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

I played through the prologue and the game up to v0.9.1b in a few evenings, and found it quite enjoyable. The dev has most of the skills needed to make a great VN, and with some more polishing perhaps this one could reach five stars. A few things hold it back, in my opinion:

1. The MC might as well be wearing a Guy Faulks mask for all the range of expression he shows.

2. The separate prologue with no way to import a save into the main game—requiring one to remember and enter their choices manually—feels really amateurish.

3. The pacing is often erratic, e.g. when a prolonged low-intensity dream sequence interrupts a high-intensity action sequence.

4. I think the dev falls a little short in the originality department. This game feels like a mashup of two or three other games one can find on this site. Everyone recycles ideas they have encountered before, but here it feels like the borrowing is in overlarge chunks, which then do not integrate well with one another.

5. The MC’s erratic mental problems make him less than enjoyable to relate to. It could be worse: at least he isn’t suffering from erectile dysfunction….

Overall I think this game is quite good, and I would recommend it to anyone who isn’t afraid of some psychological darkness and bloodshed.

seriously a phenomenal game! i honestly cant recommend it enough. An engaging and interesting story! Well developed characters and an awesome MC with a very cool and creative personality.

Obviously the porn side of the game is amazing, fantastic renders and smooth animations through out. Also the romance is believable and not too fast nor too slow. Cant wait for the next update. Ill play through this even if it had no porn at all

This is the first review I've done, so I'm sorry if I'm not very objective or if I'm wrong about something, apart from the fact that English is not my native language, so I'm sorry again in advance!! I loved the improvement in the graphics, the history of the world for now seems to be very well done, as well as musical taste that fits at the right time, the narrative of the story has me intrigued and I can't wait to find out how it goes!! . It's been a while since something like this happened to me with a game.

The music goes perfect with the scenes and loving the story!! in my top 5 for sure. The art style is fair and you really start to "feel" each persons char and it isnt like alot of these VN's where it a "hi nice to meet ya lets fuck" you got to be smart

A very well written game overall.

An interesting story with a good world building - developing conflict between warring gangs, political intrigue, a strong and smart MC, but who is struggling mentally (although to much of a schizo for my liking), diverging paths (love or corruption, with which faction to gain respect and etc.) and likable and diverse girls.

Sex scenes are quite good, they are animated, but there is a lot of dialog and story telling in between them, so if you're looking for a quick relief and/or story overview does not interest you, this game might not be for you.

The only reason why I'm giving this 4/5 is that girls fall too easily for the MC and prologue has some awful jokes (and weird dialog overall), UI is pretty awful and some girl interactions seems uncanny.

as someone who has come late to this VNs party i have to say it cropped up as something i was gonna try but opted not to for so long.. What a fucking idiot i was.. Im unsure how far into the total prologue i currently am (currently walking jasmine home after the day you train her in MMA) and the previous misconceptions i had about this title have all but evaporated..
I'll be honest i assumed it was a corruption title and like many headmaster games just exactly that.. But on the love route for this and where i'll stay i found such a warm and enjoyable story with some truly great moments and action (not just the erotic kind).. Amazing work and if the prologue is anything to go by i cant wait to see wat awaits in the 2nd volume.. The humour is great, the music choices are perfect and beautifully used and the characters are lovable and you want to get to know their stories..
Truly addictive

I checked out the prologue as recommended and it didn't take too long for me to be put off by poor writing and cringe faux edginess. If the game proper is actually any better then you've done yourselves a disservice directing folk to the prologue. I rarely read other reviews but out of curiosity I did this time and sure enough, there are folk recommending you skip it.

So I was prepared to give it a second chance, I downloaded the actual game and one of the first things the game asks is "What does Sophie call you?" and I'm like fuck man you tell me, I don't know the chick. I have zero context for this. And I figured I might as well save myself the hassle and drop it there, working under the assumption that I could expect more of that going forward.

The game is rated highly enough that I gotta assume there's something worthwhile here but wasting my time with a poor prologue and not doing a better job of easing players into the actual game should they try to give you the benefit of the doubt in trying the full game regardless of said prologue don't sit well with me.

The game has potential to be a solid 5 stars game. But here's the main problem imo if you are new to the game:

Don't play the prologue. Even when the dev insists on the fact that you should, it clearly had an initial idea that never ends up happening, it basically promises a love route and a corruption/blackmail one for the students, but at some point (even the dev clarifies it) it turns out in what we can see in the next game, a love route with all the students, in which you can have different lewd scenes depending on the love/corruption points that you have with them.

That is cool, the problem is that for half of the prologue the game leads you to the false belief that you are about to go into certain route (for instance with Ash when you discover Tom cheating on her) just for the other half to go with another approach that is the one than the actual game now follows. So I would advise you to not lose time and go play directly the new game. Plus it has waaaaay better renders.

That being said, here are my pros/cons:

PROS:

• The MC is very likeable, is not your average Gary Sue, it has flaws, fears, weaknesses but a lot of personality, inteligence and charisma.
• Nice writing, good point to the dev.
• Likeable women with different personalities, Ash, Sophie and Asuna for instance are neither a topic from a porn game or a copypaste between them.
• Different body types, love it.
• Nice soundtrack.
• Cool plot with two routes, the mafia one and the one in collegue.

CONS:

• Very few sex/lewd content, whereas I can understand the slow burn with students, it got a bit frustating with Ava, it needs to step forward in the future before falling in the list of games with excesive slow burn.
• The few sex scenes that it has could improve, different angles, more positions, some options...
• Sorry but there's an attemp of a touching moment (not going to spoil) where the autor makes a reference of a very famous gif from a very famous anime that totally killed my inmersion, please don't do that ever again on a serious moment, one thing is to put some reference like the "Stand amongst the ashes of a trillion dead souls, ..." or a movie phrase that you like (subtle) but that was horrible, I would even reccomend to change that scene in future updates.

So far the game looks promising, I would update my rating to 5 stars in the future if the game keeps improving.

Story 10 / 10
Storytelling 10 / 10
Characters 10 / 10
Humor 10 / 10
Pacing 5 / 10 ( If you are here to quickly bust a nut leave)
V 0.8.7b

Edit 1: 21.04.24
V 0.9.0b
New content is good and also well balanced previous ratings still stand but I gotta add a new one.

Music 10/10
(Hearing Lilium again after years in an emotional support scene beautiful, truly made me smile and cry at the same time.)




It really deserves 5 Stars take it from a pro Palmtree Wrestler.

I would like to give this game a higher rating but it is too ambitious. I think the quality of the parts are mostly 4 star worthy, but the sum is two stars.

The plot setting: Alpha male all the girls want no matter the player decisions, who not only is a mobster but a headmaster who spends all his time with female students.

Having a generic plot is fine, but it means the writing needs to be exceptional to stand out. The writing here is above average compared to most AVN, but its pretty forgettable since most of the dialogue is the MC's conscience. At this point in time the LI cast are largely unknowns outside of the girlfriend forced on the MC to start the game. There are semi-frequent spelling mistakes, including in the opening scenes of the prologue.

The biggest problem with this game is its ambition. There are way too many LIs in this game, and there are effectively two plots going on instead of a single coherent story (as a mobster and as a headmaster). There should have been a focus on either mobster (and just the two primary LI), or a story of a headmaster (no primary LI and just the students).

The rate of content coming out means this game would take at least a decade to finish. There are roughly a dozen LI in this game, and there is very little content with the vast majority of them, there are only two characters who have meaningful dialogue content and they are the only characters with sexual scenes.

The plot and the MC's relationships are moving slowly. The inciting incident should have been the Halloween Party scene, instead we got a second inciting incident in basically a repeat of the prior scene (MC getting shot). The second inciting incident went on forever (~1/4 of the current content), and provided minimally to advancing the plot.

After two years of development there is just not enough here, there is a couple hours of content total. Given that the MC's opponent/antagonist of the story has not even been revealed yet, I just don't see a scenario where this gets finished.

Good renders for a honeyselect game. Game is more like VN type than sandbox there is no grind. There is a nice story. Nice girls and they got nice story arcs. There is love route and corruption route. MC has a past and he is a big shot in a got. Now he is trying to live by letting the his past go. But it won't be easy. overall I enjoyed the game of you love playing story centric games you can try this

I really can't believe after all this time I forgot give a review, well I guess now is the time.
Tbh, when I saw your game first time I thought typical wimpy-ass mc beat up by girls, but mc's really suprised me, most of the people don't care about mc but in my opinion it's the most important thing in the whole game, then why would we even called mc(Main Character), it doesn't matter how good your story is, if mc is a weak-ass, an airhead, a wimpy-ass then in my opinion game is just a garbage.
Well, enough of that, to talk about your game, every single thing is perfect,
1. Perfect MC
2. Perfect lis
3. Perfect story
4. Perfect graphics
5. Perfect background music.
And this bad side of mc is really really fucking cool, it's like your big bro advising you, what to do or what to do not.
And this whole mafia stuff is really cool, no shit man this game's story is really amazing.
I'm really suck at explaining.
But still i just write an essay about your game haha.
Well, good luck dev.❤❤❤

As of 0.8.7B. I like the storylines (mc's internal battles, girls storylines etc) and the character developments as they seem to be thought out and actually make sense. Excited to see where the storyline goes in the future. Great music choice as well. Only complaint would be slow development but thats really not the devs fault as they have been in hospital. so 5/5 from me.

This game is really intriguing! The story is really mature and dark with hints of silliness here and there. I think the characters are all super interesting, at least so far. MC is really hard-boiled split personality giga chad who's pretty impulsive. I've never seen this sort of story done so far in an AVN and it's honestly a breath of fresh air. Updates are pretty far and few so far, but I'll keep a close eye on this one!
P.S: I agree with what other reviewers are saying, MC's dick is like comically big, even by other AVN standards. Looks almost demonic, but whatever.

I'll be honest, I'm not much into 3d games. As a matter of fact, I don't remember having played more than 10 in all the time I've been here. But dropout saga is one of the exceptions. The game is just good and so is the story. Sadly I can't tell much about what makes the story so good without going into spoilers but trust me, it has better story than some big developer games. Give this game a go or else... I mean, you won't regret it.

I was pleasantly surprised by this VN. I initially thought it was a copy of The Headmaster, which has an MC in a similar situation, but well, they are not comparable at all. This one is much more 'serious', adult, and Imo, better.

This is the first VN of the dev(s) if I'm not mistaken, and I've got to say, they are doing an excellent job. The dialogues are great and the story itself is very well put together. It is true -as someone else mentioned-, that some gang/mafia sections are not well integrated with the headmaster stuff, but I personally think it's not that bad. The MC having a double personality and all is a very interesting and refreshing mechanic/resource, and I think both personalities are very likeable. The girls are all captivating and I like the fact that you need to be patient and either earn their trust or corrupt them before anything at all happens.

The graphics could definitely be better. Specially when talking about the prologue. The quality of the renders and the sex scenes is quite low, but well, I personally don't care much about that. The story and character development are what I care about the most, and this game does deliver in those aspects.

The only thing I find ridiculous (which is a norm in adult VNs), is the absurdly monstrous dick the MC has. As this point, I really have no idea if the developers of these games do it jokingly, or if they all are part of the very small percentage of male population with micro-penises and try to compensate their complex by giving characters an arm as dick. Or maybe it is that the only interaction they have had with women and the real world is through porn and are completely ignorant to what most women actually like and dislike. The dick of the MC is literally ticker and bigger than the upper arm of the girls; like, he would literally destroy their pussies with the massive devastation weapon he has in his pants.

Ik it's just a game but damn, I think it's time to stop with the stupid and unreal ideas that are constantly portrayed in VNs. "AlL GiRlS LoVe HuGe DIcKs, AnAL sEx, ANd sWaLlOwINg CUm. I hope most of the people who plays this VNs has had enough real life experience to know that's pure bullshit.

A spectacular story with engaging characters who have depth and nuance not to mention believable backstories! The MC is an interesting man without coming across as too much - that's a balance not easy to get right! He's dominant and masculine while having flaws that makes him human. It was a pleasure playing as him and I'm eager for future updates.

I've not gone all the way through this game, which, by the way, is proving to be a lot better and more enticing that i could suspect. For now i leave a 4 star review, because honestly the story, albeith good, is completely disjointed. The headmaster plot and the crime story really seem like 2 different games merged into one and they keep trumpling on each other.

Probably it would have worked better as 2 actual different games. One with the crims story with the 2 main LIs and plenty of occasional sidefucks, the other about the sketchy headmaster who seduces the schoolgirls and he can go through the 'help them' route or the 'corrupt them' route.

Maybe they would have been more clichè but clichè become so because they ultimately work.

Very good game, great story! Even if it's school setting, the MC is mature and interesting. And Sophia is simply great! The Animations are good, i wish all HS1 games looked this great! I recommend it, play also the prologue, even if you can't port saves, you would miss on a good chunk of story

It's an excellent story! This is the typical "came for the sex, stayed for the story" type of game lol. Loved the characters and their interactions with the MC. Excited to see how this game grows going forward!