VN - Ren'Py - Don't Leave My Side [v0.1.2a] [Emotional Tokyo]

[v0.1.2a]

This is an interesting little story. It's not your typical NTR plot. This is a bit closer to a drama involving lies, betrayal, and two-faced people. Everyone has some secret or hidden motivation. And perhaps there is even a coming of age story of some sort in there.

The current length of the VN is rather short, so it's not a big commitment to see if it's something that interests you.

Although there are many choices, pretty much none of them actually matter in the long run, I think. At least the choices so far. That's because the game doesn't have a single variable. All the choices result in jump to label commands that show you the next block of dialogue on the "path" you followed. But the game cannot keep track of this, so I don't know what the dev is planning. The best case scenario is that all the variations of the choices can be accounted for in the linear big picture narrative. But already, there are many inconsistencies where the scenes refers to things that didn't happen because the game cannot differentiate between different choices you made previously.

So as a choice based VN, or as some focused NTR story, this one isn't much. As a short story involving some interesting characters and some angsty young adult drama, it's pretty decent. Well, I'm assuming this is a short story. It just seems like this story should get wrapped up sooner rather than later, but that's just my guess.

It could be a 3* currently due to the less than ideal way of coding the choices, but I really liked the non-standard models here.

The girls look really good, fantastic bodies but the relationships don't make any sense to me. There is Sadie who is the ex-girlfriend and a bit crazy/sadistic. Then there is Amanda the manipulative liar but how NTR factors into this game I don't get.

We know right off that Amanda is leaving with her boyfriend so there is nothing between her and Ronnie but Amanda is obsessed with Oliver and wants him to fuck her all the time. If anything the game should have the cheating flag because Amanda cheats on her BF with Oliver and I'm pretty sure Sadie cheated on Ronnie when she disappeared.

I'm just not seeing the NTR in this game though. If Oliver was fucking Sadie then I would consider it an NTR game or if Amanda was Ronnie's girlfriend then yes that would be NTR.

I don't dislike the game. Like when Amanda gave Oliver a BJ that was really hot but I downloaded this because of the NTR flag and I'm not really getting any of that. Even if Amanda did something with Ronnie that would still just be cheating because she has a boyfriend which isn't either Ronnie or Oliver.

Really the thought of Amanda cheating on her boyfriend does make the scenes hotter though so for that I gave the game another star.

Artwork is fairly unique, which I always enjoy, so kudos to the Dev for that.

This about sums up what I liked about this 'game' its more of a kn.

The characters are all, without exceptions, assholes. I am not talking about the kind of assholes that have difficult decisions that they have to choose between. Or characters in situations where they cannot please everybody 'rock' and 'hard place' style. I am talking about characters that go out of their way to be walking pieces of shit for no reason greater than some minor instant benefit (to them).

Now, those kinds of characters can be 'good' in a story that has depth, complexity, and nuances. Where the situation makes sense given the world, lore, or context. I can find none of that justification here. Even the final possible "It's ok because..." justification, which is typically a protagonist whose plight, situation and circumstance warrant putting up with such conditions as justifiable, is missing.

Every minute I spent with this title (after about the first 5) I was consistantly thinking to myself, why doesn't he just leave? Girl you like is a cheating slut (not on him, but still) --- MC should just leave. Friends are going behind your back and are human filth --- MC should just leave.

It was an ironic thought to keep coming back to given the title of the game.

Ye the MC stays... Even here, I could see wading through all the shit that he does as acceptable if there was some appreciable benefit to doing so. Some spark that, once revealed makes the player go "ah, well that explains it". There is (to date) no such spark.

I can only conclude that the MC (a character who also seems to have major, if -yet to be developed- flaws) somehow 'likes' the situation that he is in... which drops my respect for him to somewhere below zero. This lack of respect for the MC or any other characters removes any interest I have in seeing how the story goes or how the character changes or what the consequences of actions are. I don't care about them, hence I don't care what shit they roll around in (willingly or not).

This game would be better served if the MC finally snapped, and killed all his "friends" before moving to a new city and attempting to rebuild his life... at least then he would be relatable.

All that being said, it is early days for the title. Maybe it will magically turn around? Maybe that spark of justification will materialize? Maybe it will suddenly make sense why the character doesn't just leave and move on.
Maybe... but likely not. (it probably has about as much chance as me bothering to revisit this title)

As for me, I am going to take my own advice and 'leave town', 'move on'

I'll start with the good

I really like the art style and animations

That's about it.

The bad?

The Characters. Good help us with these people. Not a redeemable soul amongst them thus far.

Ronnie, The MC: Stereotypical "Nice Guy" incel type.
Amanda, The Love Interest: Manipulative Liar
Sadie, The Ex Girlfriend: Psychopathic Chaos Agent
Oliver, Best Friend: Two-faced backstabber.

The Story.

Ridiculous escalations that lead to violence out of nowhere.

I think I have an idea of what the Dev intends here...but, if I'm right, he's going about it all wrong. And if I'm wrong... it's even worse.

This one needs a re-write. And I'm not talking about the NTR scene. That's one of the only things in this entire game that makes sense so far.

Version: 0.1

An excellent pilot. 9/10.

Characters:
Great. None of them say what they mean, so the dynamic there is great and it gives you mystery to work with.

Plot and flow:
Great too. Fast but not choppy. Scenes flow into each other naturally and you actively want to know what happens in the next scene.
Also a lot of authors either make sex-scenes boring - just pounding with no dialogue or tension; or everything around them boring and pretentious.
Glad to say that is not the case in here.

Humor:
Great glue for the plot, without going into the sunset on the unrelated for a porn game topic for half an hour.

CG's:
Sexy - in and out of the sex scenes.
Love the artstyle. Reminds me of "Perverted Action: Tamelaps". And it was great.
Although it would be better to not make the guys' eyes so big - it makes them look cute instead of handsome.

Sound:
Music's good.
There some sounds besides that, but NO sex sounds during sex-scenes. Definitely would be a great addition for the next version.

Cons:

-Text needs heavy redacting.
I assume author is not a native english speaker - which is alright, me neither - but you always could give it to someone else before release to rearrange some words around.

-Nonsensical choice system.
You miss a sex scene if you go to the girl you like; but then you get her scene if you go for another girl.
Nonsense.
It's alright for now because it's still a pilot and there's very little content. But in the future that shit would be unplayable without a wolkthrough. And in that case - why even have choices in the first place?

Quite a bit to unpack here. I think the renders are unique and looks really good.
However, almost everyone in the game is an asshole.
Amanda, your childhood crush, who already have an overseas boyfriend, keeps making use of you and also secretly fucks your best friend. She even got jealous of you for being too close with Sadie.
Sadie, your ex, keeps insulting you and tries to mess up your relationship with Amanda. She and the MC form a weird dynamic in terms of relationship.
Oliver, your best friend just wants to fuck everyone and is also hiding things from you.
MC is a pathetic loser simp.

Because everyone is so obnoxious, you don't feel sorry for any of them or feel jealous when a girl get stolen, because they are all sluts anyway. Still, the story is interesting and I am curious to what is going to happen next.

Review for first release v1.0

Ronnie's going away party for his dear friend Amanda promised to be a night of celebration, laughter, and heartfelt goodbyes. Little did he know that the day would take an unexpected turn, introducing an element of drama that would leave everyone in attendance on edge.

Don't leave my side is an interesting idea of a man who needs to be passionate and take charge for the things he wants. This leads to ntr like elements without going to hard into them. ( The idea of a li performing sexual acts on another character that isn't the mc) It never goes to hard in the sense of mocking the mc while doing it or saying he's not a great performer.

With the introduction of an ex girlfriend leads to a bit of a messy situation. So do you try to get back with the ex or keep yourself to possibly get together with the girl you've like forever.

Story/writing - You can tell the writer is not an english speaker. It never gets to bad that i dont understand the story. Also there are a few issues of he/her mix up. Plus there was a small mix up on who was speaking in one scene.
The story is a fine start. Typical ex coming to call and the chaos that it ensues. Game has a odd sense of humor that tries to throw in some dark moments. Not sure if it flows well but we'll see in later chapters.

Characters - Ronnie - whiny fat boy who pines for Amanda. Typical loser who you hope will eventually stand up for what he wants.
Amanda - childhood friend that is leaving for Europe. Cute design.
Oliver - Dude bro friend of Ronnie. Almost wish I was playing this guy.
Sadie - Ex gf who is emotionally damaged. Like the goth girldesign.
More characters to appear in other chapters.

Presentation - The game has a clear bright style and cartoony character design. Overall i like it.

Gameplay - straight forward renpy vn game. Click till choices appear. There are some variations to dialogue and different variations to scenes depending on choice.

Sound - Overall sounds good. Music is standard royalty free music. They work for the scene they are in. There are also sound effects for certain moments which work as well.

The has animation in the game. Overall its pretty smooth except for a few moments.

There a 3 sexual scenes in this release. So no blueballing here.

In the end im interesting to see where this goes and who else appears for the party that this is being set up for.

Hopefully the creator keeps going with this. The only thing im worried about is ntr is technically in it which will turn off anti-ntr people and it doesn't go hard enough for ntr lovers. Its mainly a standard porn story that shows all the sex scenes like in 70s porn movies. So it means the game has a major hill to climb in that respect.

The first thing we find when we get to the game menu is a really well-made user interface, something that is appreciated since it is visually attractive.

The models used are innovative and it is appreciated that they try to make a game with different models from the rest of the video games that we usually find here at f95. That said, I personally wasn't very excited about them, perhaps because they are very cartoonish.

The animations in the sex scenes, although there are few, are very well done, I would say it is above average for other games.

The sex scenes are not new, but it will surely work for some users, unfortunately this was not the case for me.

The story is average, it is nothing new, nothing that has not already been done. I understand where the dev is going, but the dev may have to rethink some parts to please other users.

I don't see charisma in the MC, he's not an MClovin from the Superbad movie, so he didn't manage to make me smile or sympathize with him, but I understand that the type of story the dev wants to tell requires an MC with that profile . Perhaps the dev can give it more personality and add comedy to the story to liven up the gameplay.

TLDR: Good models, Great animations, average sex scenes, average story. Final Score -> Average 3 stars + 1star because the great animations -> good game 4 stars.

Edit: MC have more action (2-3 scenes) than Oliver (1 scene). Let's try to be honest and fair with the reviews guys.

review for version v1.0.

god why is the mc so fuckin pathetic and cringy and edgy.
wish i could play as oliver, dude seems to be having more fun.
Writing pretty mid, girls look cute, story cringe as fuck.
still good luck dev.