VN - Ren'Py - Hybridia [v0.4.56] [Black Hood Games]

Honestly.... the story is not all that bad. It's kind of like the Fate series, the anime about champions being summoned to duke it out to decide.... idk, something with the holy grail. Anyway, Hybridia is basically the same idea, except instead of historical figures, this VN draws from video games and comic books. Which.... as another review noted, is a bit tacky. Still, the whole 'absorb the enemy's bond with their goddess' is pretty novel. All in all, not a terrible story as far as AVNs go, and the writing isn't horrendous, either.
Story: 7/10

The women all have giant knockers and phat asses. A little bit of variety would be nice, but other than the demon lady, the renders are well done so.... not much to complain about, in that regard. The MC looks pretty bad, though. Like a cosplay version of the WWE's "The Undertaker".
Visuals: 6/10

The combat aspect was surprisingly fun. though I ended up having to use cheats in URM to beat the demon guy. Also pretty novel AVN experience.
Gameplay: 8/10

What makes this average, and absolutely kills the story for me, though, is the ridiculous "Aphrodite effect" that makes EVERY female in the game constantly drop their panties in the least romantic and MOST unsexy way imaginable. It's really - and I don't mean this insulting, but just as a statement of opinion - really stupid. An OnlyFans session where faceless randos on the internet pay a woman to shove a dildo up her vag has more buildup than every sex scene in Hybridia combined. It's horrible. Bottom-of-the-barrel trash harem writing. Which is a shame, because I could def see myself following this game if the lewd scenes didn't have a set up that would make Ron Jeremy cringe.

I give it a 4.5/10 overall.

I dont actually want to give this a poor review but there are some things that I must signal as bad and that the dev SHOULD try to reform if he wants to have a good and proper game and potentially not abandon the game out of frustration. TIPS ON HOW TO FIX THE GAME:
-putting characters from other universes like Natasha and the first girl you save and the demoness is a major turnoff,dont know about the legal aspect but its def not a good idea,it gives off the lazy and lame vibe,as if this is a poor paradoy and mish mash of different ideas in 1 cringe package.
Make original characters,even if its easier to just copy and paste.

-fix the lighting and other graphic issues,the world and hud feel very weird

-poor dialogue and shallow characters,rushed story,not explored enough the lore of the world,like why are there guns and magic at the same time? Demons and elfs and such.

-rushed sex which is a turnoff,basically you contradict yourself,the magic of aphrodite is supposed to enchance the player's charm not make them instantly fall for him,lust power is poorly defined from something unique to aphrodite to all champions and seems to be universal mystical energy that makes the character punch people to roofs and spawn guns,not at all how you made it sound,a rename or remake of the plot should be needed,so lust power is unique to lust related gods, and is more like magic not ability to do anythin and everything at once,too easy to refil and empty the lust power gauge,are all gods going to be lusty women? Sounds repetitive.

-combat is ok-ish,def needs an overhaul,maybe more options,a skill tree,something to give it variety,

-ok this would be a break with the plot but def would like it more if we could choose at the start of the story between more gods not just aphrodite from default,also Hekate says you will have to choose your main god later,will this be a thing? I dislike aphrodite and would like to pick Hekate later.

-world feels empty and the story rushed,maybe take a short break and fill the world,add more NPCs and encounters.

-maybe add items?

Hekate is my favorite so far,great design for her,especially the shiny clothes,also like that she hints she is a potential femdom path for the player,hopefully we will have more femdom in the game.

The story for this game could be interesting but it's hard to care with how bad the writing is.

The dialog is horrible and incredibly flat. Most people are just making awkward statements, they're not talking. The terrible English just makes matters worse, and you can tell that it's not just a translation issues, the English is terrible but it's not what's making the writing bad.

The main character is very annoying, next to impossible to enjoy playing and inhabiting. Arrogant and hostile from the very start, closed minded shortly thereafter. Even if the author isn't American, the reincarnated solider just gives off very unpleasant 'Merican Soilder vibes.

The first harem girl having both the name and appearance of a well known mainstream game character, makes the game feel like it's going to rapidly devolve in parody in the worst meaning of the term.

The rushed sex / "romance". The first sex scene with the above mentioned harem girl is impressive in both how stupidly fast it is and how incredibly boring it is. Yes we have a magic seduction aura,but it supposedly required genuine connection to have any great effect, and yea we saved her, but overall the jumping into sex felt very flat and cheap. Doesn't make one have great hope for how the relationships would evolve going forward. How can one expect well written romance from someone who can barely write normal human interactions?

Animations;
there are animations in combat, which can be easily missed by clicking and thus making you miss important scenes causing you to go back and wait for the slow scene to start and then play. The combat isn't horrible, but is still pretty bad.
There are also animations for sex scenes, those scenes would be far better off as static images you click though, the animations are awkward and little more than short gifs before being finished. Sex scenes are nearly "blink and you miss it", and I would nearly argue that you'd be luckier if you did.

The models for the characters are techincally ok, the face for Aphrodite looks kinda weird. Most other characters look very generic, with the exception of the harem girl would is a straight copy and paste of a premade clone.

Version Reviewed 0.3.28
This is now in my top 30 games/vn. The overall package is very enjoyable, the renders are decent and the english is good. There is room for improvement in the animations and renders but like I said before the overall package is good and well worth downloading.

The demo has a lot of issues, but it's promising! Keep working at it, and you could end up with a decent project.

My advice is to rewrite the MC. The fact that most of his dialogue is him complaining is pretty frustrating. I liked everyone else that he interacted with though, which is why I say that this is promising.

Also maybe practice your art, and redo the sex scene with Tifa, because her face looked kinda bizarre, and so did the MC's dick.

I wish you well, and again I hope that you keep working on this and get better.

The setting and premise are very interesting. Not much of a story to comment of right now. The renders are decent but not great. Sometimes the renders are very weird though (like tifa's face in some scenes and the MC's dick). But that stuff can be worked upon. The sandbox elements kinda felt extremely useless cause there isn't much in the game at the moment. Maybe they get better in future updates but it rarely happens that sandbox elements in a renpy game are actually good. What i absolutely hated were the animations. They are horrendous and extremely useless and the game would be much better without them.

As the dev says, this is just a brief demo. Its a very quick play, and only took me about 15 minutes.

The good is that the game seems to have a really solid base, is setup to have a lot more content, and has good renders/graphics so far. Absolutely looking for more when its ready.

What I didn't like is that the MC is a rude asshole and really doesn't need to be. His personality was a real turn off, and I hope that it gets better as it goes. Maybe he's humbled.