Ren'Py - Hero Party Must Fall [v0.5.4 Bugfix 1] [Nitrolith]

I've been ignoring this game for a long time since I wasn't liking the art style. Finally gave it a try and man I loved it so much. The writing is what made me keep continuing. The art slowly grew on me and and was eager to "fuck" and "corrupt" the female characters. . Truly masterpiece. Looking forward for next update.

v0.4.3

Story :

10/10

One of the best stories i have seen in a game in a long time, the story is just too damn good, i really was left wanting at the end of the update longing why did it have to end.

Characters :

10/10

The main strength of this game in my opinion is the characters, the 4 main people around who the story revolves around, there are other side characters who greatly affect the story, but the tale of deception amidst the 4 make the core of this game.

Art :

9/10

The art could be improved a bit especially the background art, there are only few templates of BG art which is shown through out the game, but the character art is quite good and makes up to this.

Dialogues :

10/10

The dialogues are good too, especially the ones of Mars which greatly emphasizes the way the story is told. It really makes us feel for the Hero, which really is a great thing, because this type of story telling hasn't been told before this good.

Overall a solid 11/10. Great game.
Please anyone seeing this review play this masta piece.

It's honestly ridiculous how well written this is, each character has their own personality, motivation and a distinct character. I could read this all day. It's kinda silly that it's a porn game but it's really that good. 5/5

TL;DR:
I struggled with this review. On the one hand, I was liking the game a lot until a certain point in the plot. On the other hand, that point completely undermined everything that led up to it and left me not wanting to go any further.
Sadly, I must give this a 2/5.

Reviewed version: 0.2.6-I think. The point where the former priestess shows up, whichever update that was.
I want to make this very clear: I didn't play any version beyond that. The reason for that is I felt the game was losing me with the direction it was headed, and held off. After seeing it got an update today I went over the changelogs since I played and found that none of the things listed sounded like they'd fit with the game I remembered, and I wouldn't care to see any of them.

Which leads me to "Why are you posting this review"?
And the answer to that is, honestly, I feel cheated. I spent all that time going through one third of a VN thinking it was headed one way, and then at the end of that first third the developer drops a bomb that shifts the narrative tone and destroys the coherency of the plot.
Spoilers beyond this point, I suppose, although they're spoilers only for an ancient part of the plot. The game makes a big song and dance about subterfuge. The protagonist is a lesser power, a half demon that has been charged with infiltrating the hero's party. It is also established that the Goddess is a force for good that will not tolerate the protagonist's attempts, and that she desires the demon king to be destroyed. A third of the way into the plot, it is revealed that the Goddess has no interest in the demon king being destroyed beyond maintaining the status-quo, she is not good or benevolent, she has deliberately chosen an impure and lowly woman as her priestess for her own amusement after her prior priestess was too "boringly perfect" and no, there is no need for subterfuge since she was aware all along of the protagonist's purpose, intentions and actions and doesn't mind them one bit so long as knifey-throaty-slashy happens on the demon king. Oh, and the hero has given almost all of their power to the impure priestess who then yielded it to the protagonist, so he's not much of a lesser power anymore.
Talk about upsetting the plot. This isn't a narrative twist, this is the developer saying "BORED NOW" and changing everything that has been established over hours of VN dialogue and that training minigame in very literally one scene; you speak with the Goddess and she just casually states that everything that has been established since the start of the game is wrong, and from that point onward the VN could've ended and a new one could've begun, because there is no relation between the two. The former priestess even shows up - apropos of nothing - and the focus of the game shifts from the two established girls to her as she chastises the protagonist and drives him away, only to be chastised by the Goddess herself within literal minutes and have to go crawling back begging for forgiveness - forgiveness which the protagonist naturally doesn't grant. The protagonist then spends a while breaking her in and it's all so very utterly depressing that I didn't have any inclination to keep going beyond that point.

A game where you play a sneaky, stealthy infiltrator and take down a superior force from within by stealing what they love most right from under their noses is something I might be interested in; the hero so self-assured and laser focused on bringing down the Demon King that they fail to notice you snatching their beloved priestess, and maybe they do kill the Demon King at the end, only to see you taking his throne with the priestess as your queen.
This game started that way, and for several hours led you by the nose saying "C'mon, here's that thing you like, it'll be fun, c'mon, here's a bit more" before changing its tune into something completely different.
Fair's fair, the developer can do what they please with their game, I just wish it would've been more upfront about it. It'd have saved me several hours I ain't getting back.

Breakdown of score:
-Up to the point I played, and looking at the changelog even at present, the combat minigame is broken and players are advised to skip it. Why's it even there is a mystery to me, but yeah, combat that the developer themselves admits is futile and broken (-1*).
-Plot destruction mentioned above (-1*). There are far more elegant ways to subvert audience expectations than "Hello! I'm the Goddess and everything you've read thus far gave you the wrong ideas. Let me set the record straight".
-Radical and jarring shift in narrative tone (-1*). In one scene you go from the underdog afraid of being destroyed at every turn should the hero or Goddess realize what you're doing to being the greater power capable of threatening the hero and with your actions sanctioned by the Goddess. In. One. Bloody. Scene.
-Misleading game description on the website (-1*). There is no question of whether you'll succeed; in fact, reading the changelogs, it is intended that you will go through all of the options where you will not succeed to get "hints" about the narrative, only to be dropped back to where you were before the choice. Not only that, the bad decisions are signposted with "(B)". So, to reiterate, there is no question of whether you'll succeed. Your "big secret" is also not a secret at all, and was known by your supposed #1 enemy from the beginning. And you're not a spy; you don't do any spying, you don't do any reporting, you're not gathering intelligence. You're there to corrupt the hero's party and make them submit to you via sexual training and humiliation, which is enabled by a rampaging plot device AKA a curse that the Goddess could have probably effortlessly lifted but doesn't feel like doing so. What absolute malarkey.
-Well worded (+1*). Look, plot coherency and narrative tone shifts aside, the actual wording is good. The characters express themselves in a consistent manner - the priestess is consistently proud and consistently a secret slut, the hero is consistently oblivious and an idiot, the demon queen's wife is consistently devious and slutty and so on. The game does introductions well, sets up scenes well, describes things well, and so following. If it weren't for the ham-fisted narrative turning on a swivel this might have been one of the best written games on this site. IF. As it is, it's still well written enough for one bonus point.
2/5.

This is slow burn corruption done right: with tons of assets and a good understanding of eroticism to sell every step of the journey as either a perfectly ball-ticking tease or a satisfying milestone of progress. Beyond the large number of quality animated assets is the writing: it's effective, unpretentious, and obviously penned by a native English speaker with a strong control over the language. The focus is absolutely on the sex and the girls, but the protagonist is far more fleshed-out than a bland self-insert or one note NTRguy you would usually expect. This makes the fucked up relationships he has with his corruption targets interesting even without the sex scenes. I'm sure you can find ways to poke holes in the story and characters, but you can't reasonably ask for more in a game this horny.

The biggest flaw this game has is the number of TBD gameplay sections, but really they're only noticeable by the signposts of where they're supposed to be eventually. I wouldn't even want the dev to work on them at this point.

tl;dr really good corruption/netori game. Props to the dev for working so quickly with one hand down their pants.

The game's writing is THE BEST that I've ever played. It actually succeeds in raising the story's stakes and make you care about the characters, whether it being anger, hatred, love or pitiness.

It feels a little bit off pace at times but that's mostly because the game isn't finished yet. So I'm still giving it a 5 star and as you can see the rest is just me padding out this review because of the stupid word limits.

This is genuinely a well written game. First 18+ game that I played were I didn't skip any dialogue and played for the story and characters. Artstyle was nice and the animated scenes were also good. There is a lot of content (dialogue and scenes) even tho at the moment it's only version 0.4.1. Must play game if you're into corruption imo

Didn't play the full game yet, but I have to say that this is easily one of the best I've played yet.
The slow corruption of the heroines, with the right reasons.
The writing and art are fucking amazing. 5/5 100%
Hope this games finishes soon

Fucking EXCELENT

This game netori isn't just some dumb shit where you are a giga chad and corrupt girls to make them your sex slaves

WELL IT IS

but it also is a nice stage-by-stage corrupting game where the women you are corrupting, doesn t lose her personality even when she is turned on or when she is really really screwed, she just keeps being herself, DO that alone WELL in a game is nearly impossible because sometimes it feels boring and repetitive to always have the girl resisting, and you are just like "whatver, man im boring, let's fuck already" but that doesn t happen in this game, because the plot is well hidden from the heroine , so she is slowly falling in love with the devil that planned all, but its not just falling in love, it's the way, having her more perverted after each training, and knowing nothing, she starts to feel lust/love for the man she have to commit to solve her problem.

Meanwhile we have the hero, that you slowly become buddies, but you are fucking his women and she is loving it, i didn t play so so so so far in the game to actually have conversations with the hero but i don't care, the netori, cheating thing can be original or not, what really matters for me is the development of the girl and Mc, and that's really well done

Netori's are supposed to be like this one, only a few amount of Japanese Games with Netori are at the same lvl of writing/staging of events that this game have

The animations, art, and all, it's just fucking amazing dude, the girls have the art you want to have in a netori, making them lewd as fuck dude, with fat at the right places, man all of the background ambientation of this game , places, girls, npc dialogues, feels like RIGHT
Hairy in the right places, animations perfectly done with that sense of japanese style games

i can say more things but i will stop, i didn t play the game that much, only about 2 hours

The only bad thing i encountered is that this game is not finished and i can t play it on weekend fully

As a netori lover, i give this game a 10/10

in a genre of little popularity this game definetly stands out, a definitive must play if you are a fan of netori, the characterization of the protagonists, the slow burn of the corruption and the plenty array of scenes make this game a 10 out of 10.

So, besides the focus on reverse NTR, a few jumps in logic for character actions I had fun.
Slow burn but I just wish more games had deeper characters, that just adds much more to experience.
As a plus playing a villain is just so much more fun.
Definitely give it a try!

One of the best netori games. Possibly the best. The art is very good, the characters are attractive and sexy. But there is no gameplay yet (Well, I did not find it). Still this game is 10 out of 10, super duper good, good luck with development!

My favourite game and I can never not need more after every update. The quick corruption of everyone around you is beautiful and it literally is part of the story which I love, it does not matter if the graphics of the world aren't perfect they are done in an art style that leads to me updates in a tasteful way. I need more and I hope the full release is filled with juicy goodness and corruption. Thank you so much dev I cannot find a single fault with this game.

I honestly just wanted a good fap and I got a story so well written it out classes everything else. I cannot believe that I'm legitimately staying for the plot. I'm too invested at this point. Vi forever.

Masterpiece of a story. i downloaded to fap and stayed for mars.
"If you can't play the good guy, sometimes you've got to play the villain".

Waiting for future updates. i just hope when this game finishes mars' punishment won't be too cruel and just let him be with vi in another timeline or next life man needs peace

Easily one of the best games on the site; An actual game where you play for the plot but also enjoy the reason you download anything on this site in the first place.
Game immediately after each update is a bit touchy when it comes to gallery or interacting with npcs but fixed decently quick.

I , in my entire life have never played a sandbox game so grindy so same action repetetive that my hands, my mind, my body even my instrument of self pleasure went completely numb with all the button clicks and cotinuous presses where in the end I just let it on auto for repetitive action that I have to repeat everyday in the game. I, who was a fan of sandbox games with repeatable scenes, can somehow be disgusted by such worthless game design , I can't believe but this game made it possible. Wow just wow. I am flabbergasted, bambozzled that this game has such high ratings despite its mind numbing repetition is just ,wow.

just finished the game and it has the best art of any game i have ever played
i liked cecilles faces at the end very funny
sex minigame seems pointless just padding that becomes annoying should be optional because the grind takes away from the experience

I've met some bugs, but it's a solo dev and it's not finished so whatever, the writing is absolutely great, the porn is hot as hell and the gameplay is good, what else can you ask, it's a 10/10 babey, geniuenly can't wait to see how the story turns out

I'd give this a game 5/5.
PLOT: Ahhh yessss... finally, some good effin netori game. This site only has a few kind of games with this genre so im totally down with it.
ART: I'd say im not much of a fan with the latest art, specially with Cecille's sprite. I'm gonna miss that one
MUSIC: It sets a good atmosphere, definitely fits well
GAMEPLAY: I'd say there are some issues with the mechanics but this game is in it's beginning stages so it's understandable