Ren'Py - Hazelnut Latte [v0.14.2 Patreon] [Rad Lord]

v0.7.1
It's so good! Amazing! Great art! Really well written! Cute boys with fun and believable personalities. I even savescummed to explore every branch of the engaging dialogue.
I'm really excited for more content!

[ Review for version - 0.7.1 ]

TL;DR: Still very early days, but so much promise! I have been waiting for a really good romantic femboy dating game, and here one is!

The Good: The two femboys we've seen in the game so far have been super adorable to look at, and there is a very sexy mix of cuteness and horniness in the story. There are moments that yank the heart string in great ways and I hope for more of them.

The Average: It's a visual novel in its early stages, so currently it is a very linear story. I don't mind linearity when the potential and content is this good, but right now there isn't a lot of choice.

The Bad: Not enough Hazelnut Latte. Sometimes the MC feels tonally at odds with what I want to convey with the dialogue - like not being able to be more supportive of Hazel, or encourage the kinkier things that happen earlier in the game (Hazel. Nut. Latte.). Also, I don't like coffee.



Thorough Review:

Story: Good*

*Can be great, but it has not been developed very far yet. You play a business rep fixer travelling to another town and meeting Femboy Hazel at a off-brand cafe. The two of them hit it off and the protagonist decide to travel back to see Hazel again to find out what could be. From there on it is a story of how faithfully the protag will pursue love and lust with Hazel, or if he will be lead astray by another bussy.

Characters: Great!

Hazel is a fantastic character that is very sympathetic and feels true to life! I love Hazel and the ground he cums on. I also love Jezebel, though there isn't enough Jeze in the game yet, and right now that direction is game over territory or heartbreak. The MC I am not fully on board with, but that's because I'm playing someone who is still deciding if he's okay with Femboys.

Gameplay: Competent

It's a visual novel. You click to progress and make choices to make more progress.

Visuals: Great!

I find the artwork really cute! The characters are adorable and the art during sex scenes are also fantastic, though sometimes when 'animations' are playing the faces change a bit too widely making them look odd.

Summary: Great!

So far the story has a lot of great potential. I will eagerly follow the development of this game and will try to support it when I have the means.

Wishlist:

> Towards the later part of the game you have to chose between romantic lovey-dovey and sex scenes. I love lovey-dovey, but don't want to lose out sex because I chose to kiss and cuddle during movie time.

> More. Hazel. Nut. Latte. Or just any Hazel nut on any food or beverage Hazel will serve me.

> More kiss and cuddle scenes.

> Let the player reciprocate (if the player is so inclined). Don't let Hazel's peen be a tool only Hazel get to interact with. Let the player get involved too.

> While I don't advocate for making this a femboy harem game primarily, I do hope the polyamory question will be realised to some level. If it does go that route I really hope that it will be an open harem, and not just a MC fucks everyone and everyone exclusively fucks the MC.

> The ability to negotiate which pronoun to use for Hazel during sex scenes. Hazel is clearly a man, but has expressed interest in being thought of as a woman. It would make for some nice kinky scenes if you could play on the gender stereotypes a bit in certain scenarios.

Not many femboy games out there, and even less games where you're not the femboy, so, pretty cool. Really good game. Great art and great writing, very wholesome, it also promises more cute femboys in the future

very good game, hazel is very cute and art is very good, very short at the moment but still very good. I give this game a very good/5.
On a more serious note I do wish it get's a little bit more kinky in future episodes

I like the style. I like the setting. I like the idea.
Why am I giving it 1 / 5.
The length is under 2 Minutes.
3 out of 4 choices (2 main and 1 subroute) are not implemented.
There is only 1 base CG. I'd accept this if it was a proof of concept but this is already the 0.2 version. Seriously you should not even release it. It will probably peak at 10 min of gameplay so there is no use in releasing minor updates that add 1 minute of gameplay. Also this is a VN. Since you already got the spritework done you could have written much more text.
The story is also not good and already limits the gameplay and scenarios since the mc says he is only visiting for today.
You could have easily done a story where the mc is new in the neighborhood and picks this store as his new coffee store.
Then slowly build up a relationship and escalate it from there.
Instead the mc is only there for a single day and the femboy decides to randomly "sweeten his drink".
It is just lazy writing. You could have easily written a 15-20 min story with the available sprites and the CG. Anything would have been better than the current story. Make some shit up. Make the femboi fall in love with the mc and since he can't take it anymore he does that crazy thing out of desperation or whatever. Use your fantasy.
Instead you went for a no buildup, low effort story that starts and ends in a matter of minutes with zero character development.
This leaves only the art & CG to make up for a rushed and low effort story. Both are great but with only a single CG this will never make up for the bad story. If you are working with such few art assets why are you not writing a good story so the reader gets more invested into the characters.
My terrible grammar aside even I could have written a better story. It is just so rushed and generic. I am so disappointed since I really fell in love with the idea.
I will still follow this and update my review if there is some progress but I am really disappointed.

version 0.2

Looks really good so far. Music and art by Hotsumi is great. The writing is really good too, and I'm already absorbed with the characters. Hazel is so pretty!

The only animation so far is just a couple frames, so less one star for that. Even if that's the most animation we get, I'm still looking forward to more work on this game. RadLord has a lot of projects going on, so I'll check out those in the mean time, but I hope Hazelnut Latte gets more content soon.