VN - Ren'Py - Eternum [v0.8.0] [Caribdis]

Review for 0.4 beta

This is a true gem of an adult visual novel. By now I've checked out literal hundreds of games over the years on this site. Very few of them can match up to Eternum as a whole.

If there were AAA games of the porn game world, I'd argue Eternum (and Caribdis as a developer) to be part of them. Everything here is quality. Top notch renders and environments aside, there's a certain style to the characters and writing that make me feel like I'm playing a Caribdis game, and I think it's great when a dev achieves that. The passion and care put into this game really shows.

The other thing I love is that the game is fun, plain and simple. Most of us come here for the lewd stuff of course, but AVNs can be a lot more than that, and this is a great example. I think my favorite parts of the game are when we aren't following the main plotline, but instead when we are just exploring the world of Eternum with the love interests and having a good time. It's an adventure, and I love when we don't know what's coming next.

The lewd stuff is definitely not slacked on either. More than the great animations, one thing that really stands out is the facial expressions. They feel very organic, and is something you REALLY don't see often. This goes for the non-lewd parts of the game as well.

Really, this game just has it all right now. Good story and writing, humor that actually makes me laugh, loveable characters, high quality renders and animations, and just an interesting setting to explore. If I had to critique anything, I sometimes wish we got more choice on our MCs dialogue in minor situations. There's been a couple times where he says something and all I can think is "dude just shut up."

Perhaps the most impressive thing is that this is only the fourth version released, and I already count it as one of my favorites. This is an incredibly solid experience, and still feels like it's only just beginning.

this is more then just a good nut.
this is a super dream. best story I've seen in a long time and I love the quality of every frame. Need more updates I can't wait to see that happens next .
I just wish this world was real .

Version reviewed: 0.4
Positives:
An excellent game worth your time. This is the game that has has shown me that Honey Select games (HS2-powered games anyway) can be unique looking and have excellent visuals.

The story is wonderful and I can't wait see where it goes. Caribdis has carved out a story that is compelling, emotional, and leaves you wanting more. A lot of the games on this site have good characters with good writing, but in this game? You get good characters and writing, AND a good sci-fi/fantasy story that could quite literally be a real book or TV show. That is quite rare and why this game receives so much praise.

My one negative criticism: The writing in some of the sex scenes is jarring compared to the writing in the overall story. There is a character who is rather meek and timid, and when she and the MC get together suddenly they start talking like they're both porn stars. If you spend the time writing wonderful character arcs for each person then one would expect those characterizations to carry over into the sex scenes. I would never expect a meek and timid virgin to suddenly start screaming 'daddy' or something like that during their first time. I understand that the sexy scenes are supposed to bring them out of their shells but it should still be realistic. That's just my opinion.

All that said, I would like to rate this game closer to 4.5 with the issues described above BUT this game makes you fall in love with the characters and story so strongly that it can be overlooked and deserves a full 5 stars. Still, wanted to pass along those thoughts to the Author.

Can't wait to see what comes next!

It is a nice game with a quite interesting story (I really like the paradoxes in stories) and good visuals. I recommend it 100%. I have played version 0.4 and I haven't noticed any bugs or any performance issues (playing on an old laptop with 950GTX)

Based on the (as yet) unfinished v0.4

My usual disclaimers when writing reviews on here are that A. I am here for the "plot" not the plot and B. I am very picky with visual novels and think broadly they can be very subpar. So, take both of those into consideration for my review when thinking about this game.

Pros

• Easily some of the hottest character models on the site – Caribdis doesn’t use the sort of photo-realistic renders that you see in many other RenPy games on F95 but frankly I’d argue it still contains hotter girls than 95% of the ones which do. Of course, part of that is because the girls don’t have to look like exactly like real people, but also they are quite simply exquisitely designed from blonde bombshell Penelope (easy favourite), to the punk and tatted Alex and the petite and innocent Annie. They all look different and are all HOT as FUCK.
• Characterisation is excellent too – On top of being hot the girls all also feel like (broadly) unique and different people with interesting and fun characters. It is consistently good fun learning more about each one as they each have varying levels of walls up between them and MC and watching them each open up at varying speeds is highly enjoyable
• Exceptional writing – In his previous game, Caribdis himself said that he started it as a hobby and from the start the writing was a little wobbly but gradually grew into a game that everyone loves. Now he has taken all the experience from that and is pouring it into this. Eternum is genuinely stellar in terms of writing right out of the gate. The character dialogue is always entertaining, the moment-to-moment scenes are engaging, the pacing is smashing and the broader plot is exciting and intriguing. It’s simply great. Like before as well, the tone is pretty fucking on-point as it occasionally dips into more horror and thriller territory with absolute ease.
• Sexy fucking sex – Holy shit… The sex in Eternum is so… Fucking… Hot… My dude, I cannot express this enough. Normally I like games which incorporate a lot more elements of domination and submission to really get into the sexy times, and while Eternum has elements of this (and hopefully will have more down the line) it’s unquestionably a bit more vanilla. Despite this, every single sex scene feels, fucking INTENSE. I’ve played a fair few games on here where they just throw a few high quality renders or animations at you and that’s supposed to be enough, but Eternum does more than that. You basically can FEEL the characters need to rip each other’s clothes off and fuck each other. Like… Godamn it’s just so good!
• Fantasy fuel – The setting of Eternum is honestly an absolute classic. It’s a mix of slice-of-life and then massively over-the-top fantasy and sci-fi and whatever, but because of the very basic premise it actually all makes a lot of sense. I’ll come back to this in the main text body.
• Sense of humour – Again, Caribdis really has a pretty great sense of comedic timing and leans into a few sillier, more outrageous scenes. It keeps the tone largely pretty light, even when things actually get a bit darker, and keeps things from getting too bogged down.

Mehs

• Sexy times are somewhat formulaic – I’m absolutely nit-picking here as this is not always true, but for the most part it really does feel a tiny bit like you go through the same motions with each girl. First you fancy each other, then you get a blowjob/handjob, then you will likely get a scene with it being more intense, and then sex and then (if it follows the same pattern as his other game) a few threesomes/moresomes. Again, this is absolutely a nit-pick and not even a real negative, but the fact that every relationship appears to go through the same sexy steps does somewhat take away from the immersion (because it makes it more clear that the full sex scenes are being "saved" for later in the game)
• Choices make sense but are fairly obvious – As it was in his last game, the choices of Eternum tend to fall under two categories: progress a relationship or don’t. If you want to roleplay as only focusing on a few girls, fair enough, but there’s not exactly branching story-lines or arcs beyond “get the girl” or “don’t”. The choices always make sense so, so it doesn’t feel like you’re having to choose between “being a good guy” and “being completely and illogically bat-shit mental”, but it’s also usually pretty obvious which the right choice is to progress the relationship of a particular girl. Again, this is not a negative for me, because on the upside it means there will almost definitely be a full harem ending where you get every single girl, which is basically what I’m here for anyway.
• Protag rules, everyone else drools – Another nit to pick is that it feels pretty much like there are two classes of people in Eternum. The good guy team (you and your harem) who are all wonderful, lovely, loving, zany people, and then there is everyone else. Everyone else falls under one category: massive cunt. There’s not exactly any subtlety or shades of grey in the conflict here, you guys are the goodies, everyone else is the baddies. This also means that sometimes some scenes with the goodies arguing with the baddies can actually even just feel a bit mean, because it’s like “well, these guys suck, so you can be as much of a dick to them as you like”.

Cons

• Inconsistencies within the world of Eternum – So, the story of Eternum is that it contains a massive virtual reality MMO where people can do anything and everything within reason. However, it feels like there are some inconsistencies with the rules of this. It happened more than once that I’d think “wow that doesn’t make sense to me if this was a video game, surely they could design that differently” or some rule will be mentioned and I’ll find myself thinking “surely there’s all these things they could do to get around that?” HOWEVER, it is worth saying that these inconsistencies might actually be intentional… I’ll come back to this below as I’m, again, not even sure this really qualifies as a negative.

I was a big fan of Caribdis’ previous game but I’ve held off on reviewing Eternum for a few versions, just to give it a chance to breath and see what direction it would be taking.

So, to start off with, it seems pretty obvious that Caribdis does not miss… If I were to come out here and say the game sucked, it would either be because I was being contrarian or apparently the only one of a million billion people who didn’t like it.

The setting of Eternum did make me raise an eyebrow a little bit at first. Basically, the setting is Ready Player One, but in an h-game. Let's not split hairs about this... That's what it is... From the start, that really could not be more clear. Everyone plays a virtual-reality MMORPG, the company in charge of it basically owns the world, there is a quest made by the mysterious founder of the company to find things in the game which will allow you to inherit the whole thing. Yeah… The plot is Ready Player One.

Now, on one hand, the similarities are so extreme that it honestly at first felt less like a homage and more like a rip-off, however there are a few twists to the formula that eventually start appearing that change the direction of the story and make it distinct enough to get a pass.

The other thing there is that, let's be real here, an h-game set in the world of Ready Player One? That sounds fucking amazing! I bet everyone else is kicking themselves they didn’t think about doing that first. It allows for the standard slice-of-life, school stuff to happen and then they get into a video game where you are in Hogwarts or Cyberpunk and you get to have crazy sexy stuff going on there too and it all makes consistent sense with the story. It’s just an ideal setting for mixing dozens of different sexy fantasies.

It also helps that Caribdis’ writing is really just excellent. I never skip dialogue in his game (which says something on its own), the plot moves along at a decent clip, there’s intrigue and excitement and but then all of this is just a vessel to deliver plenty of steamy scenes to keep my monke-brain happy. It has that sweet-spot of being porn with plot, but the plot actually makes sense and isn’t totally ludicrous.

I did mention in my cons here something that sort of becomes more apparent from chapter 3 onwards, and so this will be a bit of a minor spoiler: basically it is becoming significantly more uncertain whether the game of Eternum, that all the characters play, is even a video game or whether it is in fact something totally different. There are hints and suggestions of magic in the real world, of hard rules of the game being broken, of the possibility that it is all some kind of magical or alternative dimensional existence. This in itself is somewhat inconsistent and frankly, I’m not sure how much I like the idea of it. By adding in the extra layers of magic/supernatural, I think it somewhat takes away from the already fun premise of a huge virtual MMO and starts making it feel more uncertain, like there’s not really any rules and anything that happens which doesn’t fit can be sort of hand-waved away. It does start to make the core premise feel that tiniest bit shakier. But, having said this, maybe it will all make much more sense down the line.

The actual sexy stuff of Eternum is also honestly absolutely top tier. I’ve already said as much, but I’ve no idea how very few other games manage to match this level of sexy intensity and chemistry between characters. It also has dirty talk and descriptions of the events on top of the super high-quality animations, but they aren’t egregious or over-the-top. It just exists to suck my soul out through my dick. Amazing fucking work.

I think it also really helps here that while I've previously thought Caribdis was a bit of a boob guy, I actually think he's more cultured than that... See, Caribdis is a true man of wisdom and is a tummy/hips guy. All of his girls are varying levels of curvy and well-endowed, but they all have amazing "breeding" hips and waists... It's just... MWAH!

Really, it basically goes without saying that Eternum is good. This glowing recommendation from me is just another in a fucking sea of them…

But what do you want me to say for fucks sake? It’s quite simply good! Give it a go!

This game is perfection in terms of visuals, love interests, and the myriad of genres it tackles. The pacing is fantastic too and I can see legit an infinite amount of updates, this seems much slower paced and longer than OIAL even! Can't wait for when things really get going with the LIs, the teases of some of these threesomes and foursomes are awesome

I'm not usually into these types of games mostly because all the characters look the same and have a terrible story but this game is surprising. I'm a massive fan of horror and mystery films and this game just blew all my expectations out of proportion. Amazing renders, exceptional models, outlandish fucking story, the music fits perfectly with all the scenes, the MC is not a bitch, animations are very well done and also every update has a bunch of content and they are fast, so I really have nothing bad to say about this game at the moment. Huge props to the Dev!

What a fantastic game! The models are wonderful, the world is engaging and immersive, the characters range from well-written to endearing, and the plot has been PERFECTLY paced thus far. This is about as perfect of an adult VN game you will find. I cannot recommend it enough.

Caribdis has done it again!
The models are unique and absolutely stunning, while all looking greatly different from each other. In terms of the "plot", you will find it lacking nothing.

Now for the real plot, I cannot stop raving about it enough. The story, especially the world building, is as engaging as it is stunning to look at. The twists are few, but when they hit, they pack a punch.
Not to forget the best part: The Characters!The cast all feel genuine and with their own wills and wants, having interests beyond just being fodder for the self insert. Even the MC has a will of their own and it is refreshing to see such a dedicated plot with the "plot". The jokes and the comedic timing always feel like a great break from the serious drama. I cannot wait for more.

I don't usually review, but I loved this game, it has nice graphics, a good story that builds the universe you are playing in, it even has animations and voice audios, almost seems like a big studio game, I'm probably supporting the dev.

Review for v0.4 beta, subject to change for future update.

I used to be a fan of Caribdis' works, but after this update dropped I'm a whole air conditioner.

Creating an amazing AVN means that the developer has to strike a balance between sensual contents and story-writing presentation, and Caribdis manages to accomplish that goal once again with his latest work Eternum, a sci-fi romance story mimicing the worldview of Ready Player One where you as MC set out to win the ladies' hearts, as well as to uncover the mystery of the virtual world that is more real than real life. So far Caribdis with his amazing writing skills has made the story, with intricate plot and great humor, more and more interesting. I don't want to spoil any of it, you have to try it yourself to see.

Character arcs are also one of Caribdis' strong points. Just like Once In A Lifetime, in Eternum we are once again presented with seven girls who are all fascinating in their own right. What's more, they're not just for the sake of fap materials or damsels in distress; instead they actually help push the story forward. I myself prefer more real-life models than Honey Select, but even though the characters in Eternum are created using Honey Select 2, their "weakness" is greatly mitigated by the choice of facial animations, which makes the characters more likable and "lively" than HS characters in other games (for example: there's a scene where MC and Annie go out to a Eternum date and Annie's facial expressions when MC expresses his love to her is just priceless).

The music and sound effects are also incredible in helping shape the story, and the latest addition of "audio log" is certainly a pleasant surprise.

Overall, Caribdis has once again done an amazing job in creating another AVN masterpiece, which is easily one of my Top 3 AVNs, and I love to see how the story unfolds in future updates.

(0.4)
Amazing renders and characters, also the setting is really cool! Top notch game hands down.
It's a pretty lighthearted game with all the girls drooling over you basically from the get-go, but yeah that's fine for me, this is an hgame in the end. My only complaint is how linear the story feels (to me) despite the dozens of choices you are offered. I can't really explain why since there are some (brief) branches but to me they all seemed not really story-changing, often it's just a matter of making the right choices to stay in the girls paths (which is rather easy). Other games gave me a much bigger feeling of "freedom", but it may be just me

Anyhow, good job Caribdis and keep up the good work! (and sorry for my borked English)

This game is great, they work with what they have, it's fun, it has intrigue and mystery, the story makes sense considering that it is a universe to which we are new, the rhythm of the story leaves you glued, you don't lose interest in the characters, the humor is understandable and you relate to it (English is not my native language), Keep doing a great work

I really love this game so much. I'm not good at English But the context of this game is not too difficult to understand. There are also very melodious songs. For me it's a very good gaming experience.

Version 0.4 first playthrough


This is officially the best Game in the section VN. Funnily I wrote this before I actually realized, it is the best reviewed game atm.
The grafics are spectacular (for HS).
Yeah, MC's overpowered, the girls are unrealistic (but very sexy) and the characters are a bit clichéd.

It doesn't matter a bit! The story is absolutely masterfull told, and the little parodies here and there (or the VERY BIG ones, like Warthogs) make it even more interesting to follow.
This gets all praise I can give because of its creativity, the mastery in execution of said creativity, and the little things they throw in here and there to amuse me.

Man I love this game. These are the games that ruin every other VN because of the high degree of quality in the title.

Caribdis is a fantastic writer and really that is what steals the show in this game. Sure the girls are hot, but it's really just a normal VN with not much other gimmicks other than a currency system. You make a few choices, blatantly decide who you want to romance and who not, and right now there aren't even many sex scene.

But the writing, the story, the pacing its all just fantastic. I can not stress enough how GREAT the writing of those game is, and it is certainly the best of any VN I have played (XXX or not).

There is a reason this game is at the top of the highest rated games. Immersion.

10/10 pictures and animations.
10/10 sound
1010 immersion
10/10 humor
10/10 pacing of the game.

You are the main character of this story. And there actually is a story. No grinding, no over the top 100+ girls to date. It just guides you through different words, story plots and so much humor. And great humor. A very thought out game. Which doesnt go all out of choices, which will always bite the creator in their ass. Simple and linear, but very well made. I wish more of these games were like this. Instead we usual get bad written English stories that jump from sex scene to blowjob scene. Give this a try! I do not have a bad word to say about this game. Yeah, maybe that updates take too long, but we cannot have quality without waiting

Great setting, humour and knowledge of the technology used to make these games lets Caribdis to succeed after his previous game Once in a Lifetime.

Great models, dialogue and a tight story and cast

0.4 Beta review:
I've played dozens, if not over a hundred AVNs at the point, and yet Caribdis manages to make a masterpiece that stands above most of them. I'm so enthralled by this game that I'm writing my first ever game review for this.

This game doesn't have the most niche kinks - it's a fairly typical harem game with HS/college aged girls and a very young milf thrown in. Fairly vanilla stuff as of 0.4 Beta, but plenty of hot and sexy scenes so far. The main girls have a slower progression than side characters, but I feel the sense of progression is fine. Every single LI is hot to the nth degree it makes it difficult for me to select which is the best. I certainly am not disappointed with the adult scenes so far in this game.

In terms of visuals and animations, this is a HS2 game, which usually isn't my preferred medium. There are other games on this site with more realistic renders and better animations, but let me say Caribdis manages to make one of the best HS2 games out there - on par with or even better than Pale Carnations and Ripples. No knock in the visuals/animation department from me at all.

By far the biggest draw for me in this game, is the deeply engrossing story that Caribdis has managed to weave into this adult game. Many games on this site are little more than images/animations to spank to, with stories that are either too convoluted or non-existent. Caribdis manages to create a fascinating sci-fi storyline that blends just the right amount of humor and sometimes heart wrenching backstory. Each of the main LIs of the MC are getting more and more fleshed out with each update, and this 1000% makes this game one of my most anticipated ones, every time there's an update. I've played this dev's previous game, and I truly believe he or she has improved tremendously in their craft.

Best part about this game and dev is - each update is a sizeable chunk, with a decent spread of H scenes, unlike some other famous devs out there. If there's any dev who deserves monetary support on this website, Caribdis should be near the top of everybody's list. Keep up the fantastic work!

Edit: One more part I forgot to mention, this game has great music that complements the scenes very well. Very few VNs have music and some that do just play random songs. The music in this game enhances the atmosphere and makes the game that much better.

Again Carbidis has graced us plebs with honeys of varying shades and sizes and again he brings a tale of mystery and titties. Mostly tittles but still the mystery is there. The game is the only one I can remember actually having a page system for saves, as in you go to 11 and the pages below change. Revolutionary.

MC Player Person Man exists! And he has a female friend! Also Chang, he's a bro, but he doesn't have tits so he only gets a 9/10. Player is going back to his old town where there are Childhood Friends and other Waifus to woo when a PLOT surprise happens, like a rat thrown from a crack addicts underwear you have no idea where its come from or where its going next. But it 100% leads to titties, with jiggle physics.

There's music, I like it. Not seen any issues with the grammar or spelling so far. There's a variety of Waifus to war over. Nova is the best, disagree and you're retarded, this is known.

Play it.