Ren'Py - DropOut Saga [v0.11.1b] [LazyBloodlines]

DropOut Saga [v0.11.1b] [LazyBloodlines]

Good stuff, I'm following this project for quite some time and still coming back for more. Updates aren't fast, story is okay and sometimes pretty interesting, HS2 models and animations look great, some characters can steal the show and MC is quite looker too.
Can't wait to see a new update, support the dev.

Story - 3,7/5. I'm intersted in it. Tho, some moments can be cringe asf, still like it.
Choices - 2,7/5. Points.
Gameplay - 3/5. Semi-kinetic VN.
Characters - 3,5/5. Not super deep, but I care about them.
MC - 3,9/5 I like him.
Models/animations/textures - 4,3/5

The Prologue was great and with excitement i jump into the game. It turns out to be running around in circles with young adults which have nothing to do with his mission being a head master. The story telling does not make any scenes.
None of the choices lead to geting the MC back on track .... choices are all on love tri-angle only.

What has Jasmin got to do with the mission? No connections at all so as Ashly & the half Japanese. His mission is to establish political connection and the only person is the mayor’s daughter. The police chief son turns out to be a dick, so i really don’t know where this game is heading too. Maybe a harem of college students?

The second self is a pain in the ass... making irritating commends. A single conversation with one character takes 5 to 10 minutes which has no influence in the game just beating around the jungle to pass time.
The two women in the house behavior is ridicules asking question every time the MC walks into the house. That nerd Ava wants to know everything regardless of how new she is to the house. I suspect she must be hiding something. The sex scenes are repeated with these two women and a dead woman & already boring.
Now Isebella comes join the house which has nothing to do with Packs or Russians.
I recommend to dialogues are cut down to improve the game and focus on the mission rather than spending so much time on students not connected to the mission.
I am not sure why no investigation on the man who shoot him.... Nothing so far on that... I was expecting something that, but nothing so far.

v 0.11.1b

Story 2/5
Characters 2/5
Writing 2/5
Graphics 3/5
Audio 2/5
UI 3/5

DropOut Saga is the Goo Goo Dolls of AVNs. A great start, with raw and unrefined inspiration, that after the prologue turns into a samey drizzle of words, easily replaceable by any other cardboard cutout Mary Sue.
The story revolves around a 7 foot tall mountain of pure Belgian Blue muscle penis, attached to an equally impressive man. This man has an angsty past in the mafia (but it turns out he's actually your run of the mill tortured hero white knight who always does the right thing), trying to get out of the mafia (who are somehow also the good guys in this crazy world), and has to perform a final service. What is that service? He has to smash hot puss. That's right, his forced job is to get installed as the headmaster of a prestigious school of rich and indubitably hot barely legal teens, smash that hot puss (which MC is the best in the world at), and gather enough dirt on the teens to extort and blackmail their influential parents (which MC is the best in the world at). Fortunately our hero is an absolute expert on running a school, and this turns out quite easy for him. Unfortunately, our mafia hero's enormous sense of justice and morality gets in the way, and life gets complicated as our hero can not help but do the right thing again and again no matter the cost to himself and to the ones he loves.

Story
The story starts off great. A grounded idea in a contained setting with plenty of hooks and possibilities. The world is reduced to home and the college our MC is the new head(receiving)master of. Pacing is fine, and the "sandbox" is quick enough and efficient enough. Small events taking place inside and outside the college move both the college story and the hero origin story forward.
But suddenly something changes. The college and sandbox as an entity disappears and the game turns into a more kinetic novel. No worries, the story still works even though our hero becomes slightly more cardboard-exposition type (you know the kind - a lifeless character that explains every action and details the path of his reasoning like a soul-less AI). Maybe the dev wanted to quickly finish the prologue? It's a shame, the beginning of the prologue, though showing clear signs of an inexperienced dev, was a great idea and the rough diamond was obvious. Then comes chapter 1 - and it's worse in every way. It feels mass produced and without any thought put into it. The story gets boring and now feels like a teenager's interpretation of House of Cards mixed with some absurd conspiracy Youtube channel about extreme masculinity, possibly including eating raw onions and spraying lead based paint on your scrotum every thursday. The MC loses his charm and personality - the cardboard exposition gets worse and the MC can now only jump between states of supreme Alpha dominance, master of conversation and politics, tortured hero guilt, and endless exposition cardboard cutout. The side characters join together to form a singularity of personality and can no longer be differentiated without the use of the name in the text box. There are also some things missed, like how an allegedly American city can be run by x number of gangs without the federal government intervening, how no one can leave without getting hunted down and killed even though the gangs have very limited power, how a citywide gang war didn't attract any attention, how one side of the city can live in peace and ignorance while the other side is basically an ongoing turf war, and so on.
The story progression is a sad scenario, as the first half of the prologue was inspired and showed enormous promise. I would rate the good part a 5, but that is not where the story is currently.

Characters
Unlike the story, the characters start of okay at best. The college characters are pretty good, but the first main LI (Sophia) immediately gives of the teenager wet dream vibes. An 18 (or possibly 21) year old surgeon with extensive combat experience, who after years of work in the field became a freelancer. Did I mention she's 18 (or 21)? Oh, and if you thought she was just a GP kind of physician you were wrong - she's had plenty of time to become a surgeon and after that to specialize in brain surgery after the war was over (which war is left to the imagination). And also she loves the MC and will do anything for him. She's also a classic goofball.
The next girl introduced gets blunt force trauma to the head, then gets a home-made brain surgery in our MC's bathroom using two rubber ducks and a twizzler in true MacGyver style (MC is the best surgeon in the world), and then gets her head shaken and smacked around a few times. Don't worry though, she's perfectly fine. Everyone knows none of that stuff is dangerous. She also falls in love with MC in all of 20 seconds, and has 0 personality. She just wants to hang around like a puppy and do anything and everything for MC.
Then chapter 1 happens, and characters become more uniform and one-dimensional. The previously shy girl in college becomes a master of politics and business, surpassing everyone except MC in guile and veiled conversation, resulting in one of those silly and immersion-breaking characters (much like the classic ninja-assassin-teen-girl).
The way all characters throw themselves at MC destroys a lot of the immersion as well. I suspect they would all fall in love with an AI chat bot if given the opportunity.

It's a bit weird how no one knows anything about MC, and how MC deflects all questions about his past, yet no one pushes for him to actually answer any questions. Everyone simply accepts that he is a deeply mysterious and unlikely character in that position, even though many of them talk about how important it is to figure others out in "the game of politics", or for safety. It's a personality paradox, and MC gets away with whatever he wants no matter how discordant that it is with the story or the setting.
MC also frequently has alone time to discuss matters with his schizophrenic "other side", where he talks like an emo and over-analyzes things in serious tones. In the beginning this works great (as it is relevant to the story and atmosphere for the time), but it eventually becomes something to skip over as it is the same
- "we have to take care of it"
- "I won't let you harm her she's innocent"
- "I'm the only one looking out for us while you risk our life for a girl"
- "I don't care I can't let any harm befall my girls because of me, not again"
series of responses again and again.
Oh, something that doesn't really matter but bothered me immensely: once MC starts saying "I have a lot on my plate right now", he keeps reiterating that phrase again and again.
A classical pitfall, MC is best at everything always and ever. He beats a 4 time world champion in swordfighting without even trying, his impromptu ad lib speech at the college is a true Churchill level inspiration to all students even though it's nothing but unrelated platitudes regarding an unrelated matter that wouldn't even get a conceded pass in communication 101. He always knows what to do and the only time he loses his shit is when any woman in the world is mistreated, at which point he has to white knight the shit out of any russian in the vicinity. His penis is so humongous it should be in the Guiness book of world records. He can take two shots through the lungs, flatline, and then be resuscitated some 30-50 minutes later and *still* be up and fistfighting angry russians the day after (MC is the best at fistfighting). No biggie. In short, the MC is a Mary Sue deus ex machina, and nothing will ever matter in this VN because our protagonist can skullfuck an M1A1 Abrams to death while reciting the entirety of Carl Orff's Carmina burana in the original Klingon (and he doesn't even speak Klingon, that's how fucking great he is).

Writing
The writing starts off with low quality grammar and high quality delivery, yet ends with medium quality grammar and low quality delivery. The initial writing is solid for displaying MC's wider, and as of yet not explained, personality, as well as the characteristics of the characters around him. As the story moves along, this style of writing is continously supplanted by more stilted AI-level exposition from all directions. I would add that as the allegedly "political" characters gets introduced, the writing also degrades into a weird attempt at some kind of overly serious James Bond style quipping. The attempted hidden meanings and subtexts aren't subtle or clever, nor does it make sense to use that style of communication if the characters also A) signal that they are doing the subtext thing and B) directly explain what they mean in the next render. (MC is the best in the world at this if you were wondering)
On a positive note, the use of facial expressions and different eye colors to signify emotions, sometimes during the text and sometimes separately, is a solid addition to the text. It allows the reader to add interpretation which is always a good thing, it reduces the text needed while still conveying more than enough information, and it makes the characters more human. It's also a lot more expressive and universal than the cheek flushing. Well done.

Graphics
While never great, graphics start at bad in the prologue and end up decent in chapter 1. The use of honey select here doesn't seem like a great choice, as every female character (and also MC) looks Japanese, while they are explained to be English, German, American, half Japanese, and so forth. The story also unfolds in an allegedly American city, which adds to the confusion. Graphics aren't the centerpiece of this VN though, and so it's not a significant flaw.

Audio
The music choices are fine, and more or less convey the atmosphere needed. Sounds are few, but also work as intended.

UI
UI in the first part of the prologue is a bit shaky, but that improves in the later half, and the UI elements in the later part of chapter 1 feel high quality (although they do not serve a purpose yet).

Summary
DropOut Saga is a tale of what could have been a truly great VN given time, but instead became a one-hit wonder, showing enormous potential that faded over time, into an average VN. If I could, I would rate the first part a 5 and everything after a 2. I truly hope the dev finds his roots for this story, as he has shown that he has the capacity to create something extraordinary.

Great game! I just finished the prologue, and it started off strong. The main character (MC) is really cool, and the story concept is intriguing. I love how you can choose between the MC’s two sides "Good" and "Evil." It adds a nice layer of depth and replayability.

I was initially worried about the sandbox feature, fearing it might be overwhelming or tedious. But when I reached that part, it turned out to be very straightforward and simple. Once I discovered I could consult the MC’s "other self" for guidance, everything flowed smoothly. Honestly, the sandbox aspect isn’t a big deal in the prologue it’s practically non-existent, which I actually appreciate.

The characters in the game are fantastic there isn’t a single one I dislike. Each girl has her own unique personality, reacts differently to your choices, and has an engaging backstory so far. I’m looking forward to diving into the main game in the coming days. For now, though, I’d say the developer has done an excellent job. Well done!

The writing is so cringe it is painful to continue reading. In the first 10 minutes I have somehow found dirt on 2 separate boyfriends and given the girlfriends the same lines.

And the writing on the female characters feels too woodento ever create a believable character.

The visuals do look good though.

This AVN modulates between Average and Good for me. I like the concept and for the most part, I like the MC. He's a badass but he is not perfect.

I think I actually liked the prologue better as far the corruption/love aspects were concerned. The newer version seems to have basically given up on it and that's too bad. The story has moved away from the school and has started focusing more on the events happening outside the school.

Also, this game suffers from the typical Honey Select problems where the animation is top notch, but the girls all look exactly the same, but hard to blame that on the dev.

The renders, scene blocking and pacing are all pretty good, but I wonder if this is an older version of HS as the images are not as crisp as I have seen in other HS AVNs.

As far as the story is concerned, there is plenty of content but you can start to see a little bit of a drift. The dev has really moved from the original storyline of headmaster to something else. It's not bad, but the change in direction is, well, disappointing.

IDK... the dev is talented and the story is unique so I am giving it 4 stars instead of 3. I just worry about the direction of the game in general.

Good luck to a talented developer.

I wanna be the 100th review! This game is potentially one of the best on the site. At first I thought, expecially during prologue, that this game was quite corny with the development of the broody, but kind criminal who saves the damsel in distress. After a while I found that this conflicted character is one of the best things about this story. The game is great. Animations are awesome, Lis are hot, and I have to say the narrations is quite enjoyable. I'll follow this one closely. Congrats on the 100 reviews by the way!

Dropout Saga comes in two separate downloads - a lengthy prologue as well as the main chapters. The prologue is flawed and plagued by many issues ranging from game mechanics, UI to story logic... especially the nonsensical WTF moment with Ava's surgery. The main part though, is way better with significant improvements on all fronts as development matures.

For full inclusion, I recommend trying both, but be patient and don't judge by its prologue. Alternatively, if you want to save yourself from a choppy 3 - 4 hour experience, skip the prologue and you can still get up to speed with a summary recap of what happened in the prologue right at the start.

Story
MC is a violent gang member suffering from dissociative identity disorder (a.k.a. split personality). He wants to leave the gang and is tasked with one last mission - take up the role of a headmaster at an elite school and dig out dirt on the students' influential parents.

At least that's how it looks like at first in the prologue, but thereafter neither MC's mental issues nor the mission features prominently in the story. The main direction is on gang wars, MC's relationship with his two lovers and his friendship / potential romance with students and colleagues.

It has a fairly balanced mix between action sequences, slice of life moments with his girlfriends Sophia and Ava as well as a somewhat social critique take on the different challenges faced by students in the school.

In addition to dialogue, inner thoughts and third-party narration, Drouput relies heavily on subtle changes in facial expressions, body language and background details to drive the story forward. That means a lot of nitty gritty is unsaid and inferred from these subtleties, so you will miss out a lot of nuances if you do speed reading.

Game Mechanic
The prologue consists of two clunky experimental sandboxes that don't serve much purpose except to add unnecessary clicks.

Thankfully these were dumped in the main game which follows a visual novel flow with choices that either add love or corruption points. Interestingly, love and corruption here does not mean romantic or abusive paths like most AVNs.

From what I can tell higher love points with a LI results in them having a more balanced relationship as equals in both non-sexual and sexual situations whereas more corruption points means the MC views the LI as a weaker sex that needs to be protected and the LI looks up to MC as a guiding source of direction and emotional comfort.

This sort of subtlety permeates the entire game.

Background / Character Renders
Rendered in HS2, but with significant mods and shader to create a unique dark and somber atmosphere and vibe. All the characters are highly distinguishable and adorable in their own ways.

Character Development
Without a doubt the strongest aspect of Dropout. Out of the two main girls Sophia is head strong, passionate and street wise whereas Ava is a little naive, empathic and collaborative. The scene where Sophia operated on the MC was intense and emotionally draining. The developer made many convincing renders that showed Sophia in a physically vulnerable and yet emotionally resilient state, a level of detail seldom seen in AVNs.

The same goes for the school girls i.e. they are not your typical bimbos, innocent virgins or tattooed slut tropes. Notable ones include Julie who acts way more mature and guarded than her age due to her background, Lila though good-natured conducts herself with grace as expected of an elite, even the "normal" Ashley has depth to her character. Then there is the complex Asuna, another elite daughter who combines poise, political acumen and decisiveness who also acts as MC's ally in some dicey situations.

Lila's mother, Grace, who is every bit the pompous but cunning politician wife is brought to life in the family dinner session with MC - it felt more intense than any gunfight scene as the developer made full use of dialogue, BGM and little subtleties to convey the underlying intellectual crossfire under a facade of polite pleasantries.

Sex Scenes
A fair warning that Dropout does not do random sex scenes unless the story calls for it. So far there are only scenes with Sophia and Eva and not even a naked scene with anyone else. The developer is in for the long haul so the game ain't for you if you are looking for a quick release.

The scenes with Sophia and Ava are generally well done with loads of custom animations. Only feedback is for some reason BGM is always not available during sex and we get only minimal banging sounds without the moans, it kind of dampens the overall mood slightly.

BGM and Sound Effects
The developer is certainly a stickler for a certain genre with most of the music going for a deep voice, rustic, impactful and country flavour which might not be everyone's cup of tea. There are also way too many scenes with radio silence so the audio experience is choppy where there are long moments of silence punctuated by short intense moments of impactful BGMs.

Maybe the idea was to accentuate the contrast, but somehow it doesn't work too well. I think having more lighter BGMs at low volumes for contrast would be better than the long silence, hight impact BGM, long silence routine now.

Conclusion
Dropout is a very unique game among AVNs - it has a story setting and a suite of characters seldom seen in adult games. The heavy emphasis on a large number of renders featuring minute changes to drive narration, set the mood and emphasize character is innovative and effective.

The prologue remains troubled though I suppose it makes sense to devote resources to move the story forward rather than waste yet more time to rework everything at the start. The only concern I have is the pace which is very slow and draws concerns on whether this project can be completed satisfactorily.

I did like the story it is pretty good, but what ruins it for me is the lack of choices, Sophia/Ava/Ingrid are all forced LIs and i just dident like them and wouldent want to fuck em but your forced to have a sexual relationship with them and i just really dont care for forced shit of any kind.
Also the Ava character just dident make any sense to me, why save her in the first place MC isent a nice guy.....why not chase after the fucker that hit him instend....and why is Ava not even a choice wanting her as a LI or not.

What makes it weird is that you can turn down the school girls which dosent even make sense story wise since MC went after them to use em to get to their high profile parrents, so hes MCs crime group could use em.....

As for the girls i dident really like many of em, its pretty clear dev has a bit tit fetish or favor those that does, but i just dont so alot of the girls was a turn-off to me, i wouldent really mind that if LIs werent forced and i would be perfectly happy just going after the one or two i did like, but thats just not possible when having two bimbos forced on you over and over.
Theres just to little diversity in builds, you got one small tit, 2 normal and 8 with big so ratio is very poor.

As for the adult content there arent really any, one full chapter and theres only sex with 3 bimbos all forced and thats it.
The rest of the girls dosent get much screen time at all, its 80% with Ava and Sophia which i couldent care less about, so its going to be an extrem slowburn before getting to any LI i might like.

Animations are meh, not bad but nowhere near great either.
Atleast it has some good music.

Sandbox part is pointless, i have no clue why they even put it in there.

I just cant get my self to rate it more then 2 even though story is good, but it cant carry an adult game alone and theres just to much draging it down.
Not sure why dev desided to force those 3 girls on you the hole game, they could just as easily have been just friends all that would take is no sex scenes but they could still have been part of story, it feels a bit idiotic.

Also dont play prologue, it really has nothing to do wth the real game which is almost to bad since that was more fun then the real game, in prologue you had choices for love route or blackmail but that never got off the ground and dosent seem to be in the "real" game eihter and the hole headmaster thing isent really a thing anymore in real game either.

There are a lot of shit games on F95. There are plenty of good writers, and a few dozen excellent writers. There are maybe a handful of truly fantastic writers, and this writer is one of them.

The story is extremely compelling, with characters that are truly brought to life with their own interesting and unique personalities and problems. The writer is also not afraid to jump into the more grim realities of the world we live in, and it just makes it more authentic in my opinion.

I think the scenes are also done very well, and interwoven with the story to make them feel like they actually should be happening, instead of just shoehorning scenes in for fanservice.

This project is still early in development, but I will most certainly be following it in the days to come, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a truly great story.

Bro! This shit is so good. The character development in the AVN is top notch. The 2 ride or die LI pull you in so quick. And that soundtrack though! THAT SOUNDTRACK THOUGH BRO!!! If you haven't played this one yet you are 100% missing out.

So far I have only played the prologue but let me tell you, this game is way better than expected.
I initially downloaded DropOut for the blackmail and other dark content, but ended up liking the characters too much to do anything bad, which usually doesn't happen.
The writing is surprisingly good as well, having more complexity and depth than 90% of adult games, actually having managed to make me contemplate my own life at some points. Not only that, but this is probably one of the very few games I'm able to count on one hand that managed to make me forget I'm playing an ero-game and slow down to enjoy the story.
Seriously good stuff.
Edit: I had to add something after going through the prologue once more. Regardless of how accurate the jargon and niche concepts are (medicine, sports, etc.): it is apparent that the writing has a lot of thought put into it. This is also the first time I see an adult game where the MC has proper trigger discipline (if it was actually modelled by the dev and not just loaded in from a template that is).
The music improves the atmosphere so incredibly well too.

I'm gonna be honest, I wasn't really feeling this game when I started playing the prologue. The duality portrayed by the two halves (good and bad) of the main character felt a bit corny, to be honest. On top of that, the free roam mechanics were awkward, and the resolution was poor.
However, I'm glad I stuck with it because the game improved significantly during the prologue itself and more so with Chapter 1, especially in the aspects I mentioned earlier.
The duality concept works surprisingly well and it wasn't as invasive as I initially thought it would be.
The writing is very well thought out and adds substance to the characters, which is a breath of fresh air, at least in comparison to some of the other games I've played. There's also some use of medical nomenclature, which further shows the effort put into making cohesive characters and a compelling story.
Overall, it's a good game, and I look forward to the next update!

I'm going to keep this very short as I'm not even finished with the game. The writing is phenomenal.

I repeat: The writing is phenomenal. Any disappointments I've had with the sexual content (currently limited to only a couple characters) is completely outweighed by the quality of the story. Apart from the rare spelling or grammar error, the story is well-written, engaging, and keeps you on your toes. Scenes rarely play out predictably, yet don't feel pretentious or that they're pulling the rug out just to pull the rug out.

Character development is also exceptional. It's rare to see in this medium.

Anyway, that's it for now. Really really good storytelling, and this is coming from an English major.

The story, the choice of music and the narration were great, I am waiting for the continuation of the story. I am sure it will be worth your time.
The choices have not had an effect on the game yet, but I wish they had more. and there are a few more points that need to be improved that will not be considered important for now. I think it will improve over time.

I really liked the prologue. It is clearly a labour of love with fine writing, good pacing, great characters and strange tenderness to the alpha-male fantsasies that we all love.

As I'm playing 0.10.0b, I can sadly say that the game seems to favor quantity over quality. The tempo is all off, it's almost somnambulistic. The focus on Ava and Sophia is alright, but there is practically no movement, no character development. It became verbose. While the prologue tried to be somewhat cinematic, now it is just 'look at character #1', 'look at character #2' back and forth. Some scenes are just weirdly out of touch. The moment I saw smiling huggy-wuggy as MC's hatesona, I knew that something went seriously wrong.

Of course I do not know the process behind the game. Perhaps, it was decided that it is better to make a lot of content, even it it's very raw, and change it later. Honestly, I have no idea, but the result is no fun.

Still, I fell that 'DropOut Saga' was a very nice surprise and I'll be sure to follow the game.

(ver0.10.0b)

This game so far has really managed to impress me and turned out to be one of the gems to discover on this site. It is taking its time for world building, character introductions and just the storytelling in general. I for my part really appreciate it. Not having it feel too much of a slow burn through its meaningful storytelling - or feeling rushed through big jumps in time skipping developments which would feel weird. Instead it gives many hours of an interesting read so far already, with the outlook of much more to come. (Still at the beginning of building relationships with some characters and some story threads have just begun to be spun)

The characters come with individual, believable and multi-layered personalities giving the interactions a captivating feeling of depth. This also aids making the characters interesting, wondering what their background and/or motivations are. All this while making a noticeable effort of maintaining their individual traits in conversations which, imo, turned out well so far. Narration and dialogues feel natural and believable while flowing well and, paired with good use of music, maintaining and bolstering immersion.

Looking at the visuals, it's the typical recognizeable HS renders. The quality of them is very good as is the composition. In addition, the expressions of characters during conversations have gotten a lot of care for detail - adding a lot to the overall immersion. The animations are also on the higher quality end from what else I have seen here so far.

One thing to note though is, that if you expect some typical stereotype sex scenes or kinkiness every few clicks - then this is not the game for you. It wouldn't fit the story and storytelling either imo. And personally I'm fine with the current ratio of story to sex scenes - just enough to elevate the significance of some characters without being too deluting overall. I expect it to be a bit more when the relationships with other girls moves forward, but hopefully it doesn't become the main focus.

Another positive thing in my book is that this game belongs to my preferred type of settings, where the view on things and life is not bad or good, black or white but rather subjective/fluid, differentiated, facetted without attempting to hit the reader with some moral hammer about absolute values. It makes for way more interesting plots that tend to be more believable/realistic to me as well - if executed well. And here that's the case so far.

All in all I would definitely recommend giving this game a try.

My experience with DropOut Saga (0.9.1b) was split between the story, and the LIs/sex. As a result, it ended up a 3.5 rating for me because of the large disparity between the two: the Adult portion, and the Novel portion.

+ Chapter 1's renders were much better than the (-) Prologue's
+/- Some improvements overall to how mechanics work in Chapter 1 (but none of them were actually used in Ch 1)
+ Interesting and believable personalities to most LIs
+ Animation quality was higher than stills quality
+ Good English use in text, easy to read
+/- Somewhat decent music, but should be all instrumental (no vocals)
+++ One of the better stories I've seen - no time travel, or aliens, or overuse of humor
++ A really likable and robust main character to play

----- Only /three/ characters to have sex with for the entire current game (and none are the LIs that appear in the school). Additionally - one is dead and appears in a dream sequence, leaving just two total alive for sex.
----- Very few sex sequences at all through 0.9.1b, like count them on one hand.
- Frequent 'hiding' of private parts in sex scenes using some camera angles
--- Pacing of plot and development of story is glacially slow. It's a good story, but unveils itself only bits at a time over hours of reading.

If I thought about it more, DropOut Saga might strike me as a Novel trying to masquerade as an Adult Novel due to the scarcity of sex. You literally only have two love interests who engage with you in any sort of sexual encounters - all of the other LIs haven't even begun to interact with the MC (after what seems like 12+ hours in the story).

Make no mistake - it is a good read due to having a lot to like in it. But the sex comes off as an afterthought - there are so few love interests involved, and so few scenes, that 99.9% of what you do will be reading the story. For that reason, despite having a great story and MC, I can't give it any more than a 3.5, and if the frequency of sex scenes and availability of love interests doesn't improve, I'll probably end up dropping that to a 3.0 or lower.

Sidenote: I'm also very fearful for the game's eventual completion. None of the mechanics that were 'upgraded' for the school between the Prologue and Chapter 1 were even used in the current build of the game. Chapter 1 was far more story (kinetic novel) than it was interacting with the LIs at the school.

-Google trad-

I'm really happy to have found this AVN, it's just the kind of story I like. With a mature, cool and badass MC, beautifuls LIs with different personalities and the right dose of sex. The music sets the mood, and the story is interesting. Well written, despite the fact that English is not my first language, I appreciate the dialogues.
In short, I plan to support the author.

After kind of a rough start, this turned out to be a real hidden gem. The story is great, characters mostly consistent and interesting, no weird deus ex machina moments, great highs, worrying lows, tear inducing drama... all in all an amazing experience.