Ren'Py - Abandoned - Future Fantasy Harem - Part 1 [v1.0] [Niteowl Games]

THE GOOD

• Story. It has one. It's got promise.
• Renders (themselves). Quite decent, and nice variation... tho combined with the animations I'm still not sure if this is shaded 2D art or 3D renders tbh.
• Hints. With a couple exceptions, v1.0 does a good job letting you know when you need to do something, what you need to do, and when you've hit the end of current content. Stores seem to be an exception to that rule - there's really no telling what triggers the cosplay costumes to be purchasable, and I have yet to see new slaves show up in that store.

THE BAD

• The genre is confusing. It lists itself as a VN, and does a decent job setting up the epic fantasy exposition (arguably long winded, but in a couple cases interesting and useful)... but it seems to try to play as a fantasy sandbox. And I do mean try. It works... to an extent and that's it. If it were truly in VN form, as much as that would push some away, the ones there for the tag would probably have a better time of it.
• The current ending. Ugh. Giving the benefit of the doubt that the next release will continue from where this leaves off in some fashion (since this isn't tagged as completed, and there are still tons of not included in this version of the game hints in game), I look forward to seeing where it goes from here. BUT
  Spoiler: this isn't cool.

  You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.
  As someone who doesn't mind grinding for achievements in games, having those achievements seemingly undone makes me want to throw things.

THE UGLY

• Animations. Wow. If I had to pull two things out of viewing these animations to say "fix these and you drastically improve the user experience" they'd be:
  • Movement needs to be restricted to the characters and not the background unless parts of the background are actually supposed to move.
  • Movement of the characters needs to be both restricted to the body parts that should be moving (not feet across the floor while thrusting, for example), but yes, all parts that are supposed to move should actually move (the attached legs should definitely move but not in that way). I call this the "paper doll" effect. And even then I've seen paper dolls moved better, such as when you pin feet in place then pivot on knees and hips - not done in these animations.
  • The combination of the above ends up with some animations where the MC starts thrusting with his feet following that movement across the floor while a separate section of floor (a square off to the bottom left) sort of vibrates back and forth - altogether cringe worthy.

While I think this game stands above many on this site, I also think it stands below many as well, which is why I have rated it as average. The good is that the art and animations are decent, definitely preferred over still-image games to me. The models have variety and so do the characters. The negative, to me, is that the world is so complicated and requires so much explanation, but the way it is presented makes me just rush-click through all of it. Complicated worlds can be good but... I feel like there is a lot of information overload in the way this one is presented. By the time I finally get to my character and interacting with others, I don't really care about any of it because it has just been forced down my throat. And then, once I start meeting other characters, I get the same experience for each one of them, exhaustive explanations about many things that I really don't know if I do or don't care about. Some context can be good, but this game requires (or thinks that it requires) an excessive amount of it.

I played for about an hour, experienced a bit of the first two girls, but I really don't care about them or the MC. And that can be okay if other aspects of the game are great, like animation, models, or "kinkiness", but that's not the case here. "hi random woman *10 minutes of clicking* you're my slave now *10 minutes of clicking* lets have sex *10 minutes of clicking* great cool thanks bye" is pretty much how I could sum up the parts I played. It's not bad, it's just not great at the same time.

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 v0.3...

This VN/Game definitely has an intriguing story line, which is very original...

The 3D visuals of the models are slightly above average in quality... A really good mix of variation and originality on the various characters... The backdrops are average in quality and I do not think I've seen most of them before... The animations are of low quality, mostly consisting of two static characters with one or more moving in a very static back-and-forth motion... Some are better then others...

Most of the blowjob scenes are believable, with the exception of a few that fall into the impossible category... With the angles of penetration impossibly taking 90 degree turns to go down throats (in essence looking like the penis would technically of pierced through the back of their heads rather then really going down their throats)... Perfect examples, are the two smaller elves at the elf outpost, when they take turns deep-throating the protagonists slightly lengthy penis (which was longer then the depth of their skulls)... The immersion of these sorts of scenes is just thrown out the window, and more of a turn-off then anything else...

The script is mostly done well, with very few spelling/grammar errors... Some dialogue is well done and some is average... The basics of the plot is that you play a male protagonist in a future fantasy post-apocalyptic world... The protagonist is from a society of bio-engineered humans living in a more technologically advanced society then the rest of the world... They live practically immortal lives and are highly into varying sexual fantasies played out for the society to enjoy... The protagonist is sent to the mainland to both secure new variations of sexual encounters to video and send back home, as well as play detective regarding his predecessor's whereabouts...

Game play is primarily a stat and training grinder, where the protagonist builds up a harem of varying female characters... You have varying options of things to do each game day to include interactions and/or training of the harem (with some actions building various stats), or going out into the world to interact with varying folks at different locations... The main story line is somewhat gated by the varying activities with the harem, but mostly through interactions outside of the protagonists home... It is difficult to tell if any of the many grind based stats actually gate much of the current content, or if they are to be used for further content down the road... Some could just be for ego purposes, but there is no telling for the moment...

The content is mostly sexual based, with the main story appearing now and then... The types of fetishes vary from mundane sexual encounters, to some BDSM content, and so forth... The mainland game world is full of sex slavery, but the protagonist will only take on willing harem members... Even though the dark elf harem member sort of walks a fine line... In the long run, even though the main story is unique and better then I had really expected, most content does not directly revolve around it... For the time being, most of the current content is highly repeatable and typical of many grinders... At least the skip button works...

Overall, even though I liked the unique main story line, the content is mostly just average in quality... There is more focus on the porn style grind content then the story content... But that being said, it is also very early in it's production... So who knows how things will play out in the future... The story elements are intriguing enough that sometime far down the line I will probably revisit this one, just to see how the story plays out...

Beyond that, most content is currently just repeatable grind... And no hint system to tell you when you've reached the end of the current overall content, although in a few cases some of the visiting locations will tell you when there is nothing further to do there, till future releases... You could end up grinding away for hours on repeating events, not knowing if you will ever open new content or not, so be forewarned... If it wasn't for the uniqueness of the main story that seems rather interesting, I might have given this one a lower score...