VN - Ren'Py - Abandoned - Glimpses of the Past [v0.4.0] [MrStarRaccoon]

This Looks very very nice, the renders are insanely well animated and the story is quite intriguing. The MC seems a little too god right off the start (good fighter, inherited a lot of money all of a sudden and all the women want him) but we will see how that goes. The Timejumping doesnt make the game confusing which is a huge plus, because not all games including diffrent timelines manage to do so. The Story is foreshadowing some problems and some twists and we will have to wait and see how that turns out. It looks like it has to do with some kind of DNA/Gene-Manipulation which i hope will not be a way to make the MC be supercool or have strong superpowers which make him able to control minds or be invincible or some of that boring shit, but again we will have to wait and see. So far (v0.4.0) It looks quite good and the Story is interesting enough to make you want more, so in conclusion this is a game definetly worth playing.

Just found this and slammed through it pretty quickly, was a great little romp. Honestly loved the ridiculousness of the MC and his corny 90s action movie type past.

A bit bummed that there are scenes that are locked behind choices, even using the Walkthrough mod I came across a couple that were locked that I probably won't go back to figure out the choice order to view.

Hope it gets finished and keeps a more harem aspect/route which I what I enjoy about these games, especially with the cocky route.
Will definitely revisit especially if it eventually gets a scene replay function and fleshes out some of the women's plots.

Yeah it's a good game. Good renders and animations. NTR can be turned off. It doesn't affect story plot. I think NTR scenes comes only on MC's dreams. First scene came in his dream. Then rolled back and turned off it. Renders quality is low at first then you can see it is highly increasing. There flaw in some renders and lighting is too high. Story is nicely going can't say it is a perfect story it has flaws but it's not a cliche story. Writing is not bad. There are many philosophical quotes. Game is worth playing

Very underrated game, with really good graphics, good models, very nice animations, funny and with few explosive moments, not some wimp main character but a strong one with good attitude, pretty interesting story, please don't listen to haters and don't make the character a weakling, this is really good so far, cannot wait for the whole thing.

It helps if you read the dialogue in a Russian accent.

The game's story is alright. But the writing is very typical of a native Russian/Eastern European writer. The English is technically correct. But it's very proper English, it is translated but not interpreted to flow in conversation. Everyone talks as if they are presenting a doctoral thesis. Another problem is lengthy introspection and exposition. It seems like every few minutes the MC has to take a break to explain everything to himself, and Us players by proxy. It's an alright game, but I'd say it's 90% fat, 10% actual meat.

The MC is annoying. He is the typical white knight with few flaws. You can choose whether he is cocky or Kind, but that doesn't actually change anything. Every woman is tripping over his massive horse cock the moment they lay eyes on him. That being said, there is very little sexual content. The thing I liked most about him was his hair and beard, but they cut it so he just looks like an A&F tool. The women are okay, but it's a game that prefers large tits over any real interesting character traits. I honestly don't remember them that much other than "mommy" but that's just because the section made me cringe so hard.

The game isn't all that interesting to me. I feel like I've played as this self-righteous tool in dozens of other games and women with massive tits don't make it a good game. It's the typical formula of a Russian/Easter European game that is rampant on this site. It's not bad, but painfully average.

I enjoyed the game very much.
MC has an interesting background too be honest it is a bit odd (can you ever meet the master in the wood? lol)
he's surrounded by a number of cute/kind girls. But they do seem the same other than their appearance. But it is difficult to argue since it is still in its early stage.

Here are my thoughts after playing v0.3.1

I liked:
-hot women, especially Monica, I just hope that there are still more scenes with her and that there can be a path to a romantic relationship with her in the future updates
-hot sex scenes
-great renders and animations that are shown in different angles
-POV sex scenes
-great story, it's not your usual porn story
-no forced or unavoidable sex scenes for the MC
-the MC is not a cuckold and I hope he stays that way
-no NTR, I don't mind netori but I hate netorare

I didn't like:
-it would be better if the player has a way to track the stats for kind and cocky points and the relationship points with the women as well
-the option to name save files would be nice
-no sex scenes with Monica and the MC (sorry I just like her so much)

The game is apparently still in its early stages so that's all that I can say for now. It sure has great potential to be one of the best visual novels as long as the dev keeps on this track. I also hope that the player still has full control on every action of the MC in the future updates. I know that something of this quality is not easily accomplished, but I hope that the updates keep coming in regularly. 5 stars for me.

Just completed the current release and I really like the game, some pretty good animations and good quality renders. Love the characters, most of them are really good looking. I like the story and some character buildup too but at many point I felt like many dialogues doesn't make any sense and just stretching the game time and at many time I skip many of them without reading most the dialogues. There are also some jokes and references which I personally always loves in any VN games. Just felt like MrStarRaccoon could have added some more lewd scenes in the game and less crappy long dialogues.
But I honestly like the game, story hold a great potential, the animation and graphics doesn't lack anywhere. So in short I enjoyed it and looking for the next release...

I really feel like a want to give this VN 3 1/2 stars.
Pros:
The models are all super hot.
The renders and animations are very good
The overall storyline if intriguing and I am invested in the MC and the NPC's

Cons;
The is way too much monologuing and way too much backstory. While I do feel like the backstory adds to the overall enjoyment of the VN and is necessary to tie everything together, I feel like there is just WAY too much dialogue. I was definitely starting to click through a lot of the dialogue, even though I was interested to learn how things played out; it became just too much.
I feel like the Kind/Cocky options don't really change the overall paths, they just seem to change the dialogue for those specific interactions. What I mean by that is - if you pick all Kind options you will be presented with the same options throughout the VN, you will just get different dialogue. If you choose Cocky options each time you will still get the same scenarios as if you picked Kind options, the only thing that changes is the dialogue.
The grammar has some translation issues; there are many times where the sentences didn't really make sense at all. But you could discern what was trying to be spoken, based on context of the conversation. This for me wasn't that big of a deal, but at times was more annoying than other times.

Ultimately I am really enjoying this VN. I am very much looking forward to updates to see how things progress with the MC. So the Dev has done a good job in creating a compelling story, that has made me invested in how everything will turn out.
My main issue is - there is just WAY too much monologuing and backstory.

Review on v0.3.1

(+)
Strong story
Wonderful Music
Good looking characters (Except childhood)
Good characterization
Good atmosphere
Beautiful renders
Proper humor
(-)
Some grammar issues
Options and their impact (currently)

Overall, this game is very good and interesting. But by correcting the existing problems it can be much more than that.

I recommend this game highly
Thanks for the game .good job

Major props to the dev for increasing the quality of renders. If possible, they should go back and re-do the prologue. I won't get into the look of the kids since that's been talked about extensively by others. What's more weird to me is that the kids talk and think beyond their depicted age.

I wish there were more specific choice options instead of "kind" and "cocky". These are basic and leave you to the whim of the dev to write whatever they want. For most of them, I ended up choosing "kind" because it was the safe bet.

This game really leans into the idea that women find men with long hair, a beard, and muscles attractive. And that part of being masculine is being able to fight. Not saying it's not true or that it's a downside. Just an observation.

There's a lot of exposition and inner-monologuing. I like ambition of telling the story in past and present time but I just don't care enough about it. The mc isn't Goku and this isn't Dragon Ball. There should be a skip option.

Catherine is a doll, in the good sense. She's the most interesting LI by far imo because of their past. The other girls are okay and some I just don't care about.

If anyone was worried about the grammar, don't be. It's more than serviceable.

EDIT: I removed a star after playing further. These are the reasons why-
1. Literally every other guy, except Arnie, in the story wants to fight you. This naturally sets you up as "the saviour"
2. I thought when mc met Catherine at Arnie's house that it was the first time they'd seen each other since he ran away. That explained her reaction when she saw him. But all that is nullified when it's revealed that they met again as teenagers and had sex. So what's the point now?
3. On the date with Lisa, why would the mc wait 20 minutes for the bartender to "grab a smoke" with her when it's clear what she wants. When you turn her down, she threatens you... And while you're away, another dude is feeling up Lisa. It's just a series of poor decisions on the dev's part.

I'm still playing the game as of this review, and will update with more information if I think it's necessary.

Edit 2: Finished playing the most recent version. Some more things have become apparent. The inner monologuing is now a nuisance. I'm skipping through most of it as it's uninteresting and adds nothing the main story. And dev if you're reading this, please make your proof-reader check the sentence structure instead of only spell-checking. The translation is the equivalent of Google Translate at this point, and has gotten progressively worse since Episode 1.

Renders and animations are great for sure in this game But the story and lack of sex sucks. its boring and monotonous. And I played for IDK 45 mins not much/any sex scenes. Dull story. Lots of dialog that is kind of pointless and not interesting. You have to have either sex or a good story. And 45 mins in Story sucks and no sex, probably not going to play anymore.

Its a big no no.. Really boring story, awful graphics and bad engrish combo. The overly dramatic tone of the narrative makes you wanna kill yourself. Freaky kid morphs will scare the living s**t out of you. Really bad engrish translation makes overall experience even more bizzarre and jarring. Teary, melodramatic, odd and ugly VN.

This game has such good animations and gfx...it`s some of the best on this site. The story is okay, but the english translations make it hard at times to get into and breaks the flow a bit. MC is pretty cool dude and is no weak boy like many games on here. Girls are good looking but most are bitches except for beautiful Lisa, I want my boy to be with her.
The cliffhanger at end of Ch.3 is maddening! our boy is going to go all Jean Claude Van Damme....neeeeed more dev!

p.s. the kids are funny! we have big egg head baldy kid with stick arms and legs hihi.
I recommend this game highly, very addictive!

The game starts well storywise, trying to forget about the young teens that look like someone tried to make 40year olds with progery. Its bad and cringe as fccck.
But at least as an adult, until he gets the haircut, he looks diferent and rough, and matches well his inner self, i think. Renders look good, mostly the lighting cause every woman design is the same supermodel with fake big tits and nipples pointing to the stars.

So, the story: you have a kid that runs away from home and leaves everyone behind and finds himself a mentor. He ends up being an scarred adult, with martial arts training, well. So far so good. If you ignore the fact that you dont know if the adult is speaking through the kid, or is the kid himself talking and thinking like an adult with philosophy studies. (this is the first problem in the writing department, and comes early)

Other issue is how confusing dreams, nightmares and flashbacks are, speecially the one with catherine (is that even real?)

theres issues when meeting catherine and with Lisa too, and the pattern is the inability to create a compeling release for built up emotion.

After the cathrine part i skipped a lot of text and what happens next doesnt make much sense. I dont know if mc meeting cath is a dream, a fantasy, a nightmare or a flashback, either way is the game shooting itself in the foot.

Without a doubt, this project has a lot of potential.
Very good plot (your concern with the past and the characters' unfolding is something rare to see in the games) reminds us a lot of Faerin's games, excellent soundtrack and fits perfectly in the scene.
The only strange point is when it shows your childhood, the characters look like adult faces on children's bodies.
I recommend following the project and look forward to the next updates.

Excellent work and good luck.

Wow what a nice discover I have made!
Really enjoying the story so far. The flashbacks in the beginning with young MC and his training with Martial Arts Master were pure masterpiece.
Renders, animations, music, humour - everything is on high level.

Though personally what was a bit disappointing is that with each update the game turns more and more like dating simulator rather than story-focused novel.
Date with stepmother I found to be very far-fetched and too time consuming. I enjoyed flashback scenes during the date with her but overall there was park scene, billiard and bar, pretty exhausting if you ask me. Got tired of her face, idk . Yeah, she is a milf and all but she has too much focus. And she is not interesting at all.

Hope to see more content with Monica and the one who looks like Jill.

Oh and, dev, can you return beard and long hair to MC?

This game screams quality, unique beautiful renders, a very engaging gripping story, didn't think I would be invested in it when starting it (and wasnt in a mood just for some good action) but story grew on me.

So many games try what this has done and have similar elements, but fail due to unattractive visuals, ugly models, bad dialogue, failure to maintain an engaging story and narrative, they feel like stale goods, this one is a breath of fresh air, the way all the things it handles, I can safely say this is AAA quality game for adult VNs. Highly recommended.

Gorgoeus visuals, models, multiple characters, a good MC not just a generic doofus, animations are extremely well done. Definitely a must try

Pretty good VN. The dev has done a good job so far with the story

PROS
Good story
Lots of hot women
Variety of of women
Good renders

CONS
Some grammar issues here and there
A few plot holes(hopefully will be addressed)
Lengthy flashbacks

Overall this VN has potential to be quite good. Maybe add that NTR tag. The story has solid potential to not be another cookie cutter lack luster VN. Characters have depth and it seems that some of them have issues besides the MC. I recommend giving this one a try. Keep up the good work

Ok Why only 3 stars...Well...

The game begins with the MC as a child and adds some emotional scars and sadness which I felt Deepened and Opened the story very well. until this line breaks you out of it..." People are like Candles. Burning and being put in your ass " What............translation......??..It then gets back on track with some more childhood drama and transitions into the story..

Which is a guy with an rough childhood who learned karate and now goes and attracts all the milfs..and his Childhood girlfriend...

It has promise if the Story flow was a little bit better focused , Setting the Childhood friend dynamic in one flashback.. or while as a Young MC.. Would be better .....Where it stands now, a couple flashbacks pull you out of the Narrative. And you return and feel out of place.. Some of the lines also seemed to be forcing A Philosophy feel or a Bruce lee Feel.

Will continue to watch .