stuff to explore across the multiple playthroughs.
My only critique is that some of the renders look a bit dated. Perhaps these will be improved in future updates.
Thank you dev for a wonderful experience. I recommend this to anyone who loves story, romance and kinky sex.

Replayed v0.16.2 - My second most favourite game on this site - visual novel with a male MC - you play a lawyer who has to defend the titular Lydia in court from a murder charge after the disappearance of her husband. You quickly figure out that the situation is more complicated than it seems and start investigating.
Has an interesting story, gorgeous and interesting characters and the creator is a great writer. The main storyline is pretty linear - but your choices can change outcomes, way of doing things and your relationships with the heroines and other people. Also seems pretty planned out and we're moving into the end game (so it should only be some years - but I am willing to wait for quality...).
Sharing your girls only happens when you initiate it, but (most) girls did have a sex-life before you - you do get several warnings if you are about to make a choice that will show you a flashback of a heroine with another partner.

The game has five-ish heroines (three main heroines and arguably two lesser main heroines). There are also some side girls attached to the main heroines and some one-off girls that serve for plot developements but have no storyline of their own.
Each main heroine (Ellie, Vanessa, Stephanie) has a "romantic" route and a "darker" route depending on your choices.
Romantic routes are what you expect, dark routes feature the interesting stuff we're here for. The more extreme routes also generally include the side girls. Extreme doesn't necessarily mean the MC is a cruel dick - it just has more extreme content.
Lesser main heroines (Lydia, Jenna) can be romanced separately or combined with some other women.

The main Bdsm-storylines are Stephanie's early route and after the route split - the bimbo route (no extreme bimbofication thank god, mostly just a boob surgery - she doesn't look like a blow-up-doll), the dark Ellie route and the late Lydia route. The Vanessa and Jenna Cuckquean routes have some humiliation elements.
Has really great and well written scenes - bondage, device-bondage, pet-play, Electro-play, chocking, spanking, whipping, humiliation, slave play, (avoidable) scat and watersports,
Steph is a great submissive and masochistic sub who is an enthusiastic participant, Lydia also seems to lean in this direction (but only has a handful of scenes), Ellie's mother is deeply fucked up and a hardcore masochist. The Cuckquean routes mostly have humiliation - Vanessa's is pretty sweet and wholesome - Jenna's is a lot more cruel and she's very much not into it.
There's also some cheating scenes on the darker routes (with you as the bull). While you can sleep with almost all of Ellie's sisters on her dark route, so far we got no sister sandwich.

Negatives - I don't really like the handful sex-animations - they don't look all that great (change of lighting, short and not that pretty) - I strongly preferred the static images.

Aside from that the game is awesome and I strongly recommend you play it.

I mean hands down the best vn game ive EVER played. Nothing can beat this, the amount of paths, kinks and women, AMAZING. Great story, well written, perfect amount of choices! I hope this gets updates asap, really looking forward!

Pure perfection in terms of plot, choices, and kinks. You can mold every girl to be an honorable person or a completely sexual slave (it's not a harem game, but you can form small harem bubbles). The game's plot is incredible, you are a lawyer with a lot of influence who has a gigantic conspiracy case on your hands to solve, and is up to you to save Lydia and drag a girl to heaven or to complete sexual depravity, in a consensual way, step by step corrupting or protecting... If you completely break a girl, she will still love you. You can find almost all kinds of kinks in this game, the tags in the genre are quite shy and modest.

A pretty standard police mystery with outdated renders, awful replability, glacial pace and in the latest versions full of bugs and performance problems.
The story is nothing to write home about but it gets destroyed by having to replay it to see the other paths.
Dont bother with this game.

To me, this game is an example for good representation of fetishes in AVNs. You can see that the author delves deep into what attracts people to fetishes and how important consent is.

Then, the worldbuilding in this game is next level! Outside of the rich narrative, there is so much para-narrative going on: like unrelated newspaper articles and complete chat logs of a LI, that are not "necessary" for the story, but that add so much flavour to the world, its characters, and their dynamics. The icing on the cake is an obscure social media post (you have to opt-in to in the first place) by a character you (so far) never meet in the game that leads to adding said character to a messenger and then getting exclusive nudes. Discovering this genuinely blew my mind! I wonder which other additonal content I haven't seen so far.

Each romanceable character has their own microcosmos within in the narrative and this is one of the only games where I actually have different save states to play along *all * of the different paths (and subpaths). It's that good!

In a lot of AVNs, even the good ones, the sex scenes get stale after a while. In this game, the author manages to one-up themselves with each new update. In each path, you always anticipate the next chapter in the MC's relationship with their LI(s) like a giddy child in a candystore.

All in all, I'm a massive fan and can't wait for further updates!

One of the best AVNs I play and I played a lot. The story is well written and intriguing. I love the fact that you can have multiple paths and options within those paths. the women are beautiful and varied. I don't go all dark but for those who like it there is an option. There are a lot of lewd scenes and many options in those scenes. I recommend to write a description to the saves because you might get lost with all the options.
In summery - really fun and immersive game that I enjoy a lot.