VN - Ren'Py - Fate and Life: The Mystery of Vaulinhorn [Ch. 12] [Celestial Novel]

The storyline, which attempts to incorporate a supernatural element lurking in the background, feels underdeveloped and poorly executed. The mere presence of the creature in the shadows does little to evoke intrigue or mystery, serving only to confirm that the developer prioritized everything but storytelling. The plot lacks the nuance or depth required to make the supernatural aspect feel significant, instead coming across as an afterthought—a forced inclusion that only serves to distract from the real issues at hand. This missed opportunity makes it clear that narrative was never the core focus of this project.

Equally disappointing are the characters, who are shallow and lack any meaningful development. They feel like mere placeholders, existing only to move the story along without ever being fleshed out in a way that engages the player. In a game that attempts to blend narrative with adult content, the characters should have more substance, but instead, they serve little purpose beyond facilitating sexual situations that feel increasingly forced. The adult scenes seem to be inserted with the sole aim of satisfying the player’s immediate desires, rather than building an organic connection between the characters. This lack of emotional or narrative payoff quickly becomes apparent, detracting from the overall experience.

While the visuals undeniably stand out as the game's strongest aspect, they too fail to live up to expectations when it comes to the animation during intimate scenes. Despite the impressive character models, the sex animations are lackluster at best, and at worst, downright disappointing. The lack of fluidity and attention to detail in these scenes undermines the potential of the visuals, making them feel flat and uninspired. The models themselves are attractive, but without the animations to back them up, the experience is left feeling incomplete and unsatisfying.

Ultimately, I found myself unable to continue playing, as the entire game left me feeling like a waste of time. It’s frustrating because there’s clear potential in the character designs and the premise, but the developer failed to capitalize on these strengths. Instead of delivering a well-rounded and immersive experience, the game falters under the weight of its lackluster storytelling, shallow characters, and subpar animations. It’s a missed opportunity, and ultimately, it feels like the game could have been so much more.

As a side note, if you’re looking for an example of how to utilize character models to their full potential, I’d recommend checking out *Milfy City*. The way Maive’s model is used in that game showcases what this title could have achieved if the developers had put more thought into both character development and animation. It’s a stark reminder of the untapped potential that this game failed to realize.

The overall quality feels deeply underwhelming, with almost every aspect falling short of expectations. The visuals, for instance, are nothing to write home about. The character models are stiff and rigid, lacking any fluidity or charm. The lighting is poor, making the already uninspired scenes even harder to appreciate. Given how weak the visuals are, one could perhaps overlook them if the story itself were engaging, but unfortunately, the narrative doesn't hold up either. If the plot were even halfway decent, it might justify a score of 2.5, but it is frankly uninspired and dull, with nothing that stands out or feels compelling.

The major issue with this AVN, and with many third-person AVNs in general, lies in its failure to create characters you can emotionally connect with. In third-person experiences, you’re essentially just moving characters around without ever feeling like you’re truly embodying them. The narrative struggles because it relies heavily on external control rather than internal engagement. In contrast, a first-person AVN allows for more immersion—the player projects onto the main character, and the decisions you make actively shape the story. This creates a far stronger emotional investment in both the protagonist and the world around them. In this case, however, the developer hasn’t put in the effort to flesh out the characters. They feel one-dimensional, with no unique motivations, no compelling personalities, and no reason for us to care about them beyond the shallow interactions presented.

The overarching story is, to put it bluntly, a disaster. From the very first line, it's painfully generic and full of clichés. When I encountered the line “something drew me back,” I audibly groaned, fully aware that it would lead nowhere interesting. It’s clear that the story was written as a filler, with no real depth or tension. What's even more frustrating is the title of the game—“Fate and Life”—which seems ironic given how little control the player has over what actually matters in the game. The only significant choice you get is determining which characters engage in sexual acts, which feels absurd when the title suggests a more profound exploration of life and fate. The player’s agency is so limited that it almost feels like an afterthought.

In essence, this AVN is nothing more than a quick, shallow experience designed solely for the purpose of brief, disengaged pleasure. You’re essentially skipping through text with little to no emotional payoff, and any hope of finding depth or meaning in the story is dashed early on. This is a textbook example of wasted potential, where even the most basic elements fail to come together to create a meaningful or enjoyable experience. For those seeking more than just a mechanical distraction, this AVN is a disappointing and ultimately forgettable experience.

The pacing could knock this down a star for some, but I think the quality makes up for it. Don't know what the dev will do if patrons mostly give up on it after so many years of development, but enough of that. The game is excellent. Attractive female MC with slow burn corruption, and interesting characters throughout. The story and renders are among the best on here. Choices matter. Even if this game were to never be completed, I would enjoy replaying what's already been created.

The storyline about something supernatural looming in the background isn't well told, and seeing that creature in the shadows just confirmed the developer put storytelling last in their list of priorities. Characters aren't well developed and sexual situations feel forced just to please the player. Fortunately this becomes obvious pretty soon.

Visuals are clearly the game's strong suit, but unfortunately this doesn't translate to animations during sex scenes, which are average at best if not downright terrible. I didn't bother playing it until the end because the whole thing feels like a waste of time, which is sad bearing in mind the potential of the models. Oh well.

PS. Check out Milfy City to see how Maive's model is used to her full potential

Great game and should be 5 stars. Only thing it's missing for me is an auto advance on the dialogue unless I am missing something. Having to manually click to advance every time is ridiculous. The story is different and intriguing.

How this AVN even has a 3.5/5 is beyond me.
The story consists of stiff and rigid modelling, poor lighting, and generally poor visuals all around. If the story was halfway decent then it'd be deserving of a 3, but the story is just crap.

The issue with most third-person AVNs is that just corporeally controlling characters makes it ten times harder to make characters that you can resonate with. The traditional first-person AVN works because we project onto the MC, the choices we make (should) help engage in the story, and the other supporting characters don't need nearly as much writing to be good. The dev doesn't want to spend the time required to give every character a distinct inner and outer voice, personal motivations, and everything else that comes with an interesting character, so we're stuck with everyone being shallow and one-dimensional.

The overarching story fucking sucks, so that's out. From nearly the first line it's generic and cliche, when I read the "something drew me back" line I just audibly groaned because I knew it'd just be uninteresting fluff. Also, the fact this AVN literally calls itself "Fate and Life" and you control literally nothing going on besides which characters fuck is nuts to me.

There's nothing here besides a quick and dirty jerk off skipping through text.

Love this game.
Good graphics, good story, good looking characters and really really good for NTR lovers. Only issue is with the rendering of the Characters, somewhere they look whitish skin tone which looks weird but I think for me it's not that big of an issue.
Overall, A really good game for people who don't like slow burns.

Many sexual scenes for every taste and with different characters. The story is the same as the colour you like. Normal characters. Normal animations with pretty normal to bad renders. Thanks to the bad lighting used. The day it has a decent lighting I'll give it 3,5 stars.
It's still a mishmash of poorly developed ideas.

It looked good in the early stages.

+ DP/MMF/FFM action and great gangbang scene in chapter 8
+ not a boring slow burn
+ music
+ story, sometimes is interesting..

- .. and sometimes is a bit boring
- quality of the renders
- Rebecca is too manipulative

Solid avn with a lot of straight content, that's all i need. 4 stars from me

Fun game. Wide cast of characters with a variety of kinks. Most of the sex scenes and scenarios are nice and hot. But some are a bit cliche or exaggerated (e.g., the students that try to blackmail, I rejected them. hopefully they come back but with better intentions!). An alright plot, albeit sometimes dampened by infodumping at times which made me skip it and lose some interest. The models are also nice, although a little exaggerated for the some of the females perhaps (but this is likely intentional). The paths also seem a bit too binary, either corruption or love. Nonetheless, a game worth picking up and checking out.

The story is overall strong, quite fantastic. The MC and the other female characters are extremely hot (if you like busty). There are a lot of choices that influence LIs. Personally I find the lesbian scenes particularly hot, especially that last one between Maive and Rebecca. Hope to see a continuation of that part of the storyline. I love the style and quality of the renders, cinematic indeed.

The plot goes too fast, main character almost fucked by every male and even female in the game, not a totally bad thing (compare to A wife and mother which have vaginal sex no more than 2 times a year), but a little bit more polish coule be better.

My actual rating would be a 3.5 but Ill round up to 4.

Before getting into it, Ill just say I've only played the corruption path and my review is based on that.

The corruption is actually fully enforced from the get go, I mean if you choose to let things happen it's not a slow process by all means. Which is kind of okay... I guess... seems like things tend to go from 0 to 100 pretty quickly and personal bias here... I'm not a huge fan of.... I prefer the slow burn corruption that escalates over time...

That being said, there is a story here which I didn't care about honestly, it just seems foolish and contrived to me, but that's another personal bias, maybe some people will enjoy it... anyway...

Positives are good renders, nice animations and alot of kinks.

Good game overall.

One of the most important aspect in a story is the pacing.

Moreso for smut.

Aside from an info dump in part 8 there is a robust pace to the game that so many titles on this site seem to really struggle with.

The visuals could be improved and while personally I could live without the animation thanks to the author's acceptable wordsmithing in the sexy bits, it's not to any real detriment.

Well worth a look for anyone into the cheating housewife trope.

I am honestly surprised, and disappointed, even though I really shouldn't be.

This is one of the finest visual novels I've had the pleasure of reading. Because to me, AVNs are dumb. We are all dumb for being on this site. However, the worst of us are those who take these seriously and promote themselves to the level of an expert critique.

I'm so sorry to inform you that this isn't an AVN that as immeasurable depth in character development and world building. If only there were actual novels for that...

If you are here with a couple screws loose in your head (nothing major, trust me, there is some actually messed up stuff out there and this isn't even close to that), enjoy yourself. The MC is gorgeous. The art work isn't perfect AI-worthy, but that is what makes it so real. So aesthetic.

I ramble, but all I can say is that I am glad I came across this piece of work. 10/10

Here noobs first impressions review
MC + models ok , I am a fan of MC model .
Lighting needs more work. I have no daz3d experience, but have done some blender stuff though. (ambient light ,spot lights ,etc). So for models + lighting only 3 star. I like how story starts and Mom point of view, also Mom have sex like most male MC do . Mom fucks every male she can get, also younger ones and incest too) . What males can, so can females too. So for Mom point of view and sex 5 stars, means 4 stars overall.

I agree with the worst reviews, there isn't a single good reason to try it, meaningless story, terrible renderings for both static images and the terrible animations, with depictions of genitals worse than the worst depiction of even 2D designs.
For me, to forget.

Sub-par renders, horrible characters, and writing that feels like a teenagers fantasy make this game almost painful to play. Within 5 minutes the female MC has agreed to get drunk and play strip poker with her teenage son's friends, the next morning she does some yoga with her son, he gets a hard-on and his mother strips down to give him a hand-job to "help him out".

Really??? I'm good with a bending the believable to make an entertaining AVN, but this game is downright absurd where all the females have massive DDDD tits and are drawn like a moth to the flame to any cock they see.

A complete waste of time.

I think the game is at the beginning and needs a little time to be developed properly. As a recommendation, it would be good from the beginning to make a love path and a corruption/ slut path. Although the paths are separated in the evening when MC goes to sleep, the content of the other path should be presented as a dream or have flashes with the other content... still the supernatural is introduced into the game
so many things can be allowed .

Version 6.0

Eh... just like the other games with the same MC model, there really isn't much choice. Yes, you have a "love" path, but that leads to only one scene.
Every other decision is if you want to add corruption or not, and if you at some point stop doing so you are locking yourself out of future content.

Basically it's a "corruption"/NTR KN where MC jumps on every cock she sees if you want to see any content at all