VN - Ren'Py - Elite Garden [Ep.3] [A&K Studio]

Excellent debut.. Has a lot of the tropes standard to this genre but in a good way..
The characters need a little fine tuning a colour balancing as mc's skin seems a little blood pressured off..
The sporting aspect has me interested as its usually basketball so its high time we had something new to enjoy from that aspect..
I saw the title will aim to have 10 episodes.. However i hope the Dev team goes beyond this into multiple seasons as at this stage it DOES have potential to be a long term story.. improving as success grows much like other top tiers in this genre.
Characters are likeable, The LI's are a good variety as well as nice to look at..
Story has enough going for it to add a good and enjoyable tale going forward..
I hope that the devs make the most of the college american football opportunity to the fullest as it will seperate it from those other titles in this market and give it its own lineage.. Characters do need a spruce up here n there but mostly just the mc which can be done as a story point not needed to be a full overhaul.. haircuts and just reduce the OTT skin tone to match the others in the family..
Well worth the support and looking forward to the future of this title

I don't usually play first releases. When I decided to download this, it had 0 reviews. But I liked what I saw, so decided to give it a try and see what it's like.
I'm just gonna say that I like the characters so far. The dialogues feel pretty good to read, and trust me. I just came from playing another game that I shall not name that got me ranting about how the dialogues were written (poorly).
The characters are intriguing and interesting. Not enough to delve into them deeper (yet), but I'm liking them already. Ari and Fred are cool older siblings (at least one of them is, sorry Fred), and I like their interactions with one another. The only thing that was a bit off to me was the thing with Kiara. We got a grasp on her personality quite a bit, and what happened seemed out of character, at least at this stage. I don't want the dev to feel like they have to put in a lewd scene just for the sake of it. It's okay if you don't. I did enjoy it on a personal level, but it was a bit too fast imo. Either way, I'm waiting for more. It looks promising. Cheers

Review for 0.1
Another game about college you might think, .. it always begs the question what make this one unique. At the beginning of the story I actually felt like this game was going to be this predictable and boring college game, but halfway through this game proved me wrong. The MC seems to have some trauma's/ bad experiences in his love life or regarding alcohol (a flashback was shown) so theres more to this story than just a plain college game it seems. But the story is still unfolding so it is up to the dev to do something with these trauma's / experiences.

I felt like the dialogue could improve a little bit though. The flirting felt a little bit akward/unnatural with certain characters and there were some minor English mistakes although it did not hinder the flow of the dialogue that much. Luckily the dev did implement some thoughts to create some depth for the characters and make them more complete. Although I do think that thoughts could have been used a bit more, but well done I guess at this stage.

Kiara got the most screen time, her character is built up the most at this moment in time but im curious about the other love interests as well. However, I'm unsure that the progression with Kiara was the way to go as it seems that she is quite a serious girl but sleeped with the MC quite fast as in within one/two day(s) of knowing him. It felt a little bit fast/unnatural for her character. Besides that she seems to have some trauma as well and she comes from a rich/mysterious family, making her unique/interesting in her own way.

Graphics were not best seen on this website, but definitely above average, so great job in that departement.

This game was very close to being four star for me, however this being the first episode I though I should give the dev the benefit of the doubt.

I wanna start by saying that this VN has some of the best and most natural character dynamics in all the VNs I've ever played. Don't know how well they'd stand up with more character additions and expanding story, but for the initial release, they are incredible.

It is clearly the best part of this VN, but everything else is also some shade of good to great. The initial introduction and dialogues are a bit muddled, and you won't get much clarity about what is going until you are deep into it. It gets better though. It is set in the tried and tested college campus setting, and it doesn't do enough to set itself apart from the numerous others with a similar setting. If it didn't have great character writing and incredible relationship building, I would've written it off as another generic college VN.
There is also a lot of content for an initial release.

Coming to the technical aspects, the character models are great and everyone looks unique enough to be memorable. The rendering is also great, but the lighting looks a little washed out. Nothing too egregious though.

If all this sounds even remotely interesting to you, definitely give this one a try.

Loving the game so far. Its a solid first episode, looking forward to what's to come. The story so far was interesting and the characters are interesting. The game has some good models. If the rest of the updates are as solid as the first. We could have a great game to look forward to.

I like the characters, I like the models, the story seems interesting, so far, and the initial release was quite big, which is always a plus!

The main reason I'm writing this review though is because I noticed a few things that bothered me, hence the 1 star deduction, and figure constructive criticism can help the devs in the future.

So there were 2 things that majorly threw me off. First, a lot of the renders are over lit. You should never let white reach 100% in renders, I forget what the term is, but it's very hard on the eyes. Example; when you first walk into the college and you're introduced to 3 girls, the ground is almost a full solid white, just way, way to bright. It seems to only be too bright mostly in outside scenes.

The renders outside the brightness of some of them are quite nice, and the devs made some nice renders that they've placed into transitions, places where you don't have to move time forward. Problem for me is that the transitions between the renders are so fast, a second or two and that's it. You spent time making nice renders, with nice models, you can have the transitions between these renders take a little longer so that we can get a better look at them before they more on.

I'm still playing out the first part, but those are just some of the things I noticed right off the bat. I will edit if my opinion changes or I have other thoughts. If not, it's a very good start to what could be a very solid game, great stuff!

Thank you, this has started out as a wonderful story! I really enjoy the humour in it (as well as the gorgeous girls!) It will obviously have some dark themes, hopefully we can all cope with those!
The MC is a likeable character, but with obvious anger issues. Hopefully we get the back story behind this in the future.
Looking forward to the next installment!
I personally enjoy Harem stories and I hope this one goes in that direction, but I don't feel I will be disappointed, no matter how it turns out!

Elite Garden is an excellent start and a great chunk of content for a first release with my playthrough clocking in at an hour and some change. The main girls all fill their specific tropes well especially the angry kitten Kiara. Also I believe this is the first AVN I've played where it stars three siblings that are actually siblings (thank god no incest), I'm excited for EG's future!

Congrats to the devs for an impressive first release. MC actually has some character and doesn't have the personality of a floorboard. Good renders + good writing. Looking forward to the next episode

I haven't reviewed in a while, but I think this deserves 5-star.

v0.1 review: very strong start. Some might assume that it's just one of those school/college AVN, but setting is just setting. What makes a game is what happens in the setting. This is a really good introduction where so far every character seems to have quite interesting background, and we also get enough glimpse of what might happen in the future. Also quite refreshing to have the buddy role filled by someone who isn't just full-on comic relief character.