VN - Ren'Py - Hillside [v0.16] [DarkBlue]

Here's what I think after playing Hillside v0.9 final

This is one of the best written visual novels out there, but I really hated the violence and sexual assault parts of it, I know that it is just a story but it still makes my blood boil thinking that those things are really happening to some women in the real world. I love the graphics, the women are hot especially Charlotte and I love Lucy's nipple piercings, also, there are no gigantic tits and asses here that looks absurd. The story is very engaging and well written that I almost didn't mind the lack of sex scenes. I like the pacing of the story, it makes it more realistic. I also like that the player's choices really affect how the story goes in terms of relationship with the other characters,

As of the moment of writing this review., there are no tags for graphic violence or sexual assault and blackmail for this game, I suggest that those tags be added just to avoid the negative consequences in case someone who is suffering from depression or trauma from the said events might have access to this game.

I am expecting for retribution on what happened to the characters in the story and I hope that the upcoming updates will start to feature sex scenes especially between Charlotte and the MC.

Based on how well the story was made, the great graphics and even if it has some minor setbacks, it is still a nice game an is one of the best out there so I am giving it 4 stars.

I'm enjoying this tale very much indeed. It has a strong and reasonably varied cast and storyline. Nothing is exceptionally stereotypical or cliched. The writing is bright, to the point, yet expansive. The characters are well crafted with gorgeous, perky, slim yet curvy and (my personal favorite) full-bosomed girls/women. The villains are callous, obnoxious and seriously dangerous while the mc is compassionate and unassuming yet highly capable, righteous and courageous.

The very warmest of emotions and intentions are gradually matching and hopefully in the best of traditions, will overcome the coldest and cruelest of emotions at play in this intriguing whoisdoingit.

As always, thanks a bunch to the creator, DarkBlue, for toiling no doubt long and hard to bring us so precious and refined a gift of enjoyment, especially in these difficult and worrying times.

It'll be very difficult to wait for the next update, but hopefully all good things, as they say...

Not a big fan yet, but I'm cautiously optimistic. The renders are for most parts excellent.

Seems promising, but the story is not progressing in a cohesive manner... interesting to see if the creator can turn out a good selection of possible endings.

OK i am in AWE of this game and how realistic it feels.
The story is amazing, it is a slow burn but it captures your attention so well that you don't even notice that you've been playing for two hours.
The renders and models are absolutely 10/10, the story is movie quality.
Watching this one closely.

If you are after a purely erotic game experience then you should skip this as it is a very slow burn. If you are after a VN with a good story, more based on realism, where your MC actually turns up to do a professional job rather than use it as an excuse to perv on or shag anyone who comes into his orbit then give this one a try.

I've played a lot of visual novels with great art but this game's graphics are next level - the character design and posing are incredible. When a game tells you that a character is supposed to be stunning, most of the time, the character doesn't look the part but you overlook it. Not in this game though, there a 2 supermodels in this game and they have to be the most stunning characters in any adult game ever. The character design is next level but their posing makes them peerless -some frames of the game looked so good that I kept staring at them.
The story isn't something weak either. It might not be groundbreaking, but the characters are very well written and their motivations are very relatable. There isn't any sex in this game but it never made me lose interest.

I give this game 5 stars because it is a good storyline. And something different.

It doesn't offer tons of x-rated content at every turn. What it does offer is a drama worthy or better than most TV series.

If you just play the professional good guy in this, the story is a lot of fun.

I wish the author unlimited success.

The storyline is well-written, fascinating and worth to be called "novel".
It is very entertaining just to follow the story.

However this makes the perfect framework for some of the most interesting and beautiful female characters.

I am looking forward to more of the story and of course more of the girls.

I got an hour in and it was all just violence and rape. I'm really not into that shit so I don't know why it's not listed in the genre more clearly.

I guess it might be building up to something, but it's mostly just poorly written abuse dynamics and the mother is scared of men. I don't get what's hot about this scenario at all. It's just weird to me.

The game has interesting characters, unique premise and lovely renders

At times the story seems to be dragged for far too long and derailed from the backdrop, I believe the pacing could be improved. For example, the original motive behind MC hire was to investigate Emma's stalker, but the storyline has taken a backseat from last few episodes.

Version 0.9 beta
A great game with good renders, likeable cast of character and great plot. By far the most captivating story in an adult game I have ever played. Keeps the player in suspension even without nude content.
The game has only still images and no animations. Hopefully they will be added in the future

This was quite interesting. (No sex scenes so far, btw)
Graphics is good, no music just a few sound effects.
Writing is OK, story is engaging, characters including MC are reasonably relatable. Some illusion of choice (but seemingly no large branching).

Some other reviewers mentioned a few problematic points:

The daughter looks and acts like 14, not 18. But that does not seem problematic to me: I assume she is *supposed *to be 14 (but this cannot be said for patreon or whatever reason). As there is no sexual contents with her (and I assume such content can at least be avoided in future) this is fine, the MC rather seems to act as replacement father figure.

Yes, the mother seems quite damaged (but I do not find it absurd or outrageous, as other reviewers did, that she did not leave her profession and move away). She acts quite unpleasant towards the MC. Again, the MC is not forces to have any feelings for her or pursue her, so I see no problem here.

Other daughter and sister are fun and feisty.

One thing I found a bit off-putting was the immediate violent-holy-rage-respond by the MC to the baddies. One would assume the MC as professional bodyguard has his aggression under control (not to say he would not want to take bloody revenge or whatever, but staring at people like a bulldog and clenching his fists seems a bit silly)

nice and interesting start.
mama thinks Mr bodyguard a thug and keeps thinking he's dangerous lol that's very hilarious.
girls are hot.
but after all those scripts no scenes at all?
huge giant blue balls ;(

This game is not a porn game nor erotic. Just a story of a bodyguard doing bodyguard things for his client. The story is cliché, simple, boring, nothing happens. The characters narrate events from the past and that's all, "this happened, then this and now we are here, SEE YOU IN NEXT UPDATE" lol
Renders are decent in the first couple of chapter but then something bad happened to the mother's face, she's ugly AF in the last chapters, the lady is not aging well
About the daughter: Only in one renders she looks 18 or older, then she looks like a child the entire game, it sucks.
Sad fact: The sexiest scene is an attempted rape

Review for Hillside [v0.8]

Contains A Major Spoiler, Contains Minor Spoilers

I love this game despite the fact that there are no explicit sex scenes. The story itself carried my interest better than most of the games I play with sex around every hallway. The story is well paced and satisfying as you attempt to protect our queen a girl being stalked by most likely a bartender or a classmate or possibly even your long-lost twin brother. Probably not but the fact that I spent more than a second trying to actually solve this mystery on my own is more than a success in my books for any developer of these type of games.

As for the technical side, its great. I do not notice much noise or low-rez textures anywhere. There are probably some here and there but the fact I never noticed during gameplay means its negligible. Lighting is great and there are no hiccups from my end so you can count on an amazing looking stable game.

Overall, I enjoy this game a lot. I played it all in one sitting and I never was once bored. If you read this review and were on the fence, get to downloading this game and enjoy an amazing game, just don’t go into it expecting sex filled game.

P.S. Those who attacked Emma will rue the day.

I think this is an awesome game and I really want to see where the story goes.
All in all:
- Nice and interesting setup - its cool to be a tough guy and not some highschoolboy
- entertaining story with promising storylines
- Beautiful looking girls and a nice graphic quality
- it feels like the author knows his stuff and I am looking forward to any more content.

(Game version 0.8)

The idea behind Hillside is not a bad one, the game deals with some subjects considered "heavy", the story goes on at a considerably slow pace and that may bother you who are reading this text now, character development is one of the differentials of the game, the game a system that I don't particularly like to show what the other characters are doing or thinking even without the protagonist around, another thing, the game manages to make the player create a minimum bond to the characters, moral choices has little impact in the short term.

Below are my grades for each category, where 10 will be the maximum score:

History: 9.7;
Character development: 10;
Plot: 9.5;
Graphics: 10;

Note: I did not see bugs and as I always leave the volume of these games at 0, I did not evaluate the soundtrack and effects.

Verdict: It's worth a look.

Review of v0.8
First thing i wanna say the game was released almost a year ago and there's still no sex, so expect this to be a slow burner.
Now that doesnt mean the game is bad.

Pros:
Pretty interesting story tho some characters are a bit exaggerated(more on that later on).
The renders are amazing and the attention to detail is 10/10. The dialogues dont have 1 render for the hole scene.
10/10 models, all the characters look amazing.
Sound effects?

Cons:
The Emma character acts like she is 14, ok i get it that she is sheltered but this is on a hole diff level. Also who puts CD movies in 2021 lmao .
Charlotte's inner dialogues will become even more annoying in the future. She is so skeptical about the decisions she takes that if she wasnt the plot would have moved alot faster.
No animations, to be expected tho since there's almost nothing to see.
Very slow updates.

Its an all around good game i enjoyed it even some characters can get your nerves.I'd probably rate it 4stars but the slow updates dropped it for me.
Def a game worth playing but i'd suggest waiting for more content.
I'll prolly revisit this game in 3 years till finished.
(Somehow i feel this game will have a bad rushed ending resulted by the slow updates..)

I start with the positive, even if it's not a lot. Now the characters all look pretty and the locations vary too. I also liked the basic premise of the story. A bodyguard to protect the daughter of a famous model from a stalker sounded promising. So that was it for the Positive.

I think it seems a little unfair to give this game only two stars but I just can't overlook the many shortcomings. A first minor flaw is the absence of background music, which is not very important.

The characters are very unbelievable, I mean Charlotte has suffered so much in the fashion industry and now no longer trusts any man about what our main character gets to feel from her every time.
Her daughter, who is actually 18 years old, acts like a toddler. Even the fact that her mother is too protective of her because of her own terrible experiences does not explain this childish behavior.
Now back to the mother, I mean, why doesn't she finally leave Hillside with her family and live in a quieter, more normal residential area without the perverse scum that they are apparently exposed to on a daily basis?

I could talk about the main character the sister and the other daughter, but compared to Charlotte and Emma the three are almost normal believable people if you turn a blind eye.
So if there are no significant changes in the characters I see no reason to touch this game again.

Pros:
Great render, characters look lovely. Somewhat grounded story and a slow burn that isn't really a problem. The story is generally good and i didn't mind the path it was taking.
Cons:
What killed it for me are the characters. The mother Charlotte up till I played showed no redeeming qualities, her dialogues and actions were just getting on my nerves. She never shared one tender moment with MC but somehow MC has a choice that he loves her.
Also the daughter Emma, her character is 18, but acts like 12. I know she's supposed to be a sheltered child, but come on, going her route made me feel really conflicted cause her dialogue and actions are so childlike.

Honestly the only somewhat fun character is the Sister/Aunt.