VN - Ren'Py - Heliorise [v0.2.1] [JBReverse]

I would like a cup of:
Story with nothing of value, the more themes and different view points the better,
a bucket of word vomit and exposition dumps,
and as a cherry on top a obnoxious "best friend" character, thanks.

I just reached the mid part of the sister encounter and was done.

The "this is not your first time, but you smell different" hook was ok, followed by the story of MCs childhood struggles and his encounter with dumb fuck aka "best friend".
MC gets the chance to go to school, idiot is by his side and better at everything. Mystery letter arrives, "Hey I'm you sister, yes the one you didn't know existed. Here is money for a flight come live with me and my foster family." Sorry what now?
You get a WAY to long exposition dump about the city MC is now moving in and how the river splits the cyber punk part from the suburban part. Nope I will leave it at that...
You see MC on the plane and think "nice "brain dead" is back where he belongs and MC (and we) can start to enjoy the story". Enter meme sounds and the camera pan on that "asshole" sitting next to you.
MC tries to wake him up the normal way, but resorts to "look huge boobies" so "shit for brain" awakes.
What follows is the longest, most boring and pain full conversation , I think I ever read... including forced british dialect, lecture about proper language and enough bird/birdie (slang for woman) references to make birdwatchers envy.
Ending this sleep inducing shit show is a challenge from "chad with one braincell": "hey chat up that birdie"

Now you learn the death nail to good gamedesign, the four stat system:
wholesome, rebel
and two more lets call them equally intelligent things
fuck nugget and idiot (forgot what their name was and I am not going to open that thing again to look)

MC then walks up to the "birdie" and you get the choice tree (seen thanks to the walkthrough) that shows you EVEN MORE useless points to collect.
The standard romance/interest points and thanks to MC being possessed or something the plus/minus for that entity...
Now you choose some options and depending on you encryption skill with the above task, you get nothing, boob job or blow job.
For the latter two the entity leaves MCs body and he doesn't know what just happend... fuck me.

Then you meet sister, info dump, I started skipping here, foster sister and both start to fight with dumb jojo meme renders.

Side note: I could not watch jojo because the WHOLE fucking internet was a jojo meme, thanks for strengthening my point game.

You also get some POV shots from god knows where from time to time to show you that this is not a normal setting, there are "monster?" here?

All in all:
The character design is good, I know it is hard to fuck up HS2 but it is possible. So point for that.
Now:
Take a chainsaw to the dialogue and the info dumps.
Take a torch (the fire kind not the flashlight) to the dialect.
And the biggest hammer you can find to the "best friend".

But that is my opinion and because I was taunted by the 4,5 stars, this ain't that good sorry. There are 3 and 4 star games out there that respect your time and braincells.

The story starts with a setup that has absolutely nothing new or unique in it and carries on with simple porn logic writing that makes no logical sense, for example how the whole how the sister knew she had a brother
I had hoped the lack of a logical story was going to be limited to the prologue but sadly it continues even after it,
Despite what it says this is NOT a VN, there are no choices to direct the game or to pick love interests, the MC will want to and try to date the woman he chooses not who you the player wants, yes there are things for you to pointlessly click on but they only give you either good or bad text so they do the same thing but one makes you come off as an ass and the other doesn't / example : girl ask MC for sex, choices are bad: lets fuck, good: i want more than hooking up, and then they have sex, no option to turn her down.

The point and click is nothing but useless time wasting as you have to do everything and the timed events make you miss whats on the screen.

The MC badly written as he lacks a consistent personality, at the moment his personality is just whatever it needs to be depending on the scene, making him less of a character and more a bad plot point.

Its also quite clear the game has an identity crisis, like having the MC's best friend being a college age guy with the maturity of a six year old who just learned his first swear word, it's a horrible choice that completely ruins the serious dark demon vibe the rest of the game has going on, the creator needs to pick a lane, is this a slapstick 4th wall breaking comedy or a mystery/horror?

Art is good but it has a strange mixture to it, an 80s style town next to a futuristic city combined with old clothing and also that's not how bullets work.

At the part i quit there had only been a single sex scene which was pretty underwhelming.

Story 1/5 (illogical gibberish)
Sex 2/5 (only saw one scene)
Characters 1/5 (only a couple are better than horrible)
Art 3/5 (good)
Choices 0/5 (NOT a VN)
Kinks 0/5 (none found)

Wholesome slut here bringing you another review of new titles.

Disclaimer: It's a p0rn game that does story better than p0rn despite having sexy fckins animations.

Pros:

• Story is banger
• Animations is hot
• Humor is high-school esque (tiktok, cultural lingo etc.) I find it hilarious cuz I m not looking for realism but people might mind
• Girls are hot

Cons:

• p0rn logic everywhere. Like with choices, do x like peek or say x thing and see boob or have sex. Catch people naked or your run of the mill stuff. I personally don't like it but some might not mind. This is not what entire game is like but just feel like most interactions with LIs are like this.
• Writing is also very much p0rn logic. It's not necessarily bad but I just find it hard to play games with such writing.

Verdict: Banger story, I'll be following for story since it's very interesting and cast of characters looks fun. I am skipping rest even sex scenes since I don't really feel the build up. Game serves all parties, the story people and p0rn people. The great unifier.

PROS
+ Story is mysterious and interesting, at least at some points (look CONS for more details), like the lore about Heliorise. Turns out thousands of years ago Heliorise was the heart of a massie empire, dripping with wealth and power, Emperor was foolish, acted like he is ''Sun King'' bringing the world light, etc, and one day Sun went out forever, a Blood Moon appeared, casting the entire wolrd ina crimson shadow, and along with it came creatures more terriying than anyone had ever imagined, Sun King run away, empire fell, society collapsed, and monsters wiped the wolrd, humanity was nearly extinct, but ''somehow'' remaning humans hunted monsters down, and rebuilt civilization, or that's what they believe.
+ In the middle of the whole supernatural thing, we have some Mafia stuff going on as well, and even tho it makes things a bit messier, it's kind of interesting as well.
+ The points system is quite interesting, weirdly they don't really have Positive or Negative Points even tho they are called that, they actually change the way love interests' personality, and the walkthrough the game has explains how it changes every girl/woman, and that's kind of immersive.
+ Some of characters has interesting stuggles going on, like Cinthia's whole struggle with her family, how unfree she is, thinking it's same as prison, how alone she is especially with her mother gone, and want to be at least little bit free, free enough to have friends, have some fun, etc, she wants nothing wild, yet she can't get anything.
+ The game has a kind of funny sense of humor, especially when it involves Brian & MC, but Brian sometimes can be a bit too much as well, tho: I
+ Visually, the game looks good, and details are done nicely, like city, house, room designs, lightning, etc.
+ Female character models, at least body models, look hot, like 'DAMNNN!' level of hot, especially Sophia, she is FINE, and it's a big crime she has no proper sex scene at all yet.
+ Sex scenes have animations with some different angles/positions.

CONS
- Story is too vague, gives almost no information when it should, and is riddled with some riddle-like stuff instead. Like Eistheth keep yapping about being MC's queen, talks about how he is bound to her, etc, but talks in riddles, and never talks with clear sentences to explain what is what is, or when MC and Sirius talking she keep saying ''our kind'' instead of just saying ''Vampire'' like seriously; they have fangs, they drink blood, they can heal fast, they are fast, there is the whole talk about Pure Bloods (Lucian was the only known Pure Blood in the city until MC appeared, and he was alive for at least a millennium since he was a pure blood, but he was dying, and he sees MC's blood as his salvation, and turns out he was in control of the city until humans took over it) or Turned Ones (Siruis is Turned One, or she told, because Eisheth told she is ''little thief'' not a Turned One, and stole her powers from soneone else) or the whole talk about urge to feed, once it awakens you will crave just more than a blood, blood is being both power, and the curse etc, list goes on, they are clearly look like Vampires, but the game tries soo hard to be mysterious it keeps dodging a simple defination for no reason. And weirdly enough, when it comes to other stuff like werewolves, the game instantly names them, and doesn't make any weird vague explanations about it. And a lot of stuff about story doesn't really make any sense at all like how MC got caught by Lucian, killed, then somehow Eisheth revived him, and Lucian which taken his heart, and eat it didn't come after him, and we saw nothing about him for soo long after that thing, so story is just big vague mess at a lot of points.
- Negative & Positive choices are not actually Positive or Negative, they need a better naming.
- Some ''important'' choices called Human Conscience & Dark Impulse are timed, and can be even skipped by players; they shouldn't, they should be like how normal choices are.
- The whole some people keep calling MC ''boy'' despite his protesting is annoying AF, there are tons of characters doing this, and we keep seeing a character saying ''bla bla boy!'' and MC saying ''Don't call me boy, I'm a man!'' dialogue over, and over again. It's especially annoying with Eisheth, because the so-called choices you made don't stop her from treating you like that at all.
- It's 2025, and character tropes like Dwight's should have already died at this point; they serve no logical purpose, and their existence makes the games they are in just worse than they could.
- Characters yap a bit too much, and it makes it a bit boring to read the dialogue.
- Some characters are kind of hard to like. Gretchen, she is rude towards almost everyone including MC, and she is way too annoying, and even if MC treats her nice she still keeps treating MC rude, what's worse is at some point we learn she is not just a love interest, she is literally two love interest combined because Bellona & her sharing the same body, one sleeps other wakes, Gretchen told this started 2 years ago, and thinks she is a ghost possesing her or something like that. Sirius, she is like hired killer, we saw her work for Lucian, and kill innocent people or Pyre Guards, in fact she hunted MC, and given Lucian as well (she says if she didn't Lucian would kill her tho, but it's sorry excuse to kill innocent people, and nothing more) after they realized he is ''pure'' and if not for Eisheth he would be dead (she revived him), and next time they meet it was after she killing Pyre Guard, and bleeding, she was shocked MC was alive, and acting rude towards him, and when she was about to die MC decides to save her, and as a player you have literally zero choice over it, which is seriously nonsense, there is no way anyone, but stupid to their core would save someone like her after everything she done, heck even she was shocked beyond belief why he is saving her after everything she done to the MC, and what's worse MC brings his ex-killer to the house he staying in with his love interests... Come on... No one can be this stupid... And even worse (like you thought possible) when she is alone MC's room Eisheth appears, and after she vanishes, and MC comes to room she talks about something starting to wake up in her because of MC'S blood, and like other bloods his taste is not fading, it runs through her, like fire under her skin, says stuff like ''I wonder how your flesh taste'' and then proceeds to tell MC f*ck her hard until she passes out if he don't want her to feed on him... And they f*ck with the game, giving you zero control over it. Then we have Dante, a cold-blooded killer, Mafia member close to Cinthia, mfer even had the audacity to threaten MC, saying he should stay away from Cinthia or he will come for him, everyone he loves, his family, etc
- General use of English, and slang is a bit weird, especially MC, and his weird poems are quite cringy, I do say.
- The whole game is a bit like a puzzle made from a lot of games, it has clear inspirations from certain games, and meanwhile it's not always a bad thing seeing how clear these inspirations are, and seeing them happening over and over again is a bit ''meh''
- The dream threesome sex scene is a very big CON, ruins the players' thrill for the actual sex scene with those characters, and serves no positive purpose at all.
- Main love interests have almost no lewd or romantic content; they need real content, especially Sophia, Helaine, etc.
- MC's design needs some serious changes, he is kind of ugly, has awful hair, eyebrows, and big damn forehead, he is supposed to be some Pure Blood Vampire, yet he looks funny at best, nothing is scary or cool about him, and let's not forget his design is way more nonsense thanks to he is having sex with all those girls, considering how he looks those girls giving him second look alone, or flirting is not logical at all.
- Some female characters' faces (like Ella), and most female characters' eyebrows look a bit bad/weird, like Ella, Helaine, etc, and they need some changes/improvements.
- v0.2.1 ended up with leaving tons of questions, like how Seraphina has connections with Matteo/Mafia, Valentino (second biggest Mafia's leader) getting killed by Dante (one of core members of other Mafia, and he having Vampire eyes), then we see Chloe knowing what MC is, and wanting to kind of serve him, we saw Lucian (he is probably dead), then it ended after MC learned Helaine was lying him all alone, and asked her to be honest with him.

VERDICT
Honestly, the game feels like it has good potential, but needs some serious changes/improvements to reach that potential. For now, I will go with 4 stars since it's new, and depending on how the next updates will be, it can be 5-star rated game or could drop lower. We will see.

Damn JBReverse why you gotta leave it hanging like that man!

Really good so far, Brians kinda annoying but who doesn't have a twat friend right, ha!

Visuals and renders on this are stunning, animations are smooth and flow. If I'm honest though even if this didn't have such outstanding images and animations I'd still have stayed for the story, love this type of thing and cannot wait for it to continue!

Just a great game, it can become very popular in the future and i highly recommend people to play it and support it.

You can tell it was put a lot of effort and thought behind, i'm excited to see how it will be in the future.

Nice job!

So the game didn't immediately grip me. But by the end of episode one I'm fully invested. There are plenty of opportunities to "craft" your play through.
And the explanation in the game is enough to warrant a second separate route ( for me, personally ).

Also, I'm enjoying the music and the sound effects. That's usually not a determining factor, but it does contribute to how much I enjoy a game.

I'm looking forward to more episodes.

For now, 5 stars.
Unlike other reviewer, for me fendom was avoidable.
Only thing strange in this game were some women walking unrealistically dressed showing unrealistically lots of skin on daylight at a university campus.

This is a fantastic, story driven game. There is also lot of content for a game thats been out less than a year. Models and writing are good, the story is interesting, and the characters have some depth.

There is a ton of player choice in the game - to the point where it might be overboard, in the sense it creates too much branching, which requires extra development pace.

It would also be nice if it was more clear how choices impact character decisions - you shouldnt need a guide to tell you that 6 drinks gets a AP point but 5 does not for instance.

Overall great game that is in the top tier category so far.

This game is great so far and has a ton of potential to be one of the top tier games on this site. Few others have done better with these models, though the limits of these models is the thing holding them back.
The story is intriguing, and I've honestly been starving for some good corruption stories. The characters are entertaining, and what was a major flaw (the MC and Brian being terrible cockneys) has been pretty much completely fixed, and is way more reasonable as an accent/dialect.
Main flaw right now is the lack of any real threat I can see, but that could easily change next chapter.

It's good, keep it up.

Great renders, great scenes but mediocre writing.

The scenes and the characters are really good, nothing to say about that 5/5

But the writing feels off, and the characters are just unatural, you just meet them and 5min after they trust you like no other, and you become the center of their world, there is no real progression, and events seems to be forcefully pushed.

Damn! That felt like watching a full-blown movie—another AVN masterpiece on the horizon. There’s drama, politics, betrayal, secrets, mystery, thrill, action, romance, sex, music—all blended in the perfect ratio. The moment you start the game, it pulls you right in. The sound design is top-notch, and the cast? Absolutely brilliant. There are so many perspectives and angles that it’s hard to decide which thread to follow. We’ve got vampires, cops vs. monsters, the Italian mafia, the tangled mess of government politics, and right in the middle of it all—the MC. It’s pure chaos, and this world is begging to be explored. Every new girl, whether she’s a love interest or not, somehow feels better than the last, each with her own story. Brilliant stuff!

But I do have one gripe—the choice and personality system. I think this part really needs some tweaking. Of course, the dev knows best, but here’s my take: the choices don’t quite capture the range of what the MC could be. The personality-based options could’ve been handled better; they feel a bit forced and not as intuitive as they should be. I couldn’t really grasp what “Structured,” “Rebel,” “Savage,” or “Wholesome” truly meant. “Wholesome” came off as “beta,” when it could’ve easily represented a ruthless MC who’s just gentle with his family—a momentary softness, not a personality flaw.

I personally wanted my MC to be “Savage,” but those options made him sound like an arrogant, try-hard alpha instead of a witty, street-smart badass—which is what “Savage” should mean. “Rebel” felt the closest to what I wanted, but it was inconsistent—mixing traits of both alpha and sigma types, with most answers leaning toward “Savage.” Meanwhile, “Structured” should’ve felt like the disciplined, rule-following nerd type, but weirdly, those were the second most fitting for my playthrough. I aimed for a balance between “Savage,” “Structured,” and “Rebel,” with “Wholesome” reserved for family moments—but somehow, my points got scattered everywhere without me understanding why.

The “Good” and “Evil” sides also confused me. At first, I thought “Good” represented maintaining your humanity—staying powerful but restrained—while “Evil” meant embracing your inhuman, ruthless side. But it ended up feeling like “White = meek” and “Dark = Savage,” which kind of missed the point.

Still, all that aside, this feels like the next big thing in AVNs—a true masterpiece in the making. Best of luck, dev!

4.5/5 for now
I like it, one of the highest quality game here currently. The story is interesting, the mystery and all. I hope there will be an improvement to the lewd scenes tho, right now it feels like it cuts to a video instead of flowing with the game, kinda break the immersion.

Heliorise is one of the best games you can find out there.

PROS:

• Beautiful girls, normal boobs, big boobs, bigger boobs
• Interesting story, unexpected plots
• Lewd scenes are sexy, animated, can be viewed from multiple angles
• Choices are matter
• The characters have different storylines and with different characteristics.
• Enjoyable music, each song for each scene
• Has built-in gallery
• Built-in walkthrough by hovering on top left window (when a certain progress is reached)
• Author has a great sense of humor

CONS:

• Hard to jump to an old save file because my current save file is on page 82 and there is no pagination

I'll just copy my comment into a review:

I don't know, feel like this one tries to be too many things at once - a slice of life college story, mafia family crime drama, cyberpunk "big evil corp is doing evil", vampire angst, some apocalyptic backstory with blown up planets. Also as others mentioned - a lot of focus is on femdom, and if the mc isn't subservient to the girls and doesn't let them walk all over him (yeah, let's be kind to the vamp lady that tried to kill you just the night before, without any remorse) then everyone simply hates him. Story also jumps all over the place without any explanation, this clearly tries to emulate eternum more than badik, but fails to deliver.

This game is fantastic. The story is engaging and well-crafted — the prologue sets everything up perfectly, and Episode 1 pulls you even deeper into the mystery. I really enjoy the short sandbox segments too; they’re simple, fun, and not irritating (which is great since I usually dislike sandbox gameplay).

You can choose to play as a kind or more savage main character, and so far, it doesn’t feel like the game forces you into any specific path. I just hope we’ll truly get to see how powerful the MC can become as the story progresses.

Overall, it’s an insanely good visual novel, the updates are nice and fairly big too. The characters are well-written, the story flows smoothly, and the cliffhangers keep you hooked. Amazing work, dev — please keep it up! I’m really looking forward to more.

V0.2.0b

lets start with the fact that this is NOT even remotely a visual novel. the moment you add free roam, hidden images, anything that is aside from just a read, or choices that branch the story in a differing direction, you turn a VN into a game. there is a difference. a pinup is not a comic and yet...

the design not being as advertised aside, the writing here is the type of slang language we used to speak in school, before we realised we all sounded like twats. pretty standard when in a group of lads though so it fits well to the narrative. the downside to this is that it will lack appeal to those outside looking in as it is quite heavy and there are a few terms that make little sense to what they mean. again, pretty normal but not great for this medium.
the plot is decent enough and is well delivered and aside from the childish banter, the dialogue is not the usual teen read normally found here.

Visually this is nicely done. it does enough to enhance the writing. what more is required? not the best and far from the worst here.

had i not been looking for a VN i may have had a less sour experience with this but sadly i used the search function for just that and quit this during free roam. an annoying design choice that seemed out of place to me

Great quality game with really nice graphics and animations. Also the corruption storyline is really thrilling. I can't wait for the next release, it's like a better version of Eternum because the characters are awesome but the whole monster transformation thing is superb.

Enjoyed this game a lot more than I thought, so far a pretty interesting story and nice renders. I am personally intrigued to see where this goes down the line and hope to see more from the creator and that this isnt another abandoned game.

Overall: 2/5

This VN has ambition, no doubt. It throws demons, mystery, and monsters into the mix of sci fi, aiming for something grand and genre-bending. But instead of feeling grand, it ends up feeling disorienting. The plot tries to do too much at once, and the result is a narrative that’s hard to follow and harder to connect with. Every time I started to get a sense of the world or the stakes, another twist or supernatural element would be introduced, pulling me in a different direction. The pacing suffers because of this—there’s no time to breathe, no time to emotionally invest in the characters

Plot: 1/5
-Suffers too much from overreaching plot elements demons, mystery, sci fi. monsters and it becomes disorienting for the reader and player.
Visuals: 3/5
- Could use a bit finer tuning in the post processing and textures in Studio.