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

This game is very very good. The visuals are great, the writing is good (possibly a little too British for my taste, but no big deal), I'm liking the story a lot. Animations are great, h scenes are very well done. The main girl is awesome, character designs are top tier. Great incest game with a lot of potential. Is it perfect? No. But any fan of these types of games can enjoy this one a lot.

This actually seems like a solid game with a load of potential but I just can't stomach the horrendous accents. If the game was written without all the British slang it'd be a genuinely good game. Fingers crossed this happens in the future.

[Reviewed Version: v0.2.0 / Chapter 1]

4/5, A great start overall.

Pros:
1) The character renders are well-done by HS2 standards. Every girl in this game has her unique design that resonates with her personality.
2) Every main girl has her own distinct and recognizable personality. Throughout the story, you have plenty of chances to connect with them. In my opinion, the most important task for a porn game is to make the LIs feel alive AND connected with the players. I think this game fulfills this task almost perfectly, which alone already merits at least 3 stars for me.
3) The overall story is fantastic. Normally, I'm a bit lukewarm toward vampire stories, but this story manages to hook me in right away.

Cons (though mostly just nitpicks):
1) Sex scenes are a little bit short.
2) The point system can be quite demanding to manage (honestly my least favorite part of the game, the dev should really tune down the complexity of routes and points allocation).
3) The story is a bit crammed for a new game. Too many storylines to focus on at once, and it's a bit tiring to do so.

Overall, a fantastic experience for me, can't wait to see how the story goes in the future.

How are the reviews for this so high? It doesn't make sense. The accent everything is written in is very annoying. It's straight out of an Andy Capp cartoon - "Toodaloo, I'm off to see a bird innit" - who talks like this. Its not an English way of speaking; its a parody/pisstake of English. Accents are incredibly hard to convey to a reader, so why do this, it just makes it hard to read. The story bounces around and is confusing. Why would he go and stay with a family he has never met, when his best friend is going to the same university and is staying in the dorms? Surely they would live together and he would visit or meet his sister on campus. Is this a college story, a family slice of life, a detective murder / monster story with some sort of bat thing and vigilantes or a demon story, a ghost story, then there's some sort of religious cult. WTF is going on here!!! Too many themes are thrown at the reader all at once, with no time given to work out what's going on. The final nail in the coffin is the option to say poetry to a girl to impress her. FFS! The only positive is that everything looks okay, so a bonus star for that and I'm out.

Excellent first episode. There aren't many games that start out so good from the first releases, they usually go through multiple rewrites to get to something decent. This one seems to be properly structured and have a direction from the start, not some half assed story. Props to the dev.

The visuals are very good for what HS2 can achieve, on par with the more popular HS2 games out there, the dev seems to have a very good handle on what the engine can do.
Music/ sounds are somewhat average, not expecting much from it. Would like to have some sex sounds added to have more immersion (hopefully on a separate slider from music, for people that just want to mute those)
The story grabbed me pretty easily and I wanna know more, so the hook is there. Also it seems the dev has at least the broad strokes figured out, which is nice.
I don't much care about incest/non incest, so not much to comment there. I would even prefer non incest since it doesn't clash with supports sites and the dev can focus on actually developing the game instead of trying to invent clever use of game mechanics to dodge the rules of Patreon and such.
I also don't understand the hate on forced scenes some people seem to have. Sex scenes can be used as a plot device and making all of them optional can be a headache if you want to tell a certain story.

If I have something bad to say about the game is the freeroam parts. They seem to be a bit too many and unnecessary. For example the freeroam where you just need to talk with Helaine and Sophia...why is there a need for a freem roam there ? The party one or the bar ones are not that bad, they make the game a bit more interactive and it also helps that you have an objective tracker. The biggest issue with freeroams is that it detracts people from wanting to do replays of the game, due to the amount of time "wasted" to get through them. And this game has replayability, since there are moral choices and such that directly change the story.

TLDR: Game looks very good, the girls are sexy, story is also good. Tone it down with the amount of freeroam or get rid of them completely and this might be a gem in the making.

Amazing, the game is superb, wasn't expect such a gem, characters are interesting, and you don't have to be a good guy you can be blunt and honest, you choose how to act, that was well implemented, the only thing I would like more is have longer sex scenes, but this game has huge potential and already has a lot of content.

Ah, I forgot to talk about the plot, well build, good pacing and intriguing.

Thoroughly enjoyed the story and found the comedy entertaining; looking forward for what's to come in the future.

*In my personal opinion (from a non-technical standpoint):


Wishing you the best of luck, dev!

Great start,

Models look cool, it's not the eternum killer but looks pretty great, would like to have more attention in female's genitals part but it's never easy. For the MC, I do think that "lightbrown blonde hair looks a bit silly, will have to see later". Try to not make him looks like Orion too much
For the demon part I think it'd be more interesting if there's no like brutal transformation or eyes changing colors. Just have to act more confident and all feels more realistic.
Going full demon stuff and all feel a bit too edgy and cliche for me.

For the story itself and the writing I think it does the job, nothing fancy for now but doing an insane prelude is always a pain in the ass.

Gameplay is straight forward but I prefer that kind of simple mechanics and choices than having shitty minigames or w/e.


Music/sounds it's good, some meme sounds here and there, it's cool.


Hope to see some originals scenes for the "serious story" and not fall into dozen of cliche so there's actually a point to read it.

First release, already unavoidable sex with the party whore.

Usually this would be a good first release. The story seems interesting. Some of the LIs are exciting, although there are some that I'd like to avoid.

The dev found out that incest is a no-go, so who knows what the future holds for the main LI, the sister...
The rest of the LIs I encountered ranged from great (stepsister and stepmother) to disgusting.
Since there is already a forced sex scene, I doubt there will be a choice which LIs to pursue. It has stat points, which didn't mean anything for mentioned scene.

Freeroam was extremely annoying. As usual just a cover for forced encounters you have to go through anyway. No hints what to do. Lame point accumulation.
End with a forced sex scene with the party hook up I would not talk to, even less touch. She's literally there to fuck, probably MC the last guy there who wasn't inside her before. Disgusting.

Then theres the extremely annoying "best friend". I substracted 1* just for him. He drags down every encounter he is in. Nothing positive about him, just a complete failure.

The MC is suprisingly good. He's on the pervy side, but doesn't go over the top while interacting with girls. His looks are also fine, which is outstanding given the engine used.

Needs a serious rewrite. With proper player choices and probably a erasure of Brian, it could become a great game. The potential is there, the execution is horrible.

Great prologue, I was surprised to see the amount of content the prologue had, and the quality was obviously very good, I loved the character of the sister(sorry patreon), her character is quite interesting and a lot better than the usual stuff, I have high hopes for this VN hopefully you stay consistent with updates and it will be huge success.

Magnificent, though sometimes cliché — but that doesn't matter. The animations are fluid, the character design is solid, and although the story has some clichés, it seems promising. By the way, the prologue is well done. 9,7/10

This game is pretty awesome all around for a first release. Some typos and such can use some cleaning up but otherwise really solid. The renderings are very well done and the story has just enough intrigue to be one of the very few games that keeps me reading all the dialogue. A lot of the themes are right up my alley maybe thats whats doing it for me. If i had to pick a weak point I would say the characterizatin of the MC and his best friend aren't the game's strongsuit, hopefully that improves in sebsequent releases.

I enjoyed playing it, so I'll give it 5/5 for a first version. I'll probably adjust the review if my opinion changes after playing future versions.

Good stuff
1) Competent MC that hasn't annoyed me yet. Seems like we'll be able to shape his personality. Not a huge fan of his haircut though.
2) Meaningful choices that lead to different events/outcomes.
3) Attractive ROs with distinct personalities.
4) Interesting story with darker themes .

Meh stuff
1) Some of the jokes are meh at best. They're not annoying... yet, but I might remove a star in the future if it becomes obnoxious or memey.

Bad stuff
1) Nothing much.

Review of HELIORISE v0.0.1 – though I’d rather call it Introduction and Chapter 1

Graphics: 5/5
The developer is what I call an “HS2 virtuoso ”. His mastery of that program is excellent, and it shows in the graphical quality of the game. The light/lighting is excellent. Although the theme of the game is dark by nature, the contrast of light and shadows is very well done. What needs to be dimly lit due to the scene’s context is handled that way, but everything else has appropriate lighting. The daytime scenes are bright and luminous, the indoor scenes not so much (as they should be) but they have good lighting, the night scenes are low light and even some scenes with neon lights and nigthclub lighting are also well done. There is no excessive ambient occlusion (shadows), and post processing is abundant and adequate. HS2 virtuosos tend to get lost in their virtuosity, but this time I don't get the feeling that the graphics are overcooked.

Animations 4/5
Personalized and well done. In the sex scenes you can see how the penis goes in and out, something that doesn't always happen in other games.

Music and sound N/A
I almost always mute the game I play, and this time was no exception.

Gameplay 4/5
The developer has used graphic elements from a UI that can be found for free online. That doesn’t really matter—it’s well made and properly implemented, with no bugs, just like the rest of the game. However, there are quite a few writing errors. The game doesn’t have a main menu; instead, it immediately starts with a video of one of the characters. After a “click to start” prompt, the game begins, and only then you can access the in-game menu. It’s a visual novel, so choices matter—although it’s still too early to tell if the current ones truly have meaningful impact. Beyond that, there are the usual choices to earn points with the girls, along with four MC stats (structured, savage, rebel, wholesome) that reflect how you behave with the characters and influence different dialogue options. You may miss certain scenes depending on your choices. The game’s humor is on par with the MC’s sense of humor: nonexistent.

Plot 4/5
Half vampires, half young people living their college lives. The MC appears to be (or was) a powerful vampire who doesn’t remember who he used to be, whose powers are dormant, and who seemingly got tired of being a vampire and now wants to live a normal human life. His former partner—or mistress—another vampire, of course, is trying to make him return to who he once was. Meanwhile, the MC continues his mortal life. Suddenly, he finds out he has a sister and goes to live with her adoptive family. In his new city, several important subplots unfold: power struggles among humans—including mobsters, politicians, and businessmen—on one side; vampires on the other; and the typical family life, with the MC caught up in all of it one way or another, sometimes without even realizing it. The plot overall is original and not something you see too often—setting aside the college and family life aspects, which are common in visual novels. There’s also a police and vampire hunter subplot.

Characters 3/5
Overall, they’re fine. The MC is generally decent, though he does have the occasional creepy moment. Sometimes, though, it’s not really his fault—it’s his friend’s. The typical lifelong buddy, as expendable as usual, who tends to show up in these types of games and, as is often the case, doesn’t disappoint in terms of being a walking cliché. You’re left wondering if he’s an idiot because he only eats what he poops, because he’s spent his life getting hit in the head, or because he was simply born with clear signs of mental retardation—or maybe all of the above and then some. Completely disposable like most of these characters, he adds nothing to the plot other than embarrassing himself—and, by extension, the MC. The humor he supposedly brings is on par with his quality. In real life, no one would want a friend like that, but in visual novels, it seems to be a staple to have a dumb friend. Your supposed sister doesn’t really act like someone you haven’t seen in your 19 years of life. The rest of the cast serves their role. With the exception of a few characters whose only purpose seems to be playing unfunny clowns—I have no idea why they’re even in the game.

Final thoughts
The game is high quality overall. Maybe the theme—vampires, blood, death, etc.—won’t appeal to everyone, and tags like female domination, graphic violence, and horror might also turn some people away. Personally, the most horrifying thing in the game for me is the humor. But overall, it’s pretty good, and if the player isn’t put off by those themes, it’s definitely worth playing.