Ren'Py - Completed - Foot of the Mountains 2 [v5.0 Finale] [SerialNumberComics]

The following review is based off my personal experience with playing this Game/Visual Novel... I try to be as brutally honest and detailed as I can, and these are my own opinions and thoughts, from one or more play throughs... The version this review is based on is v4.0b...

I tried to give this VN/Game the benefit of the doubt, but after about 3 hours I just had to call it... And you can tell fairly quickly it has the overused Incest theme...

The visuals of the characters are decent, outside of the uncle... The backdrops are mix of unique ones to a couple I've seen before in other VN/Games... The navigation UI is decent and for the most part easy to understand... The search function, when outside, needs some work... The highlight is a barely noticeable black box, and really needs some fine tuning... I've see selection choices work a lot better in other VN/Games...

The script for the most part is ok, with some occasional broken English and spelling/grammar errors... The story is not this VN/Games strong suit... The plot, what little there really is, revolves around a male protagonist who's family dies and he ends up moving in with his fathers sister and her family... His fathers business is left under the control of his rather mean and abusive uncle, even though the protagonist is supposedly a partner... You do eventually begin to unravel that something is extremely fishy with that business, as well as his uncle and aunt, but not much is every really revealed...

This VN/Game is primarily a Relationship Grinder, leaning very heavy on repetition and grind... Expect to see many scenes over and over again, with only the occasional variation., depending on relationship stats... Most of the stats can be viewed, but some are hidden... There is also a money grind. but getting money, from what I experienced, was difficult and random at best... There is obviously a slight corruption/love theme, with the younger cousin... But the other relationships were either bizarre or over the top...

The older cousin is your over the top flirtatious and mean spirited female character, who is either a lust interest of just there to add some porn value to one of the characters... The aunt, is weird, in that half the time she is mean to her kids and husband, and half the time she just stairs at the protagonist, menacingly... Only on rare occassion, did it seem that she showed any form of attraction towards the protagonist, even though you can keep increasing her relationship stats... There is a scene where she teaches the protagonist, repetitively, how to milk a cow... Obviously he has some perv intentions, but is constantly cockblocked by the older cousin, and he gets in trouble as well... Which made no sense... Because in the beginning stages, nothing perverted was happening that would clue you in that the protagonist had perv intensions, and the lewd/rude things said were purely from the cousin, and never from the protagonist, and yet he gets yelled at, and punished with a Suspicion point, several times, when nothing in the text or visuals suggested anything perverted, at all, from the protagonist... It was case of some bad story telling and event design...

Some events felt extremely random, and it was hard to tell if some of the choices you made, had any real impact on progression at all... Progression was hard to figure out, except when you were told a stat went up... I just sort of kept clicking on rooms when folks were in them, and sometimes they would just repeat over and over the same stuff, and on some occasions suddenly there was a change, but the next time it was back to a random version of the repetition again... It just started to become a bit confusing for some of the events...

There is a hint system, but it's a bit vague, and looks a bit thrown together, with varying font sizes and such... Some of the hints reset themselves, as I'm guessing it's hinting at the event being repeatable... You could tell some randomness was added, possibly on purpose, with how some things played out... Probably to add a feeling of change, but it would make the grind worse by having to see repetitive stuff, just in a different order sometimes... And in some cases, would waste time having to wait till the next moment a opening would occur to continue a specific event route... An example was the egg hunt hint, saying you needed to help her with her foot 4 times, or so, before being able to open up the opportunity to give his aunt a massage... Well, over a 4 in game week period, I was only presented with 2 occasions to even do that lead up event... A real lack of consistency...

Overall, this VN/Game is a tedious and slow relationship grinder... There really is not much story at all, with most progressions moving at a snails pace... Most current erotic content primarily revolves around lots of peeping, and seeing the protagonist pull out his schlong now and then... You get a few hints, outside of the hint screen, during game play, but the opportunity to progress, or do those events hinted at, feel like they are only randomly available, half the time... Which just prolongs the repetition and grind... The only characters story arc I was even partially enjoying, was with the younger cousin... The rest leave something to be desired, and progress way too darn slow or perhaps even not at all... Do not play/read this VN/Game thinking it has some deep and meaningful story telling, because it doesn't... I feel like it's long term goals are primarily to just be a porn fest with just the tiniest of plot/story... They really could have done a better job, but this VN/Game is still in development, so who knows what the future holds... It definitely needs to improve a lot of things, if it wants to truly succeed... Will I revisit this one? Chances are highly unlikely... Have to wait and see...

The linear structure is poor;y managed. There are several events that must happen in a set order or you can't progress, except there is ZERO hint that they must be done in any order, and it is simple, even intuitive o do them in the 'wrong' order. (Ring vrs tennis, Prank Versus dress) Developer has a good story and decent renders, but very poor at organising the event structure. My advise? Don't play until its finished and the dev can get round to making it work.

The author continues to disappoint sloppy gameplay.
Good graphics, good plot, but the gameplay negates all the advantages.
TangledUp 3 times started from the beginning, trying to get through the script trap and break out of the loop, in the end I looked at the final pictures and that's it. In this game, unfortunately, everything is exactly the same.

Review for 4.0 the game desperately need a scene replay

The game pretty much requires a walkthrough without one you're just be going around all over the place trying to figure it out a lot of the sex scenes seem to be not repeatable I say seem because I tried for quite a while and was unable to repeat them and didn't make save of them so you best be making saves..... When searching for stuff You Gotta click in a certain part of the picture it gives you no hint to where to click so you'll just be spamming your mouse click to find it assuming you don't have prior knowledge of where it is also your relationships points also go down overtime and getting them up is slow so the gameplay is grindy

The CG are ok 3/5
Gameplay 1/5 although it could be worse
Story 2.5/5
Dialogue 2.5/5

I'll just state the obvious: the game looks great (especially the milf char - chubby girl would benefit from a bigger rack in my opinion), the story is fine, the grind and hints are really bad. Once the last part is fixed, it will be overall one of my favorite games here.

Game progess is so slow Repeating the same thing over and over gets boring fast Only thing i do like is the woman and the story
this game would have been better with some cheats to reduce grind a little bit

Pros - Renders are very well done.
- Story is alright.

Cons- Everthing else, the game having a grind is an understatement. It's a Sandbox where it doesnt need to be. It's only a sandbox in order to keep people playing but its so poorly done it will make you stop playing.

the only good about this game is the girls renders, they look pretty good, im quite a fan of the aunt, however the grinding, the way you unlock scenes is a fucking pain in the ass and made me lost my interest in the game. sometimes you even get stuck for no reason and cant do scenes at all (for example i did a lot of ankle massages to the aunt and cant go to tennis with her, i cant give her the ring back, i cant give the dress to ann.....etc
for me this game is a mess with the current state and having a mc that cums in a second and is so pathetic doenst help to keep my interest)
hope in a future if the dev is in this forum read the reviews and fix what seems to be the problem for many people and of course make that mc grow some balls and act more like man rather than a dumb kid with premature ejaculation)

Pros:

1- Renders look good i guess.

Cons:

1- Suffers from typical "sandbox" syndrome.
2- Saying the game is grindy is an understatement to say the least
3- Unfocused plot. While the premise is okay, the execution is terrible.

PROS:
I love the renders in this game. Beautiful
The story is decent.
The writing is good, with proper grammar, etc.

CONS:
Trying to play it is FUBAR. The grinding in this game is beyond necessary.
Even by trying to follow the walkthrough that was provided, it became very confusing. Perhaps I'm not too bright. I was still unable to unlock all of the scenes
This has a good storyline, but the execution is terrible.

Bottom line: I can only recommend this to somebody who enjoys masochism.

This game is unbelievably grindy and terribly confusing to unlock each scene. However it does have great art and characters. They each have their own personality and unique body types, which is always a big plus in my book.

It is well made game .. Although a bit of grinding is there, there some scenes that come in unexpected so it is worth it.. There aren't much of sex scenes at the moment.. but the build up is very good... And the art is excellent...
I am definitely following this....

Well done to the developer.