Ren'Py - From the Eclipse [v0.3.9] [Erochaser]

Part 1 review

Full disclosure that I am being a bit more generous than I normally would by giving this a 5 star instead of a 4 that I most likely would lean towards since I think it deserves a 5 overall but there is a lot of gripes that really bring down the game's feel.

This is truly a very heartwarming story with plenty of characters that you'll love and become attached to, at least as much as you can but more on that later. There is a lot of content and I am going to wait until more is released to continue with part 2. Plenty of kinks and sexual content while keeping a cohesive story with a likeable MC and likeable LIs.

Down to the not so great and bad, the game spreads itself way too thin. This is a mega harem simulator where you will never really remember all the women it introduces and marries you to or enslaves to you/whatever you wanna say. This is more a kinetic novel than anything with no choice other than "choice of where to go" (99% of the time no other place is worth going to and it just makes a bad feeling of constantly checking locations for the small chance something is there). There is too many LIs, as most are very shallowly explored and some not at all being seemingly forgotten or just shelved for later when the dev can shrink the workload for characterization. There's things like the virgins in the brothel that never ever come into play, you're just teased with it and told "come back later" and part 1 ends with the brothel not in commission at all with a total of 8 scenes only from a location in the game.

I really don't like writing long reviews so there is probably a lot I'm not mentioning or whatever. That all being said, I really do like the game, it's a quality game in a website of not a lot that compare, but it just loses a lot of its edge with small details. I admire wanting to go for something different with a mega harem but maybe slow down on women that are name dropped and given a sob story so players can focus on connecting to their existing favorites, chop down on locations if they never have a use or anything interesting, go deeper rather than wider overall with the game. And I know it is hard to do and keep up with but maybe give the player some choices here and there even if they don't mean much, just simple dialogue changes help.
Quality of life to seeing where there is a new scene somewhere by giving some indicator on the "main hall" button would be nice. Or a little icon somewhere. Overall a lovely game that is a solid 4 I'd say but that 5 is so deserved in the good, it's just the bad really pegs it down.

[v0.3.8] Part 1 only.

The story is about slavery and the plot is about the manipulation of aristocrats in a feudal-like system (I haven't read much), not bad, I just don't want to read thousands of lines that don't benefit me as the controlling player. And here's the thing, you don't control anything in the story, except for one option at the beginning of the story, which is to buy the slave or not, and then until halfway through chapter 2, where I stopped, it didn't give me any other choice.

I'm here because of the 'virgin' and 'pregnancy' tags, so I'll tell you about those. The defloration is only in the text, there is no blood. Where I stopped, you do not have sex with any pregnant women, you just see them wandering around your palace, so the content is all about creampie and 'impregnating' one slave and then another until you deflower them all (text only) and get them all pregnant.

I do not recommend this game. This image summarises all the content you will encounter in the game. The gif is not fast-forwarded, this is just how you 'play' this game.



To explain the image, you're just sitting in your bedroom, speeding through time until a light green option appears to open up a new story. This is the kind of "game" where you can start and finish in less than an hour by pressing Ctrl, but in a sandbox form and with lots of irrelevant options.

I was hoping to give it at least 4 stars because I'm biased towards pregnant content, but that would be cheating those who read this review and think the game actually has playable content. I wish the developer the best of luck.

This game is excellent.

Most games have a hard time balancing sex scenes and decent story, but this one works in my opinion. I tune into the updates for the story as much as the scenes. The main character is sympathetic, without being pathetic.

That being said, I wish I could remove .25-.5 stars, simply for the choice to split a game. If it's a single story, keep it as a single game.

To the dev: Keep up the good work, and hopefully you will take the time to unify your game into a single whole at some point.

Very underrated game.

A must read if you are even a little bit self-righteous. Especially the later arcs are super interesting.

Being a fan of slave and maledom kinks wouldn't hurt either.

The design is not everyone cup of tea, but i personally quite like it.

Okay, another VN camouflaged as a Sandbox. History and lightness, I hold up. The famous Sandbox and fictitious, we can move wherever we want my very few events and really program. 90% of the time it all happens in the morning when you wake up, the rest of the day and just there to rehearse the sex scenes with certainty. For those who like real Sandbox, go your way, those who like VN, these are the games for you.

I'm usually into harem + maledom + impregnation stuff, but this game is just really bad.

Story is super mediocre, and this game really doesn't make good use of the game format.
Also, even skipping through it is annoying because there are so many unnecessary option that just clutter the screen.

Quickly became a huge fan of this game. There are some moments where the translation may be off or the wording feels awkward, but in general the game is very solid. It's probably not the best game if you want constant sex scenes of various kinks, but if you enjoy an actual story with genuine character development, it is a very solid game. Overall its very much a "feel-good" game that has very minor dark moments and does try to engage some emotion. Its not really at a point where you stress or think something genuinely dark will happen but just enough to engage some suspense at some points.

More of a personal preference but I do feel like there is a bit of a character overload. Each character is enjoyable but its definitely hitting a threshold where characters don't get much time in the spotlight - even the "main" leads tend to have a large gap in time. I personally prefer to cap harem type games at 6 or so main girls, side girls aren't really an issue since they by design don't have much of a plot. Its definitely getting harder to keep up with who is who, where they were last involved etc. but it honestly makes sense with the plot and themes of the game.

TLDR: Positive game, tons of girls, decent plot. Play it.

Story/Choices 1/5
Man this story did have potential to be good, and for the most part it was, but the lack of choices and the kinetic storyline kills the game, you dont have a choice in so many things if any at all, like when a girl ask you to fuck her well then you fuck her no choice to the player, and to me the worst thing in a VN is shit being forced on you, if you hate a LI and are forced to fuck her it just turns game into a big turn-off and it becomes a mindless fuckfest game with 0 emotions and no relationship build-up, might as well watch a shitty porn movie, game just adds girl after girl after girl none stop all forced on you and there is 0 feelings for any of them since there is barely any background or getting to know anyone, its just "Hallo girl, lets fuck, cya"

First you have your soon to be wife but now slave and the other girl at the auction, then a noble girl and her slave, then the bar girl, all forced on you, it just gets annnoying that you have no controle over who you want to fuck or be with, in the start 5 girls out of 5 are forced on you and it only gets worse as you go along, even if you try to say no to buying one at auction its a just an idiotic fake choice that wont allow you to pick no, and one of them your even forced to marry you simply cant say no to it or no to fucking her later, even though you know nothing about her so it truely is just a mindless fuckfest game.... that shit just isent for me.

The start is also so damn bad, MC agrees to fuck a virgin even though hes trying to save hes soon to be wife? so now he cheats on her insted and loses hes own virginity to some random stranger in a bar? what? its truely awfull writting, either make it a choice for the player or put her into the game later, it makes 0 sense for MC to do that shit at that time.

And it dosent help that MC has sex with her multiple times that night since then its no longer just to help the poor girl but to show MC couldent care less about being faithfull and will fuck anything that walks....it dosent really make sense, so MC is a cheating asshole that couldent care less about the feelings of hes girlfriend/wife, MC is really no better then hes worse ennemy, he might even be worse since MC even accept slaves that is forced to be hes slaves and he couldent care less.

So story become bland very fast, trying to paint MC as a good guy when hes closer to being more evil then hes ennemy and becoming another slave owner that just buys slaves to fuck even those whos just down on their luck, like he buys a slave and first thing he tells her is "you wont be a virgin for long" and it will be forced on them they arent allowed to say no, so yeah the good MC really is just pure evil and its all just meh and way to kinetic.

Game even has a auction house, but dont think you will have any fun buying or bidding on girls, since everything is kinetic you wont have any kind of choices in what to buy.

Heres a exsamble of the debt to relationships in this game, MC meets girl, talks for 2 mins, girl goes i think i am really falling in love with you, MC i feel the same, then they get married lol.....fuck me its just awfull and extreemly rushed and every girl MC meets he falls in love with within 2 seconds, what makes it even worse is MC is 100% submissive and let hes own slaves force him into marrying another girl that they have known for 2 mins and as always the player has no choice, MC is pretty much just a pawn in everyone elses game and without choices you can only watch it happen.
Why this game dosent have kinetic novel tag is idiotic.

Story falls even more a part when MC desides to enslave one Mayas ennemy to use her for breeding so yeah lets reward her with sex? really? Maya will love that right?..... and not only that MC also desides to leave Mayas only real friend beind....he says he dont want to enslave her friend but i guess he only marry girls that is forced on him? since MC never even considered that... i am sorry but story is piss poor in my eyes, and hes now also willing to rape unwilling slaves....mr.good guy went stright out the window once again ffs.
MC will also torture slaves and wont stop untill they willingly let MC fuck them? how will it ever be willingly when its achived due to torture?
Its like game is trying extremly hard to push MC as a good guy, but hes truely not good in any way, he saves Talia from being raped but then torture her to rape her him self, is that being good? story is a big mess.

Another issue is that when MC saves Talia, the kidnappers has sendt a team to capture Mayas friend, but dev forgets about that part as well....

There also LIs you dont even fuck or talk to in all of chapter 1, even if you buy the cat girl early in game its like the devs forgot about her, and while you have a harem wing and can visit the girls you cant talk or do anything with them.

For the virgin/deflower fans theres nothing to come for either, the scenes are extremly poor, text just say MC feels her hymen break but no blood and just an ouch from the girl, its pretty much just a standard sex scene nothing else and ofc all the girls cums even though its their first time, nothing realistic about it and a bit of a let down when they constantly talk about deflowering in the game, then they should atleast to it right.


Girls 3/5
For this type of characters they look good and cute, but quality is low which is normal for this type, problem is you wont remember any of them since you never get to know them they are just there to be sexdolls nothing else.

Animations 2/5
Decent animations for the character type but still lacks in quality, also could be a bit better in deflowering scenes, but most scenes are the same and even dialogs are reused which makes it even more weird.

Music 1/5
Its pretty standard background music, but its the same constantly and you get so tierd of it very fast that you will proberly mute it.

Sandbox 1/5
No clue why its there, it serves no purpose what so ever, you can move around city or rooms but its all empty and if you do see someone you cant talk with them or fuck them in their rooms, really dont know why its even a thing in this game.

There is simply just to much i personaly hate in this game, the lack of kinetic tag, forced LIs, Fake choices, mindless fuckfest game, pointless sandbox, showing MC as a good guy when hes really evil and just a pawn, either own being evil or be good anything else is stupid.

The story is decent, however the game doesn't have a single option that really does anything to the point that this game should have the "kinetic novel" tag. The sex scenes are mostly the same and so are the girls, aside their appearances. Speaking of girls, there is a boatload of them. After the 6th or something like that, I've stopped registering their names and at the end you forget most of them anyway since they haven't had a single appearance after their introductory quest(s). Anyone remembers the cat girl? Yeah me neither...

My advice would be:

1. Drop the pointless roaming options, especially when they have nothing to provide other that the still image.
2. Slow down on the girls. This ain't Pokémon, you don't have to catch them all. Instead focus on those that we already have and give them some meaning. And for the upcoming give them some personality and some development other than the template [insert some sad past / difficult present situation] ... [meets the MC and immediately falls in love] ... [has sex] ... [shoved in the harem/wife wing never to be seen again].
3. Add meaningful options that actually shape characters or go fully kinetic.

have quite normal graphics and some scenes don't look very good but the development is quite good and the story has an interesting rhythm although with some problems but in general it is very good and the content is quite good, although it is not cataloged as vn does not have slow progress

v0.3.1p

From the Eclipse feels like it's attempting to be a quality, story-heavy game but between various baffling writing/design decisions and low-quality H-scenes, it's difficult to recommend.

Despite what the tags indicate, this is a kinetic novel. The sandbox, as it is, is devoid of anything to do in it even when you can see other characters in those locations and the triggers for new story steps seem to always start from your room. Although you might expect the sandbox to be slowly filled out, there were no signs of this a few hours in and the game may as well have been purely kinetic.

The story itself isn't bad, but suffers from a number of common tropes. The MC seems to be set up to be a bit of a blank self-insert who - even if we put aside the prologue's deus ex machina as a necessary setup - is suddenly apparently qualified to act as a trade ambassador and find fraud in complex commercial records. Even if you suspend disbelief at someone committing fraud and then just handing over all of the incriminating documents, there's no setup that the MC has any relevant work experience or training. It's not as if there couldn't have been - there was space in the story's timeline to at least put in some throwaway comments about him training for the job or how an old job did something along those lines.

Similarly, I can only conclude that the reason why every woman the MC meets suddenly falls in love with him is because he's one of the few men in existence who don't engage in cartoon villain-levels of moustache-twirling and bragging about how evil they are. Or that he's the only person who isn't set on enslaving women and raping them against their will... except for the one he enslaved and told she would be forced to bear his children whether she liked it or not.

Some people may be able to look past the wish-fulfilment level of writing - or that may be precisely why they enjoy the game - but it personally makes it a real slog to get through and the quality of the art/h-scenes is not high enough to make up for it. Most of the h-scenes seemed to be short and reused the same few basic Koikatsu animations. Possibly worse, despite the game being a pretty hefty download size, most of those animations also looked pretty choppy and low rez.

If you really enjoy your wish-fulfilment storylines or Koikatsu models regardless of quality, you might appreciate the game but it's otherwise not something I think I can recommend.

The art did not sell me at first, but honestly, this is probably one of the most well-written stories I've played on any game on this site, and that's saying a lot.

Couple of gripes:-
- Feels weird being a sandbox but not really having much to do in the world. I think keeping it a true visual novel would have definitely helped with the pacing a little.
- MC must be the luckiest guy in the world, there just happens to be far more coincidences than I could have ever expected, and it definitely feels like a lot of stuff is just deus ex machina. That is not to say I hated it, to be a good guy in a cruel world is tough.
- Performance issues, maybe consider compressing the images just a little bit. They take a while to load and can lag your PC for a while.

Aside from that however, great amount of content, and honestly kind of wholesome and made it hard for me to fap. As someone in the middle of writing for a game myself, I'll probably look to this for a little bit of inspiration and learn how to find light in the dark.

I have been thoroughly enjoying the adventure and story. Though, there are some scenes that lag horribly to avoid any spoilers I will not name them. Though, I will say that with the recent update was affected. Thank you for sharing your world with us and I look forward to your future updates.

A solid 4 stars. Great story and I could see you tried to make each characters personality unique in some way. One thing that bothered me was no matter when I wen to the auction house it was closed unless there was a story related event. I think either you should have made the auction house actually have auctions or not make a visit-able destination. Same thing with the rooms in the house. You could go there any time but unless there was some kind of story event nothing happened.

All things considered I have to say great job and I am eagerly looking forward to the next update.

Great potential but under delivered imo.

The world building is good and there seems to be the potential for a great sandbox fantasy harem game. But the sandbox is completely empty.

I played it for hours and you just basically pass time until the next story event is available. You have several rooms in your house but only two or three interactions in your bedroom, the rest are there for basically no reason so far(You can see the characters in the room image but you can't even say hi).

The main story is good but completely linear, there are no concurrent quests or side quests is basically a VN. Which wouldn't be a issue for me if it wasn't almost kinetic, you have no real choices you can't choose who you marry or even skip sex scenes you don't want.

Despite all of that I still think it's still alright and worth giving it a shot if you like fantasy games and Koikatsu art, but because there's a lot of missed potential I gotta rate as average what could have been great.

started this game for a quick fap and got completely invested in the story. The game already has quite alot of content and all of the characters are amazing and each have their own unique story. the only thing i slightly dislike is that the story feels slightly rushed at times, like when introducing a character and they immediately give you their whole backstory just kinda seems like lazy writing but aside from those few instances i love it, the one thing i would change aside from that is add hints, it's kind of annoying waiting for the next scene/event when you have no idea when it will become available

Review as of v0.2.7.

Things I like:

• Amount of Content: There was way more content than I expected (took me around 8 hours to go through everything).
• Plot: The world-building is nice, and there's enough information to feel significant without being overwhelming. The direction the story flows makes sense, and is usually lighthearted. When the story takes a darker turn, its impactful (given the usual tone).
• Characters are nice: It's made in Koikatsu, so there is a limit to how visually unique some characters can be, however all the main girls are not just cardboard cutouts, and easy to like.
• Spoiler: Other stuff I like (spoilers)

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Things I would like to see improve in future updates:

• UI: The menu based navigation is fine, however:
  1. There is no indication as to when/where new events (story/repeatable) are available. Given the number of places where an event can occur, searching for events can be tedious, and tends to encourage me to only follow the main story (it works for now given limited non-main story content). It would be convenient to know when/where an event is from the main screen (e.g. if a location, e.g. the Dungeon has a repeatable event that hasn't been triggered, then it could have a red star next to it or something, like Estate (*) > Dungeon (*) > “EVENT”).
  2. At the estate: There are too many menu items on screen, and it begins to exceed the top. Would be nice to have a scrollbar, or at least move some of the less accessed rooms (like the kitchen, bath & living room) to a sub-menu so its less to fit on screen.
• Typos/minor issue:
  There were a bunch of miscellaneous grammatical errors, usually spelling. Not that big of a deal, but they were common enough for me to notice.
  
  Spoiler: ”Spoilers, because minor issue relates to plot”

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• Side Content: My smallest gripe with the game, but there is little content outside of the main story for now. Offhand, I can think of around 7 repeatable events Airi, Maya, Kylie/Rinna, Dahlia, Kathy, Talia, & all the brothel content. For now, I'm happy with the focus on the main story (given where the story is right now).
• Pure Linearity: The story has a few minor choices which don't affect anything, however it would be nice to have a bit of variability in the main story, even if it doesn't have long term consequences. E.g. something you do in side content affects the plot, or choices which don't affect the overall plot giving flavor text.
  Spoiler: example w/ spoilers

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• Number of Love Interests & Screen Time: Second smallest gripe, but there are so many characters later in the game that I sometimes forget who is who. Some characters also get sidelined in the main story after their introduction arc, and because of this, they become less memorable especially girls in the harem wing. (This would be partially fixed with more side content though).

Overall 5/5. Amazing game so far. My gripes are not major, however I do hope the UI situation improves when side content starts getting added. Really looking forward to future updates!

Love the Story. There isn't much to the free-roam aspect of the game... but honestly, the main story is good, so I don't care. I kinda wish you would just turn it into a full-blown Visual Novel, and ditch the house/city clicks. But that is just me.

Keep doing what you are doing Erochaser...

V0.2.5m

Absolutely loving the story, it really is a breath of fresh air and I am liking the general vibes of this game.

For a game involving slavery and other dark topics, this game is surprisingly light, but still has some dark undertones hidden in plain sight.

The characters are really unique and beautiful, their dialogues with the MC is cute too.

The MC's character is also quite unique, kind hearted but doling out justice if he is wronged. Expecting even better character development for him. Eagerly waiting for future updates.

Surely worth a 5 star rating, just because of the goddess gracing us with her presence in game, to us players.

I absolutely love this story.
Pros:
I think the characters have a good quality of different personalities.
Very good story so far, eagerly waits for next update.
I like the different character designs.

Cons:
To many LIs with little content after initial introduction into the harem.

Just my personal opinion is that the story should slow down a little until more content is added for the girls we already have, like repeatable scenes, and get to know some of the others that are with the wives better. Then go back to doing story and some side stuff.