VN - Ren'Py - Hillside [v0.16.3 rework] [DarkBlue]

Very immature writing. There's no sex content after 2 hours. Dialogues don't make sense. Lot of clichés, nothing orginal. Models are ok but not that great. Really just skippable. Doesn't deserve the rating at all.
Very immature writing. There's no sex content after 2 hours. Dialogues don't make sense. Lot of clichés, nothing orginal. Models are ok but not that great. Really just skippable. Doesn't deserve the rating at all.

This game has the bones and story of a very highly rated VN. However it is basically sfw after years and years of updates with the main 2 characters.
I can't overlook that even with a great story.

The 2 or so sex scenes this game has after 5 years of development last about 5 seconds and of course aren't animated.

The story glazing for 5 stars is just insane, it's good but not anywhere near good enough to excuse the lack of any type of nsfw content. We aren't talking about a small creator either, this dev has something like 800 patrons. Maybe in another 5 years this game could become a 5 star, but right now this is a accurate review. Unless you like porn games that are 99.9% story (why would you be on f95 lol) then this might be your 5 star game.

Let me point out right away that if you're looking for porn, this isn't the place for you. This VN is about relationships, emotions, and plot.

On the one hand, the story and characters are interesting and well-developed.
(Main LI Charlotte is absolutely fantastic).

On the other hand, the plot develops extremely slowly.

However, for me, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

-Story and characters - 5
-Animation and renderings - 4
-Interface - 5
-Sound - - (not rated)

So at first "old saves wont work" kinda pissed me off... this has been one the AVNs I watch for and enjoy... so I stared from the beginning again because "I like the story".. ya go figure... Im kinda happy I had to start over. So much I didn't remember and am glad I got to see again...

I LOVE slow burners but god damn does this one likes to waste your time. I'll keep it short since there are already plenty of reviews that mirror my opinion;

Dev is not lacking talent, but this story sucks. Nobody acts the way these characters do. For most people, who care's if their porn has a shit story, (its porn, not really its goal anyway), but the problem here is, there isn't even any porn. The renders are fine and technically it's a good game so it's not like this is some disaster, but if not for this review I'd probably forget this one exists within a few days.

So the newest version of this game won't work with saves? This game is 5 years old with almost zero sex and very little progress, so having to play through it all again is a form of cruel and unusual punishment. The MC is a pathetic simp and the main LI is neurotic and hella annoying. The Dev should write teen romance novels. This is not his forte.

It's been over 5 years and we're barely, BARELY getting Charlotte to accept the MC, or for anything to happen in this painfully exhausting B-movie villain story straight out of a young women's novel. Just the same old, drawn out, tired as fuck meme of evil rapist men anywhere and everywhere because man = bad or some shit. It's so fucking goofy dude. Like almost every single man in this story is evil incarnate, laughing maniacally, lurking in the shadows and rubbing their hands together just waiting to get their hands on some fresh meat. You just can't help but laugh. Peak fiction. And then you have infinity-traumatized man-hater Charlotte who somehow, bizarrely, inexplicably, still has no issue shooting herself nearly naked for magazines aimed at men or traveling alone to private yacht parties because model? But she'll break down when a man so much as glances her way...? Just... not for a photoshoot, party, and a paycheck, of course. Lol. Really...? What kind of Onlyfans ho logic is going on here? But, naturally, MC is her loyal spineless puppy turbo-simp stay-at-home rent-a-cop dad that has risked everything he has for her, literally killed for her, and she's STILL trying to figure out if she feels safe with him or whatever? No, the bear is not the better choice. Get a grip already. The suspension of disbelief expected in the plot is so far gone it's not even funny anymore. Like can we please move on from this sorta nonsense? We are only now, 84 years later, getting her to open up to him and what have we got out of it so far in erotic content? Fucking nothing. Zilch. Nada.

There's almost no lewd content in this ->adult<- game. There's literally nothing here aside from a handful of non-animated lewd scenes with some side characters, which, hilariously, you'll be locked out of all of them entirely depending on some random early choices without warning (yes really). It's not even vanilla. It's cardboard flavored. Dev also constantly keeps teasing us with Emma being suggestive while giving no lewd content with her at all. Why? What's the point of her behavior then? Her one-time boyfriend had more action with her than the MC ever had (assault, ofc, because that's the devs golden goose in super scary patriarchy land). The MC feels like a side character. The constant forced drama is so frustratingly cartoonish and unrealistic due to just how loooong it's been drawn out to this point. Basically I've more or less completely run out of fucks to give. I've just entirely checked out of caring about the characters problems. And it's really too bad because it all started off pretty reasonable and believable. Dev is like the writer of Twilight. Yeah, your ability to write something great is definitely there, you've got the potential, but you still ended up writing Twilight. In short, the dev's talent for writing is entirely wasted here.

I like some of the characters, like Emma, and even the annoying cunt sister is starting to grow on me, assuming the dev doesn't wimp out of the "she wants to be dominated" dynamic being suggested, anyway. The dev is very good at creating distinct character voices. The talent is there. Charlotte has her moments, but every time I start to think she's not so bad, the next scene pops up where she starts losing her mind over the MC just trying to exist in peace, lmao. Poor bastard. It's like the dev wants me to be in this perpetual state of feeling sorry for her, but all it does is make me hate her. Perhaps it's to drum up more redheaded stepchild type drama with her second-rate easy-fuck sister who I'm also supposed to feel sorry for. Notice a trend here? Whatever. Most of the women are nice to look at and rendered very nicely. And the story (grammar, flow, personalities) is written better than most games on this site, but man it's just so exhausting to go through... The central basis of conflict is just so eyerollingly blown out of proportions (you can really tell this came out of 2020) as well as it being just way too much teasing, way too much touchy-feely melodramatic teen novel bullshit with nonstop constant blue-balling, and I'm just done waiting for any sort of payoff for it all, you know? The beginning was gripping and it had me invested, but it just ended up being neverending sympathy porn without any actual porn.

The latest update was the final nail in the coffin for keeping me interested. 5 months of wait and we get a handful of renders and some bullshit fluff additions like "upgrading Emma's DVD's to Blu-Rays" and just more of the same whiny melodrama and it's like... Come on dude... You have the writing ability, you can do great renders... you've got it all right there bro. But instead, you keep focusing on this weird perpetual tween drama nonsense in your supposedly adult targeted game without any proper adult content. Wtf are you doing? You know how successful your game could be if you actually lock in? This isn't even categorized as a slow burn anymore. It's a fucking glacial crawl.

Just rubbish waste of time. Nothing Remotely sexual about this. And the story and plot... My god, the dumbest plot and story I have ever seen in any medium, a model who has phobia against men yet has no qualms working in the male oriented modeling industry and getting naked and having her pictures taken and spread all over magazines. Such a schizophrenic plot. And the majority of the male cast behave like rapists from a post apocalyptic world and have no qualms attacking women or others in public GALA like events. Just RLMFAO.

I really like slow burn. I really do. But this is ep 16 now and not one single hot scene.! This story is placed on the wrong site - it schools rather be called a romantic novel.

but apart from that: it is written really lovely. Easy to immerse, some lovely characters and exciting and thrilling background story. Unique environments and most characters have unique designs.

MC and main LI Charlotte look a very unlikely couple. Although they often touch each others shoulders, arms and legs, they are still hesitant to even kiss each other. Hope there is some real progress in the next update .

Good story, great renders, have enjoyed playing. Looking forward to the update soon hopefully. Some glitches in Kay/Selena paths needs to be worked out. I've spent probably too many hours playing this.

TLDR: The least sexy porn game I've played. Almost no sex, nudity or eroticism. Frustrating, clichéd, repetitive story. Annoying characters. Positives are beautiful girls, good render quality, a bit of romance.

Positives:

• The girls, especially mom and daughters, are beautiful and have great bodies. Flat stomachs, firm round ass, nice perky breasts.
• Not too many characters, it's quite focused and therefore can create detailed relationships.
• In the first few episode the dialogue and interactions between the mom and daughter are quite good. To a smaller extent also with the aunt. (But big flaws with the overall story.)
• MC looks good, muscular.
• Good render quality.

Negatives:

• Almost no sex! And the 3 sex scenes are short, boring, vanilla.
• Story is frustrating, plot holes, unrealistic behavior. And after a few hours it gets completely predictable, repetitive.
• Beside essentially no sex there's also almost no eroticism, barely any hot moments, nothing really sexy.
• For the main girls (mom and daughters) you literally don't even get to see an nudity, no nipples, or anything! It's absolutely crazy.
• Exclusive paths for every girl. There's only one girl that you can (for a while) fuck while being on another girl's path. I instead prefer the _option_ of pursuing all the girls. Even worse, this choice being exclusive is essentially hidden, not at all clear until you later see in the walkthrough that you missed scenes.
• No animations.
• The girls behave like caricatures and are extremely stupid and self-destructive. Feels exaggerated, clichéd. Gets really repetitive.
• Ridiculous dialogue and behavior that gets increasingly frustrating as the game goes on.
• MC feels almost like a side character. The majority of scenes don't include MC. And the scenes with MC are reactive, driven by the other characters.
• Comic-book villains, way over-the-top and unconvincing.
• Detailed and graphic sexualized violence, gore. We have to watch the girls get hit and assaulted several times.
• Story is too slow, verbose.
• MC is portrayed as some idiot man unable to understand women or notice their intentions towards him.
• Have to watch another dude kiss and grope the younger daughter. Have to see the girls flirting with other guys.
• Facial expressions are not great and they're very frequently reused. MC's "surprised face" is in half his renders.

Number of scenes in my playthrough when trying to maximize sex. When forced choice: Charlotte and Kaylah, since all others are exclusive.

• Vaginal: 3 (All 3 are with Kaylah, nothing else was available. And 3 is being generous given that one of them is just 2-3 renders.)
• Anal: 0
• DP: 0

(Version played: 0.16.1)

I have no clue how this game is so highly rated with barely anything of substance or progression. Only played 11 episodes so far but can barely go on.

I thought the bodyguard plot/shtick would be exciting but turns out you're basically just playing as a rental dad filling in for a family. The point of MC being a "bodyguard" has no real impact on the story, MC could've been a live-in chauffeur and it would've made no difference.

The story pacing is at some points awkward due to the players no real time comprehension, sometimes it feels like we're jumping weeks/hours/days between settings which makes the character development confusing, tho I feel like no scene is overly drawn out which is appreciated.

The characters are beyond stupid at certain points and make choices only suicidal people would. You're telling me after almost getting killed/raped/assaulted multiple times you're gonna fly out to their PRIVATE YACHT and spend some time there?

Don't play this game if you wanna jerk off since there's barely any sexual content during the first 1-2 hours.

The positives of this VN is not nearly enough to carry the lacking parts. But the LIs look really good, the renders are good and the overall scene pacing feels good.

So... this is one of those (games?.. nah i wouldnt do justice) pieces of art that transcend.

Like any exceptional media, we cannot summarize it in bullet points and do the usual SWOT matrix about the good and the bad, they are complex (not complicated).

This is an experience made by experienced people. The writing, the plot, the scenes are perfectly executed, there's soul in this one.

If you like Thriller/Romance, you are in for a treat.

This isn't my favorite game. I play it only for Emma because she's cute and busty.

And I agree with many of the comments in the negative reviews.

But this is a five star game.

Easy.

Look at the devoted fan base it has created. Those who like this game like it passionately. They are hungry for more.

People complain there's almost no sex after five years of development. True. But there's lots of erotic tension.

People complain that the female characters are illogical, that the structure of their personalities as presented to us is illogical.

Welcome to the real world of real people who are so inconsistent it makes your head spin.

I've met women like these women.

People complain that the women have icky personalities. Many of them do. Their attitudes are sometimes atrocious.

But they have good qualities too. Like in real life.

It's a soap opera.

Soap operas are often full of abuse. And people complain about that too. Too much abuse in this game, they say.

Actually, there's not that much, just a few scenes . . . though the characters talk about it all the time.

The renders are great. The erotic tension is great, even after five years . And people want to know what happens next.

Personally, I only continue to play because of Emma and Kaylah . . . and the story doesn't interest me much. But that's only my subjective view of the thing.

Looking at this from a perspective broader than myself, this is a five star game.

It has a special audience, and that audience understands it.

I think nerinsky2 wrote a reasonable review discussing the issues with this game.
But I'll provide a small summary of my own experience as well.
Pros

1. Graphics are decent.
2. LIs look relatively nice, albeit a bit too similar in some cases.
3. The early bits of the story are grabbing.

Cons

1. An extremely small amount of adult content, and even those scenes are purely kinetic (no control from the player), lack any animation and also lack sound. They are also very vanilla.
2. Very unlikable characters. I mean in a frustrating manner. It is attributed to their trauma in the game but I don't think it is a believable portrayal. There is growth over time at least, but I don't think it is enough. The early depictions are way too jarring to be corrigible to me.
3. Massively verbose and WAY too long. I think if the story/characters were captivating and there was noticeably more payoff (emotional/sexual), it would be OK. But the way the plot is written is just not interesting and there is no payoff.
4. Low player agency. This is sort of tied to the "low payoff" point but I felt like my actions barely had any impact.

The neutral

1. Very forward depiction of violence, both sexual and physical. The renders do not shy away from showing gore and permanent injuries. I personally have a really hard time reading/going through such content, but it might be more digestible for others.

There is clearly dedication from the developer to have spent such a long time working on this project. I think this project is a bit hard to save though. I hope they can use the feedback and experience from this project to make better games in the future.

Hillside is one of the few visual novels that has stood out recently. It does not flood you with needless dozens of characters or try to force something sexual in every movement but alludes to it (smart writing), it allows slow tension to buildup. The cast is small and are actually developed beyond surface level. The other great part of this story is choice matters, and romantic and sexual connections cannot be like a harem rush in many other games.


The visuals are clean and realistic enough. Faces look human not like airbrushed dolls, beautiful and grounded. The lighting is soft, and the scenes are staged without excess. Nothing flashy, Nothing grotesque, Sometimes it gets annoying when faces and bodies look artificial and like blown up dolls.


What surprised me is that the story actually holds your attention, It has drama but it is not melodramatic. It flirts with tension and mild thriller beats without overplaying its hand. The pacing is steady. You are not waiting ten hours for something to happen but you are also not being dragged from one shallow scene to another.

This is a rare game, when every part has come together well, the story, the graphics, the characters. If there is a version of this game even without the sex, the story alone can hold people's interest. Something not many Visual novels can say. It's the best I have played recently, and I wish the developers the very best for future development.

10/10

I'm hooked. Great story and graphics. I don't rate games that often and I rarely get hooked on the story, but I can honestly say that this is well done. It has everything, humor, drama, romance (which is refreshing), and action. Excellent work to the team that worked on this project.

I really wanted to give this game a shot, but it’s safe to say this was a massive waste of time.

Let’s start with the writing. If you can even call it that. The dialogue is a painful mix of stilted, awkward exchanges and nonsensical plot points that make no sense.


The story tries so hard to be "complex," but it's just a convoluted mess that goes nowhere. It’s like they tried to pack in as many twists as possible, but none of them land because the writing is so bad.


As for the H-scenes, or lack thereof, it’s just disappointing. The game promised adult content, but there are barely any actual scenes, and the ones that do exist are awkwardly executed and feel more like an afterthought. For a game that has been in development for half a decade, you’d expect a bit more than this. Honestly, I’ve seen better scenes in games with smaller budgets and shorter dev times.

This is something special. I can't put words to it, because of the controversy. It's basically picking out a Great Book in the smut-section from a ran down comic store.

It's just so, Mature. This is adult writing, in a world built bu based people, to an extent. There's one glaring exception and it's the depiction of all men. To unhinged. Not even bros talk like this between themselves.

But beside that glaring exception it's adult, not unhinged genZ melodrama. No insecure wow's seeing a par of breasts. No juvenile fantasy thoughts from a emasculated little boy aged 25, that thinks about unhinged depraved sex but so insecure he can't even act like a grown ass MAN.. It's just refreshing, adult deep stuff without juvenile smut fantasies and retardation.

Even if it's a bit exaggerated, women depicted as utterly defenseless (not entirely inaccurate if you pound for pound break down strength) - It's like all abuse was stacked onto one woman alone and everyone is a abuser.

Writing is near fantastic, i got no real issues with it except the MC's main character syndrome. While the story shows how 'all men are abusers' it also shows 'all women are sluts', Except Charlotte and Family. Every woman in this game except the Family, go directly to slutmode when they see the MC and 3 lines in they all want to be in a bed doing it like animals. So it makes what Charlotte experienced feel exaggerated if all women are thirsty - her experineces seems far fetched if every woman is like that, because the MC can't be on planet with decency and morals. That premise is simply not plausible.

Other than that it's wholesome and enjoyable and good reading. Not so called 'fap material' and to be this good w/o that, should be a 'enough said'

You simply have to play it, it'll teach you to be a well adjusted adult in a fucked up world. It gives nuance.

Absolute garbage. Dozens of hours of blue balls content. I like long games. Lately played Haildicktator and Out of touch (both are very long), which are great in my eyes. Here there is just nothing.

And the thing is, it lures you in. Because the setting is actually quite interesting, and at first the characters aren't bad either. But there is just zero pace. I made it to the first erotic scene, hours into the game, and the b*tch was like "i am not ready for sex yet"..... yeah i am out!