Unity - Completed - Eleanor 3: Violet Aster [v1.0.2] [Lesson of Passion]

This game has typical engine for Lesson of Passion which means, you need to play a lot (if not cheat engine and so on). Good thing is that there are plenty of endings and a lot of sex scenes - some of them are awesome. Bad thing is that the renders are not best quality even with high graphics setting. But overall the game is really enjoyable.

This is simple a good game and very good example how a good "click to progress" game should be.

Render? Yeah seen better, no question there. For me its working like it is, so i don´t care too much about this.

Story? Not exactly something like "Gone with the wind" but realy: Who cares here about this real much?

Characters: For me a big Hello Yes!

Grinding: With every click you get a (litle) progress. It´s not like 50 times over and over the same dialog and still nothing going on.

Real bad: Save System only 3 slots. Not so nice.

There many endings to explore and not realy a problem to go through the game.

All in all thats a realy good game.

UI AND UX

There’s no option menu on the main menu when the game starts with loud rock music, and once you’re finally able to open the menu the options are anemic.

The chat menu has some confusing icons and since that side of the menu isn’t labelled at all I was confused if those were supposed to be topics of conversation or not. Turns out they are, though you don’t get any dialogue lines with it, just a close up shot of the character and a bonus or malus depending on the topic you picked.

The textbox doesn’t have a background, so better hope the CG keeps it easy to read.
Textbox is almost the full width of the screen, making it a pain to read on big screens
Some characters don’t have a name when they speak for some reason, like in the scene with Marko and Josh, only Josh’s name shows up.

You can only save in your bedroom, this wouldn’t be a problem if it wasn’t for
the grind and the scenes that are triggered in non explicit ways that you can soft-fail, and you can’t roll back so better hope you go back to your bedroom and save often.

Speaking of annoying UI and UX, navigation should have been kept simpler, probably with a list like other interactions. It’s a 2D game and moving the mouse around to actually move around does nothing but waste time. To play more optimally you have to go to multiple places every day because of course you can’t repeat actions once you’ve taken one. Would be a much less minor problem if you didn’t need stats so high for certain actions.

WRITING

Game has some real bad writing; hashtag smut, am I right? Repetitive, bad phrasing, etc. And the characters get so little characterisation that I have a hard time caring about any of them, which is kind of important for corruption or cheating games (and this one is both).

“You won’t stop from anything if we’re talking about cock”
“Wait, they are brother and sister and they still fuck? Torn between feeling disgusted or horny about that…” That second phrase doesn’t sound like the character thinking and more like a note
“Well, hello and welcome there, honey! Welcome to Secret Allure!”
“Please, the pleasure is mine.”
“They do, and a special treat where after three months you can have any toy in the store for free.” could have just said “a special treat after three months, you can have” instead of making it sound awkward
“Okay, not to sound racist but that guy looks familiar.” Yeah, I’m sure you’re totally not racist if you’re worried about being racist over that
“I thought so too, but after I got it taken away” should be “after it was taken away (from me)”
“I was in the market for a pair of shorts but then I realized I forgot what size I wear.” Just try them on, dood? They’re just shorts.
“My god, who is this girl?” says the MC after another character points out something that she said she already knew about two seconds ago.
The husband is drinking and smoking again after spending less than a month looking for a job, must be tough.

Some scenes are so dumb that it takes me out of it, like the first scene with Ben or the Saudi prince.
They introduce a black character, Ben, and of course it’s yet again another savage black man here to rape your wife stereotype, and while you get some choices like whether the mostly consensual scene happens or not, during their sex scene the music sounds like a fight scene from The Matrix. There’s even a reference to camels in there, yikes.
The first Middle East guy is of course no less stereotypical, a perverted prince with few manners and a harem of concubines who I’m sure are very sexy and get very wet from being in a harem.


GAMEPLAY

Like too many games, It’s grindy. You have to raise your stats to get anything / for anything to happen, and most actions just repeat one scene without any variations or new scenes. There’s no skip button so you can’t skip the mini-scenes you’ve already seen either when taking an action, playing or restarting the game takes a while once you reach an ending. At least most scenes are short. Speaking of endings you can reach one without realizing it at all, you’ll get one if you ignore the real estate job too long, for example.

Most actions drain your morale, which you have to build back up after by doing certain actions, really padding the game length with boring stuff like “make a sandwich” or “feed the ducks”. I could see another game make sandwich eating or duck feeding a nice scene to come back to, but not here.
And of course it doesn’t tell you which actions drain or raise your morale before you pick them, it’s often not obvious and sometimes even counter-intuitive. Exercising drains your morale for example, when it’s actually something that helps you be mentally healthy in meatspace.

There’s often no way to tell when you’ll get a sex scene, so you have to save as often as possible, but that means going back to your apartment then to your bedroom a lot, see UX problems.

On the plus side you get a decent bunch of options during sex, though getting soft locked out of certain endings can be really meh since the choices can be hard to figure if they’re positive or negative.


CGs

Most of the CGs look decent, quality of the rendering is usually on the good end but poses and framing are another matter.
Many of the shots don’t even show the characters faces, because they aren’t characters, they’re just sex dolls to be moved around under the guise of “plot”. It’s very evident in one scene where a character gets her finger sucked off but takes an awkward JoJo pose to do so. Or how the MC and her husband have the most awkward least huggy hugs I’ve ever seen, my granma gave better hugs than that and she’s dead.

AUDIO

Not much here, the few audio clips for the MC are decent if a bit inadequate and mismatched with the scene at times.
The music in itself is usually fine, but sometimes used in an inappropriate manner, like the scene with Ben cucking the husband using music that could be in a fight scene.

2/10, I need to learn to make shorter reviews.

it is an annoying game that players can never follow its logic. Players need to select the next move to keep watching scenes, and you would never know what selection is "right"---- the logical pattern in this game. For example, "fasten up to give them more pleasure" might kick players out from the sequence of lewd scenes. Then, you may ask: what's wrong with "fasten up to give them more pleasure"? Why is it the unacceptable choice, compared with "dirty talk" and "take other "d*cks in the mouth" "? I reckon that the creator can't tell us either.

I guess the creator would like to create surprises, but that only brings frustrations. Before long, it becomes annoying and bitter. psychologically, players only like rewards as supprises, not penalties ---- penalties they don't know how to avoid. players need a lot of luck to watch the full scenes continually.

The supprises which the creator is after kill the game. Too many deliberate supprises totally destroy the logic system. Finally, I lost all my patience with it when I was forced into an ending because I have too little "fidelity" with the husband. But, wait a minute, did anyone tell me I have to maintain the "fidelity" above 30 by a certain checking point? See? how bad the surprise is.

In a lewd game full of corruption, I finally was kicked out by "too much corruption"......are not players supposed corruptive to receive more scenes? Come on, where are the logic and common senses?

An "anytime" saving is not allowed in this game, and you can have only 3 save slots, so if you are forced a surprising ending, you might have to start it over from the beginning: if 3 saving can not retrieve "the supprising" demands.

This game is okay, but at this point, the erotic payoff isn't worth the work it takes to get there

I've been playing LoP games for years. I don't know if newer erotic games have raised the bar high, or if these games are losing their edge, but I find I'm playing most of the game with very little arousal.

The characters are hot and it always feels like a hot scenario is right around the corner, but either the scenario is a letdown, or it never materializes at all.
The game is about a cheating wife, but there are only a couple of plot lines where the husband is relevant at all. The husband needs to be relevant for the "cheating" to be hot, otherwise it is just random sex.

The hottest scenes happen when there is some buildup of tension, and the choice given to the player to make the final decision on how the scene plays out. That chain is broken when there are weird requirements for plotlines, and the sense that a "wrong" choice means you have to spend a bunch of time clicking again to get to the same choice. That absolutely kills any eroticism.

There were a couple of scenarios I was trying to get but never did, simply because I wasn't going to waste another hour of my life just to see if selecting dialog option B on day 11 had a different effect on day 28.

Some of the scenes are not erotic at all. The scene in the teaser with Eleanor and three black guys couldn't be more lame. She is asked to go to a locker room and visit athletes to get something from them. She shows up, and asks, and the choice is basically, "sure I'll fuck all these guys," or, "no way." Where is the tension/buildup?

Then there is a mechanic in the sex scenes which allows for zero error. By all means, include a mechanic, but don't allow for zero error in player choice, because then the player is paying too much attention to figuring out what the game wants you to pick instead of what they think will be hot. It's like you pick an option you think is hot, and are finally turned on after an hour, and the game responds by randomly (and it does feel random, as the characters wants are inconsistent) telling you "NO STAR, THIS SCENE WILL NOW SUCK, GO BACK AND RELOAD AND CLICK FOR 10 MINUTES AND TRY AGAIN." The mechanic is fine in general, but at least allow for some error. The game offers "perks" as a way to help with this, but you really need two perks to offset one incorrect choice, and it never feels like you have the perk you want when you need to have it.

There are a few hot scenarios in this game, and it does hold interest for some time. I suppose I'd say it is "average." In the end, I played it for a few hours, got hard a couple of times, then watched porn after quitting in mild frustration.

Not sure what the winning formula would be for this game, but this isn't it.

LoP (and sex&glory) games were the reason I found this site years ago. Looking for ways to bypass the horrid grind that was unbearable even when they didn't have any real competition in the genre. And I have to say the format has aged like milk.

This is the third in the Eleanor series, one of the most popular in the LoP catalog. It's MC is yet again Eleanor, the slutty wife who keeps getting in trouble that usually gets resolved by her opening her legs. And for everyone who has already played an Eleanor game , it's like you have seen it all before.

This game is grindy, like all LoP games, for little reward. You get the usual sex scene when you have the stat requirement but to me they feel empty. It's yet another repeat of tired tropes when it comes to LoP. Mob boss blackmail, handsome guy on the side, plenty of side chicks for the obligatory lesbian action. All familiar and overdone. To me, it looks like the LoP brand is stuck in its established image, afraid to include more fetishes/sexual themes in their games, because it might hurt it somehow. And seeing they now have steam releases , it's easy to see why. Which is a creative dead-end since they keep making the same game over and over again. They seem to have even gone away from simple stuff they used to do before even. I don't even remember the last time a major LoP release like this one, had a male MC for example.

And of course the same reluctance to stray from what they know, is obvious in the horrible grind. At this point there are so many wegs that have shown there are far more enjoyable ways to engage the player. Doing the same shit over and over to raise some stat is not fun.

In the end this is the standard LoP game and if you are still enjoying that type, you will like this one too. For me, it's just not enough anymore.

Used to really dig LOP games but having just tried this, I now realize how far behind the times they have fallen.

Art is barely average by today's standard, and there isn't that much of it. This game owes most of its length to the grind, with gameplay that clearly exists to drag the game out, not give you something fun to do. If you've ever played a LOP game you know the drill already, of course: Manage time, grind stats, talk to people about the 50% of topics they respond positively to and get some kind of outcome before time runs out.

In a world filled with alternative VNs that are far better, their gameplay format has gone from a bit boring to obnoxious, and I have a hard time recommending this game to anyone.

Played Eleanor 3 and discovered 5 Endings without cheats. After I grew tired of the grind (and TBH the game, in general), I started “full save” file to see what I might have missed. As it turned out, I had missed just a few scenes, which were rather bland anyways, and none of the exciting Endings in my opinion.

All in all, it’s a good game even by LOPGold standards — a studio I hold in high regard — not to mention the porn game market, in general.

VISUALS

Character CGIs are great but not the best, very similar to Lily in Hawaii (and it’s free) as well as does Living with Temptation (both episodes), just off the top of my head.

The rendering style typified by haze (motion blur?) effect is a common feature in many LOP games. Particularly nagging on TN screen like mine. Looks notably better on IPS screen, though (tested on another PC).

Eleanor appears to have grown a nice “bush” down there ;-).

WRITING

One of the selling points of porn games to me is writing. The overall writing is excellent and definitely adds value to sex scenes building up to climax at a natural pace (you have to unlock enough perks, though). Depending on your reading imagination, the writing dimension is capable of spicing up the sexual suspense greatly. I wish the font size could be changed, though.

Game’s writing has two (and a half) manifestations.

First, it’s the narrative text which you can’t control and expected to read to immerse yourself in the story — what characters think, how they perceive the environment and sensations etc.

Second is the text line choices to earn stars during sex scenes or simply required to pick in the right order to progress the scenes.

Second-and-a-half is about perk system of gameplay devised to encourage multiple playthroughs. At the launch of each playthrough, you have to pick certain character traits for Eleanor that influence available dialogue choices and actions of her. The more you explore the game, the more perks/traits you’ll be allowed to pick (obtaining all of them through successive playthroughs or use “full save” file to unlock those right off the bat), the more scenes you’ll experience.

Also, these perks/traits are the major justification for the grind. I suggest using Money Cheat to enjoy the story. Frankly, earning money in a usual way does detract from the game as you almost certainly have to reschedule your day to a certain degree every time you pick different combination of perks. I appreciate fine-tuning capabilities but not with this storyline.

STORYLINE

This is where I got disappointed. Unlike previous Eleanor chapters, in Eleanor 3 you get your character reconciled with her being a whore from the very outset. You can read in-game Intro and play the first week to understand this. She is what she has become at the end of Eleanor 2 on a full slut route.

On one hand, it makes sense as many players (me included) finished as whores last time and Eleanor 3 sort of continues from that point. On the other hand, I wish there was some (more) corruption opportunities. Well, technically Eleanor can choose to stay faithful to her husband declining questionable offers and advances. This could be acceptable if (1) Drake scenes were super spicy (they’re not) and (2) if there’s a moderate route between consummate whore and loyal wife occasionally tripping into unwilling NTR or forced (not necessarily violently but due to consequences) or blackmailed to prostitute herself. This was apparent in Eleanor 1 wherein she accidentally bumped into college friend or Drake’s pal (here is Ben but to trigger the scene you have to consent to progress with sex) or ended up working with Flake and slowly (through narrative/dialogue) becoming a prostitute or working along with another blonde guy whose name I don’t remember etc. Less of the aforesaid blackmail-NTR-forced sex mood in Eleanor 2 and barely tangible in Eleanor 3.

I get that many players don’t like NTR, blackmail, hard corruption and favor consensual sex — be it out of embracing whore attitude or just because female character does not mind having sex with whoever she finds attractive in the given circumstances. But in this revision Eleanor clearly shares a whore mindset undisturbed by dilemmas. At times you would be happy to find yourself in an unwilling situation only to be disappointed with the next few lines of her corny thinking (narrative beyond user control) that she is a cock-loving whore or something to this effect which kills all the suspense.

A few unstructured thoughts of mine. Remember the public anal sex scene in the alley with husband in Living with Britney which you have to replay the whole game to reach? Or playful scenes in the balcony and bedroom with husband? Remember sex scenes of Living with Temptation (cheating in the house, pool teasing, Vegas trip, Swinger’s Club)? Remember virtually any steamy sex scenes in Living with Serena (cheating, NTR and faithful route)? Remember night club’s bathroom gloryhole scene in Club Velvet Rose? Remember conjugal visit and voyeur scenes from the Girl with Tattoos? Sadly, Eleanor 3 does not have the charm and suspense of those.

UPD1 (January 2021): Played the new DLC. Some new side stories are really well written, to my mind (Amber, Flake and Poker). Visuals are exciting. But I keep my review above unchanged and would rather add what I find the biggest "shortcoming" that could be relatively easy to rectify by LOP.
I took my time to review most of the cues during the "star" events and, I daresay, they are quite well fleshed out and sex up the mood in the right way. But what's totally lacking is visual and audio support.

Examples:

Where it all began (Orgy):

• When you make Peter ram into Tina deeper (at the orgy), he continues to fuck her without any visual and audio confirmation.
• When Eleanor got spit-roasted at the orgy and you pick the line to use your arms and legs to pull them closer, nothing happens visually, just a narrative approval from the guys at the bottom of the screen.
• When picking the line "Scream at the guys to fuck you harder", no moaning is intensified, no visual confirmation but text.

Back alley sex with the gang:

• When you picke a respective cue during sex action making Eleanor playfully wink when sucking cock, you cannot see the actual wink as you'd expect one to intensify the scene.

I can go on and on... It's rather pity that LOP, with all their resources at hand, didn't care to add enough visual aid and/or recording additional moaning pattern/track. If implemented, this alone could have sexed up the game dramatically.

Eleanor will always have a special place in my heart (those are her boobs in my profile pic after all). This was the game that really got me into these 3D animated adult games. It indirectly led me here for the first time when I was looking to be able to download them rather than continue to pay for LOP.

The reality, however, is these games have not really changed much. They have a format that works for them and it's their business model after all, but I found myself enjoying parts of the game and just kind of going "meh" for the rest of it.

I like the new Drake/Eleanor dynamic where she is no longer beholding to him for her life and I like seeing the return of the Master, but that's about it. Too many BBC for me, too much of the same kind of interface and too much random guessing to "earn stars". Even when you earn the stars you are still limited to choices based on your "personality" criteria that you chose in the beginning of the game. Combine the awkward save process and the grind and it is a recipe for frustration.

I am also not sure what the other stats are for... why does Eleanor have a sex, fitness, or culture score? As far as I could tell, these did not have any impact on the game at all. For the amount of time they claimed they were working on this, it just seems like they mailed it in. There are much better game developers out there with fresh ideas and game play.

I do want to thank the F95 Members who were finally able to bring this game to us. Seriously. I appreciate the hard work.