VN - Ren'Py - Far Beyond the World [v0.179] [Echoes of Arcane]

Overall great art style and premise. Story is good and keeps you interested in it.

The characters are designed well and their story/interactions are good. The main problem story/character wise on the player character's attitude from start to finish but at the latest chapters (13-15) it does show its by design rather than bad writing which imo is fine considering the MC is a teenager(ish). The MC does give many signs of a writers self insert which is bad in a game that has the player make a lot of choices.

The writing does suffer from what I would say "millennial writing syndrome" which the story has many elements and things going on in our real world and time. This is combined with excessive swearing that happens way to often than it should. Though the writer(s) have realised this from what I have seen in the latest chapters (15-16) and have moved slightly away from those which is good.

Also for any newcomers this is not a heavy NSFW porn game but it does have nudity and sexual acts but are quite few.

For a gay furry romance isekai, it does keep you interested on how the story and the characters develop.

The art is really fantastic!

It's the story that gets a negative star. I mean, the story is good, but the problem is that it seems as if this is taking place in a different world. And although the description says it's a second life on another world, there are things that pulled my attention out of the story.

Things like our modern day politics. Yeah, that's great and all, but the reason I want to get lost in a good story is to forget about all the politics and garbage going on in everyday life. Just one word like "mansplaining" really yanks the attention away. I start to think about talking heads on TV or a commercial with that, or some moral atrocity that pissed me off. It messes with the atmosphere of the story.

At one point, one character mentioned "Charles Dickens" which really pulled my attention away. Idk it's like my brain was getting into the flow and then there's this 'other worldly' obstacle I've got to hurdle. And it wouldn't be so bad if say, the character related a game to say a "modern day jigsaw puzzle" or it reminded them of a "game of tag back on earth". That would be fine, because it's a simple image with maybe a happy emotion. But "Charles Dickens" could mean a lot of different things, is is a happy story? a sad story by C.D.? And adding "Orphan" to the mix means that you would need to know or have read Oliver Twist to understand it. Plus there's his other books he wrote like 'Hunted Down'; could this also play a part in this hunting story? Or perhaps 'A Tale of Two Cities?' It could allude to being in two different worlds but you would need to know the context of the stories. It's a lot of imagery to place on the reader when all that is going on is an inner monologue and common banter. I think that whomever did the conversation part of this, lost sight a times of what the goal was. Set the scene. Keep it simple.

The game is great, but I think the story execution needs a little reworking. I honestly don't know how, what, or why, things are going on in the story. I'm just assuming that the main character has been on this planet for about 20 years, and yet this person isn't thinking about priorities in their new world, but rather their about old world politics and language from 20+ years ago, when the main C needs to be helping gather food. I mean a different planet=different culture, right? I FEEL some of this through the dislike of hunting conversation, but I almost feel as if the character has just dropped onto the planet a year ago. I then could understand this mindset. I feel like this character is about 1 mishap away from complaining about not having a cell phone. When the goal is to fit into the new society. If the new society doesn't like you and kicks you out. You're in survival mode. Cell phone or not, the new society would enjoy their own material things. Bows and arrows for instance. Or say clothing. The character could earn a place by crafting a backpack or something to earn tribe approval AND get what they've been missing out on. I just feel like there's too much "woe is me" going on. Not to say that is too overpowering for the story, but it seems like the Main Character is a mid-twenty earthling, that just got thrown on-planet a year ago.

But comes the next atmosphere breaker. Are they human? or are they indigenous? How long have they been here? Surely this person would be bullied for thinking differently, right? Surely this person tried to do things to fit in, right? How do they know this indigenous language? I think a little more info in these areas would stop the incessant barrage of questions from pulling the reader out of the story. And it needs to be In-game.

Other than that. The art is AMAZING! And the characters feel real enough. I can't wait to see where this goes from here! I'm definitely eager to see more characters and story, and definitely happy to see males AND females in this game. It looks fantastic!

Until now I'm loving how things are going and I'm looking foward for the next upgred of the story. However, it would be great if we could enjoy another kind of routes with diferent characters. It would be extremelly satisfying if you could might have others ways to finish with diferent characters and other paths to explore that lead to the end of the story.

This game is almost comically similar to Adastra, but with the sci-fi elements swapped out for medieval fantasy. You're a human who suddenly finds themselves in the midst of a society of anthropomorphic wolves and are beholden to the ruler-to-be. You hide your intelligence from the other wolves, are being manipulated by dark forces beyond your ken, all while trying to absorb the local culture and (not that) gradually falling in love with your captor / savior / best wolf boy. It's mostly a linear story, with occasional decisions along the way that have pretty minor consequences (so far).

Now, if that hasn't completely turned you off, this is actually a pretty good VN so far. The art is gorgeous and each character has a wide variety of sprites, the worldbuilding is pretty good and the characters are very distinct, but likeable in their own ways.

That all being said, the story could definitely use a little editing. Some scenes drag on for too long and the MC is almost aggravatingly petulant in the face of this precarious situation in which he finds himself. Relatively minor flaws, especially given the overall quality of the VN.

UPDATE: A year-and-change later and progress has been... slow. The art is still great and the MC is still a whiny little shit, but it's finally being addressed in-game. The creator has dropped the façade of player choice and gone completely linear, but the story is still pretty interesting.

Definitely don't invest if you're after NSFW content, but I'd say it's still worth a read.