VN - Ren'Py - Completed - Depraved Awakening [v1.0] [PhillyGames]

This is akin to jumping straight into a doujinshi that had a nice cover but is only about 20 pages long, maybe 21 if there is an ending card with a funny scanlator picture.

I enjoyed my time with this for what it was, the characters were attractive and we got into the meat of it pretty fast, but I can't say I wasn't a little bit let down by the story sprinting by me while I was just settling down into it. Nothing wrong with a story getting to the juicy bits and having no time for the foofoo surrounding it but I can imagine a more memorable experience taking place here with these characters if everything could have just slowed down a little. The taboo is nice, I did enjoy what characterization I got out of most of these girls and I did get a kick out of the ending wrap-up segments once all was said and done, even got some loose ends neatly wrapped up that I wasn't expecting so good on ya.

So for anyone looking for some guilty pleasure cheese, well here you go. If you want a bit more foreplay then perhaps keep this one for a rainy day when time is running away from you. I hope any future titles give themselves a little more time to breath and expand.

The story is enjoyable and does a good job of keeping you engaged. However, unlike other well-written stories, I found myself less intrigued by the characters. This lack of connection reduced my overall appreciation for the second half of the game.

The scenes are visually compelling, providing a strong foundation for the narrative. Unfortunately, as mentioned, the characters didn’t leave much of an impression on me. I only found the storylines of two girls to be fully enjoyable. The love interests often felt one-dimensional, serving more as tools for advancing the story and romance rather than as relatable characters with meaningful impact.

Overall, it’s a solid visual novel and worth experiencing, even if the character depth leaves something to be desired.

as far as I'm concerned, it's just not there. story completely absent. ridiculous characters. bad dialogue. I have given bad marks for much less. I don't like it at all. I'm very surprised this game has such a high rating

I have very mixed feeling for this game, the story overall is good, but I think it had way bigger potential. Never a big fan of incest and I had to put effort to avoid incest. some characters could use some more attention to their story. If not for the effort I had to put to avoid incest I would rated it higher.

I love a good story, and this had a really good story. Philly Games needs to produce more stuff like this and City of Broken Dreamers. Beautiful characters, intelligent dialogue, cool plot twist. Everything I need to escape...

Watch the Ugly face by Ed Bassmaster and you'll have a good idea about facial animations in this game.

The game itself is not bad, I like the noir atmosphere and music, dialogues are not bad either, but how am I supposed to take the characters seriously when then look like imbeciles during conversations and even worse during H scenes?

*Sound of rain through the window*

Like all the bad things in my life, it started with the death of a woman. I couldn't save her.

*drinks all the bourbon in one gulp, puts on his trench coat and walks into the jaws of destiny*

Was this "Detective Noir" enough? Lets find out.

Story: 4 Solid Bananas out of 5
You play a private detective who finds himself entangled in a plot that is more complex than it might seem at first. Yes, it sounds cliché and it certainly is, but it does not fail to entertain if you like this genre.
While the Detective Noir genre has been exploited a lot in the media to the point of being considered a cliché, some talent is still required to make it work and not sound too pretentious for its own good. Fortunately, this is not the case of Depraved Awakening.
There is no better exponent of this genre currently, congrats to the Dev for achieving this on his first project.
But you might have already noticed that the score in this department is 4 out of 5, and this is due to a very important aspect of the detective genre: the villains must be truly threatening, and although we are clearly told that they are dangerous, the story fails to make them seem that way in a convincing way.
In short, they are too good people to be villains, they lack evil.

Characters: 5 Adamant-Hard Bananas out of 5
All the heroines are easy on the eye, even if their models look a bit dated when compared to what's on the market, which can be crazy.
Carli, Christina and Judy can have a bit of development depending on who you decide to pursue, but nothing crazy...But they all have their background, and that makes 'em feel real.
MC is not your typical Gary Stu: He is a man nearing his twilight years, with a failed marriage on his back and a pension that is not enough for him to live the rest of his days drinking pina coladas in some Caribbean country, no, so here lies a man that drinks bourbon to numb the pain that September 2 causes on his soul.

Mechanics: 5 Adamant-Hard Bananas out of 5
No minigames or puzzles *Chef Kiss*

Content: 5 Adamant-Hard Bananas out of 5
Renders look good and there's plenty of scenes to enjoy but they are not that abundant to transform this story into a fuckfest.

Ending: 4 Solid Bananas out of 5
The endings are good overall, but they suffer from the same problem as the main plot: I understand that the idea is to be the good guy, but letting yourself be corrupted doesn't really feel rewarding.
I think it would have been awesome to be able to change the destiny of one of the main heroines even if that means having to give something in return, so you could say "I am depraved one awakened, indeed"

If you enjoy reading, Depraved Awakening is The Detective Noir-Visual Novel you didnt knew you were looking for.
It aint perfect, but is good and keeps its plot in the ground, far away from mixing up with another genres like supernatural nonesess and what not...

PhillyGames did a great job here, and I cant wait to see his next work...And neither should you.

(Placeholder for full review later)

4-4.5 stars. Entertaining, but not without it's flaws. It's also worth considering that many of it's 'flaws' can be forgiven with it's relative age compared to the newer kids on the block. Still highly recommend despite all of that.

Very boring standart game.

The story is predictable and not interesting.

The characters are very flat and not memorable.

The models look meh, the faces look even bad sometimes.

The music is generic.

The dialogue is very bad, it often feels like it wants to sound more extrem or sexy but just sounds like what vanilla people think extrem is.

The scenes are very boring and get repetitive quickly nothing interesting, the animations are bad and robotic.

Also the from bottom to top camera on girls, is used way too often.


Wouldn´t recommend, unless you want a generic porn game.

Overall - 6/10
Hscenes + renders - main reason to play the game is for this
Everything else kinda falls flat
Story - 3/10
MC detective - delve into death of dude -> sex cult - dark mysterious adventure themes
Story / writing- didn't really feel like a detective - going around fucking every girl - flow of story is interrupted so heavily - points for multiple endings
Characters - 4/10
Never really learn them to a deeper meaning - meet -> talk -> sex -> more sex
Animations - 5/10
Sometimes decently smooth, other times 4 fps gif animation.
Renders - 10/10
Models feel similar to being a diks models - they are the best piece of this game
Sound - 7/10
Most of the game is a classic detective BGM - fits to the theme
Playability - 7/10
Hscenes carry this game hard - a lot of it and there is plenty of actions to do whilst in the Hscenes
Multiple endings
No lag

You are a private eye in Free City. Your latest client has found himself dead. As for how, many suspect suicide, though your smarter than that. But poking around may get you in some hot water. But then again why would you be a private eye if you weren't looking to face the heat.

Content: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Graphics: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Script: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Characters: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Enjoy:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Total: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
“Depraved Awakening is a nice exception. Remarkable in absolutely all its sections, but it doesn't reach the maximum greatness due to being the debut of PhillyGames.

Some will say it's because it makes beginner's mistakes, but Philly has created, in the first try, a better work than 90% of the works of this kind.

I am sure that “City of Broken Dreamers”, his next work (and taking into account the current reviews) will get 5 stars from me.

Depraved Awakening really managed to nail the noir private eye niche it was going for. From the music to some of the dialogue to the plot it was all well done in that regard. All that was missing was a lot more rain; liquor and the right voice for the role. The plot was entertaining and kept me interested. I wish the main villain had some more backstory to him. I also wish that the character of "The Dragon" had more time as she was my favorite. There is a good amount of choices to be made and I felt like I could take the story where I wanted to more or less. The music wasn't just well done but fit the scenes it was used in well. There is a scene later in the game where it is cutting from a funeral to a police chase back and forth and it is intertwined nicely. Those who just want an erotic game will get their fill but those who want a bit more have something to be offered as well. The game could have used a bit more backstory on the organization you're going up against. Overall this is a solid game. Whether you just want a lewd game or are a fan of visual novels as a whole there is something here for you.

Probably more a 3.5, but I'm rounding up rather than down as I had fun with Depraved Awakening.

This game didn't leave the best first impression ; it's getting on a bit and looks rough at times. Renders can look nice but, early on at least, are average at best. They have a tendency to pull some odd faces, and the "animation" is distractingly bad to the point that still images must have been a better choice. Both aspects, renders and animation, improve as the game progresses and by the end it's much more attractive than when it started.

A noirish detective story, Depraved Awakening is a nice change from the common college/slice of life genres that constitute a large proportion of AVNs. It's not perfect but the dev spins a fairly compelling detective yarn involving mysterious deaths and lots of sex. Nothing mind-blowing but it remains interesting until one of the many ends. The main character, of course, gets to partake in a lot of the old in-out-in-out, some unfortunately happening rather abruptly and ending almost as swiftly. Still, there are many good scenes with some attractive women, and there is a reason the MC is so insatiably horny for much of the story. Technically, the writing is on the better end of AVNs. There are some typos and such but the dialogue is generally well written and believable.

Being a relatively short game, there isn't too much scope for character development, but I did like all of the potential love interests. Christina is probably my favorite, a red-haired firecracker with sky high libido, followed closely by Carli, a sexy escort with a sky-high libido. I wasn't too convinced by Judy, the main character's step-daughter (actual daughter with a patch, but for me that doesn't ring true given some of the MC's behaviour towards her), though she undoubtedly gets some of the hottest scenes. Other characters left less of an impression but I was interested enough to get their scenes and endings.

On which note, playing through Depraved Awakening blindly is likely to result in a lot of scenes being missed. Each love interest has a visible love/lust stat, and often some combination of this and an invisibIe depravity stat for the MC is required to unlock options and scenes. I went blind for my first run and, though happy with my ending, I didn't want to leave it there. Evidently some seemingly innocuous choices lock the player out of scenes, paths, and endings. I recommend at least one blind playthrough as for me a lot of the fun was working out how to get scenes with various characters, but there are walkthroughs and a mod if it's too much hassle.

[SPOILER ALERT]

This game.... I don't truly know what to say, perhaps this is the goofiest dectective-ish game I've ever played. I'm no stranger to detective games, Sherlock Holmes, The Wolf Among Us, L.A Noire, Disco Elysium, Shadows of Doubt, blablabla you name it, but no I'm not going to compare Depraved Awakening with those games. I will, however, talking about the aspects of "how should detective game be make" on this one.

First, I will talk about the story. You start as a private detective (also an ex-cop) who works for a guy name Richards to look for evidences about his wife involvement with some shady organization. A day later, your client has fallen from 25th floor. Since then, you take the case into your own hand without being paid, but also bigger danger and risk behind your back and people around you.

Here's the important point, when you're talking about detective game, you're probably thinking about finding clues, investigate someone's space, interrogation, being an undercover, etc. Sadly, this game doesn't have that (well it does, but not in the way you think). Everything in this game is very straightforward, so if you're an idiot don't worry this game won't push you to think too much. I also don't like the way the story progress because the mystery behind it already explained in the first few moments. The MC is also a little bit dumb, risking too many movements around his enemies without thinking a lot about the people he cares for. Sounds like Max Payne, eh? except this guy ain't Max Payne. To be fair, everything in this game could be cut into half if MC decided to tip the FBI instead of going alone and doing everything alone. Perhaps Stella could be saved that way, but well this game wouldn't have been fun if you cut them in half.

Back to the aspects that I need to talk about, yeah this game doesn't have that mechanics. "Long Live The Princess", an AVN game made by Belle that was also released at the same year as Depraved Awakening, did it much better. It has freeroams, interrogations, finding clues, cross examination, etc, something that this game doesn't have. That game also has multiple endings depend on your investigation. Depraved Awakening, however, its endings are depend on your relationship with some of the women, nothing about your investigation at all because of how straightforward it is.

Second, the sex scenes. Kinda basic but not as basic as "Intertwined". I let it slide because it's one of those old games so don't expect high quality sex scenes. The only positives I can find about this game is the render quality and my baby Judy. So yeah anyway, I gave it three stars at best. Maybe if Philly decides to remaster this game in the future, I would give it four stars instead.

Very good story for AVN standards with great dialogue and lines overall (AVN or not)

Setting is crime noir so doesn't feel as generic as "boy returns home where only his mom and sister live"

Lots of choices, including some really meaningful ones down the road

LIs have lots of personality and feel like different characters

There's no shortage of fappable material

This is like a textbook on how to write a great AVN. Would give it 6 stars if I could

The Story is Good, not the best out there but definitely blows other VNs out of the water. The characters feels kinda normal which can be a good thing, they are a bit one dimensional per se. The Scenes are good, with good variety of choices per scene. Replaying though, feels terrible, Unlocking the scenes is a chore. You will miss a lot of scenes on your first playthrough, so get a walkthrough guide if one is planning to unlock all of the scenes, even then I still missed a scene, somehow.

This game was magical when I played it in 2018-2020 (I don't remember the exact date), I remember spending the afternoon playing.
What struck me most was the noir atmosphere and the background score, especially Kai Engel's "Something" and "Nothing."
For me, the game was magical, especially for that year, and for me, it has always been the best visual novel I've ever played.

Even though it was an above average game, it started to bore me a lot towards the end and sadly I had to quit the game towards the end. It would have been better if some parts were not so long. I didn't feel that the choices in the story were effective enough.

It took some time, but my quest to find something good, new and different (on this website) is now concluded. Depraved awakening makes me wanna use the word GREAT. There are other titles (here) that I'd qualify as great, but my idea was to keep trying stuff outside my comfort zone. This time it's gonna be "all rainbows and flowers review", cause I genuinely believe that Depraved Awakening deserves it, and you that you should try it.

Here's what I liked:

- I never saved - I never felt like was giving a wrong answer, or that I should go back and give another answer. I was always good or at least Ok, with the consequences of my choices, and I never bothered to check the girls" numericals". I was entertained and immersed ALL the time.

- Surprising characters - It was a short run, but something simple like a "switcheroo" between who you can and can't trust did wonders, to add some depth to some of the cast.

- Good writing - I don't know who it is, it doesn't matter. He/she/it/them/other knows what they are doing, and understands how fiction should be delivered, at what pace, and the limits of what can be achieved, in this sort of work. It's perfect within its scope, and some "non-following content" every now and then, doesn't detract from my statement, it actually makes things better.

- My own preconceptions were put into the spotlight - It's simple, I was so relaxed, and natural, that I was able to confirm some things about my own tastes. Ex: I should have been born in Ireland, cause pasty white, freckles, red hair, and green eyes really does it for me. I'm not even sorry, Christina is a freaking treasure.

- The only character that "escaped" was the hooker - I'm a virtual scumbag, but the irony is not lost on me. Are you still here, go read this!!!

- The ending - I ended up alone, and it was fitting after my choices, no idea on the possibilities, but this one felt right (my choice? died... maybe she could be saved).

- Silly similes - I like them, they fit my own taste. Can't give a bigger compliment than that. (I use the word silly because they revolve around things like Dorothy and the wizard of OZ)

- The music is there but it's not intrusive - Some titles have barely any audio, others delve too much on the author's own tastes. This one just gives some adequate ambience. It's good by comparison, not by itself.

- Visuals - Again better by comparison to other titles, although I will say the animations need work on the camera shots. Do note that I'm still new to this kind of presentation (half a dozen titles).

- Action sequences/dramatic events - Good quantity, surprise factor, lasting consequences. What else can you ask for from a work of this magnitude? They are very good.

- Many of my own influences came to mind reading this - Stuff like Spider-Man, resident evil, sin city, even train to Busan (name drop). I don't know about the writer, but I thought about such things.

- Tanned, blond, shy, Korean is a thing - "You live and learn boy". You live and learn.

What about the bad? There's some of course, but people on the internet are finicky. Just this one time let me exert some positive influencing. Lord knows I'm overly critical, most of the time.

This a 10/10, no question, when looking at fun, engagement, surprise and by comparison to the some of the competition. I'm buying this (had a great time with it, it's only fair), replaying it at some point, and checking the developer's other title. If it's close to this good than some support is in order(I'll want more). Highly recommend it, and I'd feel some sort of satisfaction if you also end up enjoying it.

Fun fact - I named my character Humbug Fapdoodle, that should tell you that I had zero expectations reading this.

Just amazing looking women with high quality renders.

Game is just so well polished and looking great.

Awesome storytelling capability with creative imagination.

It's a real pleasure enjoying game from this developer.