VN - Ren'Py - Imperial Chronicles [v0.7] [Lazy Monkey]

Writing's an amazing step up from the previous game, the erotic/sex scenes are just as well done, plus a step up because the pace is really satisfying. Characters feel fleshed out and the plot is interesting, there's even some fun political stuff going on with actual stakes and compelling choices. IMO makes the erotic content even hotter, the "and then they fucked" kinda stuff of other VNs doesn't do it for me.

Great game 5/5

The world building and intrigue are top notch and the story is really engaging. You won't just feel the need to skip to the sex scenes which is more than could be said for 90% of other VN's.

This is the greatest creator I've ever seen, and he even suggested that everyone download the game on the forums at the same time as it was released. Seriously, he needs more supporters!

PS：Right now I don't have the opportunity to download the game to many different resources, so the best thing for you would be to download the game from some kind of game aggregator like f95:

WARNING: CHECK THE EDIT FOR AN UP-TO-DATE-REVIEW
Lazy Monkey is back with a vengeance, and after Monkey Business, Imperial Chronicles (0.4) looks to be an even better passion product. I think it's clear by now what kind of fans LM is cultivating, because his games are primarily focused on incest, seduction, impregnation & pregnancy. You have been warned!

The Good:

• Art: Renders are not the best you've probably ever seen, but they are extremely good. Easily in the top echelons of VN society. Animations are also 30fps only, but very significant to plot development and not overused as such. A wonderful treat sprinkled throughout the game.
• Story: Expansive enough to keep you interested in actually reading the dialogue and narration, but not overly convoluted to the point you give up out of frustration or re-read scenes several times to understand what happened either in the past or the present.
• Choices: Beautifully done. Every, and I mean - EVERY choice will matter in the long run. There are no meaningless choices like "What do you eat for dinner?" that result in a singular different render for no reason. Instead, your actions and motivations are tested in "critical" moments of day-to-day as a young prince and future ruler, so think hard about the kind of king you want to be. Characters react to choices you've made, and avoid the nasty trope of skipping content; an abhorrent practice today employed by many amateur devs. If you choose A, you get scenes AX - and vice versa - if you choose B, you get scenes BY, and though they may lead to the same main story path, the little deviations you take elevate the experience (While other devs might just opt to skip content for players that choose B, LM creates a whole new scene for them). Props to Lazy Monkey for this! NO LONGER TRUE AS OF 0.6 - SOME CHOICES MEAN YOU GET LESS CONTENT OVERALL!
• Music: Decent, nothing spectacular or to write home about, but at least it has some, and the scenes are always better for it.

The Bad:

• Choices: Literally the only bad thing about them is that you will have to have a lot of saves ready; or play the game multiple times (as in, more than two) to get all the scenes with every character. Some folk find this tiring, so I put it into the negative section, though I'd argue nobody is forcing you to do this, and it is nice to have as it adds some modicum of replayability to these types of games.

The Ugly:

• Nothing. Literally nothing is so bad that warrants a mention.

Imperial Chronicles is very ambitious coming from the dev's previous work, yet the consistent speed and quality of releases suggests that Lazy Monkey has NOT bitten off more than they can chew, and as a final verdict: If you like aforementioned tags/fetishes, love timely updates and consistent quality then by all means, Imperial Chronicles needs to be on your list. One of the most underrated developers on this site!

EDIT: After the release of 0.6 update, I can't recommend this game anymore. I am not trying to be spiteful or malicious with this updated rating, but the developer has made their shift in philosophy crystal clear: some choices - offered by the dev - will result in you effectively being forced to sit out for some updates, because they "focus" on paths you might not be on. And when I say focused, I mean focused: as of 0.6, there is a possibility of getting maybe 10% of what other paths offer, with no lewd scenes of any kind. This does not feel like "a consequence of your choices", but a punishment for making a choice - a classic blunder in interactive storytelling. The game is still amazing quality in all other aspects, but I can't support this game for this change in philosophy anymore, not when the dev expects some of his fans to just bankroll his game while getting nothing in return.

Love the game, characters,story-line , renders and animations, love the girls and the little harem we have got going with hints of pregnancy, hopefully its not shit as most games and we only see a few renders at the very end, Otherwise loving it and looking forward to it.

Lazy Monkey is in my opinion the most underrated developer in this forum.
His games deliver a fun and engaging story, full of twists and turns, with interesting characters and lots of variations.
The amount of work he puts in with the fast and consistent quality updates is something to admire.
I am personally a big fan of the look of the renders and I think the characters are gorgeous, although that might be considered subjective.
This game's story has been extremely interesting so far. It has a great setting/lore, with a diverse cast of characters to interact that will lead to quite different paths. Choices matter.
There's intrigue, action, drama, romance, and magical wonder.
I love everything about this game and just like his previous work it is most definitely a well deserving 5/5 for me.
This developer is one that absolutely delivers at an incredible pace and I'm more than happy to support him!

I really enjoyed this game, i'd say it has potential but i think it's alredy living up to it. There are multiple paths and atleast it seems like the choices you make actually do matter. The scenes can be a bit clunky although they are getting better as the chapter progress.

Definately worth both and downloading and keeping an eye on.

Version: 0.4
This has the perfect pacing for this kind of nsfw game.
What do i mean by this?
There is the right amount of dialogue to keep you reading and make you not skip by default. Sprinkled in between is the "content".
The Story is so far very interesting for a nsfw game (gives me the feeling of a mix between witcher and asoiaf) and the characters are all unique without just being some kind of archetype.

I would give 5 Stars BUT the game has a lot of branching paths and diverging content depending on your choices which is good at first glance. It could also be the cause of major feature creep but we will see in future updates how big of an influence this will be.

First off, I played the game in Russian, the English translation needs some rework. The writing in this game isn't the greatest but it's way more enjoyable and consistent in Russian.

The main story itself isn't that intricate, pretty basic medieval fantasy with some political intrigues but the characters and their romance paths and the way the story unfolds depending on player choices are what makes this game interesting, some key moments change and character alliances may shift to or away from the mc.

The visuals are mostly good with occasionally some grainy images and awkward poses but I imagine it's due to the dev's limited resources. In general, the scenes are fairly well structured and visualized and I liked the characters' design, they have a good variety in looks.

Overall this is a fairly good adult VN with some obvious limitations and flaws but while it's not perfect it is an interesting game with plenty of kinks and fun moments.

This game has also a disclaimer of a work in progress, so some things might get fixed and improved in a more polished future version.

Very well done overall so far, even if i am a sucker for fantasy.

The story is engaging and well designed, with almost every choices leading to a different outcome or scene in some way. The initial mage/bookworm/warrior choice is genuinely impactful and cuts off a number of options/outcomes in specific events without completely altering the story and requiring 3 unique paths. Some choices can have big outcomes in terms of revealing information, though so far i'd suggest that some of the 'reveals' have been effectively brushed aside The elven conspiracies that the MC is aware of have managed to not really be addressed at all

The renders are pretty good and all the characters so far have their own compelling enough stories and character development. The LIs are all unique. The sex scenes aren't long or complex so far, but i don't personally mind as for me it's more about the character dynamics.

I think the dev has so far struck a reasonably good balance between choice and branching content, which hopefully allows for the project to progress forward at a good pace. Often in AVNs, choices mean exponential branching and complexity, which means an exponential slowdown in game development.

I'm not sure how this will change in 0.5 assuming the main LI has become established - It's not seemingly a harem game, so this could completely change going forward. Also, I'd note that some of the apparent points systems so far feel a bit excessive and unnecessary, but this may change in later chapters. I'm concerned that the dev may be overcomplicating things. For example, you can obtain points for 'aurora love', 'aurora shame' 'aurora fear'. Is this a temporary mechanic that just influences a single event, or does it mean that there will be three unique aurora branches going forward that have to interact with every other branch. I'd rather we don't end up in a GRRM situation where the story is too complicated to finish or takes so long that the game gets abandoned.

I'm assuming that the English version of the game is in the Dev's second language, but one minor issue i had was that in quite a few of the lines, words were missing or the lines just felt a bit disjointed. I could still clearly understand the intended point and it wasn't immersion breaking as it can be in other AVNs (god some of them are so badly written). In that sense i commend the dev on the English translation as it does feel 'natural' and native. I just recommend going through and having someone do some further proof reading.

tl;dr: Good stuff so far. I'd consider removing complexity in some areas and maybe adding some extra scenes/depth in others. Wishing the project good luck!

This is one of the best games I have ever played. The choices you make in the game really matter. You need to play it multiple times to get the full experience. It reminds me of the book series I read as a kid where you could make your own choices.

Medieval fantasy, meaningful real choices that are not fake, different paths, fluid dialog, gripping story and most importantly, very attractive, beautiful LIs.

Don't take this as a negative criticism, but I would have expected the render quality to be a bit better. After all, this is not the developer's first game.

I played through v0.4 in a few hours, then had to go back and try some of the other choices to see where they would lead.

I give the dev high marks as a storyteller. The game looks good, the characters are interesting and attractive, and the world-building is first rate.

The only thing holding this back from five stars are the sex animations, which are decidedly second-rate.

Recommended for those who like good storytelling and fantasy worlds. People who enjoy incest stories will probably get an extra thrill; while that isn’t my thing, I still found much to like in this game, and will be eagerly awaiting further updates.

Best MILF Game ever. Great Genre, Great Lewdness & Exciting climax with the mother. I hope the creator makes more of these type of games.
Hopefully the creator makes more additional lewd erotic scenes with the mother.

This is one of those games that I wish I could screw my own rules and give the 5 stars it deserves. Imperial Chronicles [v0.4] as of now, one of the best VN games I've played here. This one has a soul. And the dev put his/her heart into it and it shows. It is such a breath of fresh air that reminded me that not every VN is made for quick cash grabs via patreon.

The story is well constructed, intriguing and goes at an acceptable pace. You assume the role of a half-breed prince, part elven and human in a medieval fantasy world. The choices you make feels like they matter and you got a lot of them to make. Healthy amount of drama, comedy, action and romance. And it feels like you got control over everything you do. That simply just adds more to how great this game is as if it wasn't great enough already with how deliciously plum the MC's mum already.

Ehm, anyway... Where was I? Oh yes. Models, environment, scenes, animations adds to the amazingly put story telling even more. I turn off the music of VN right off the bat, so I can't say anything about that. But the thing is, this here is a true visual novel. Almost perfectly crafted. Enjoyable and re-playable.

So what's bad about it? You are gonna have to play it yourself to find out. To me, a game like this should be a bench mark. The only bad part of this game was that seeing the end screen for the current version after like 5-6 hours of amazing time. I definitely recommend this game.

This one took me by surprise, i didnt expect to see so much stuff in a 2.5gb VN. First of all, love the fantasy tropes, mixed with a lot of courty drama.
The renders are top notch, models are amazing, didnt expect sound effects and they are perfectly placed every time. The story is shaping to be a high fantasy Game of Thrones, which im all for. Best of luck to the dev, brilliant start, insane amount of content.

I played the Developer's first VN and found it very interesting, it made me pay attention to this 2nd VN of his

The historical context is very attractive, hopefully in the near future we can intervene more in conspiracies and become a dictator ruling a vast empire.

Good plot, good mix of action and slow burn, great characters (physically very appealing ladies with actual personnalities and a MC that can be steered in one direction or the other without feeling like just a bland faceless self-insert), immersive setting with good personnal+political intrigue writing (would need some more proofreading though).

Also an impressive rate of upgrades for this site and decent quantity of content at every upgrade.

All in all, even if it's still in relative infancy, one of the games to play and follow there, dev do seems pretty competent.

Excellent game with great number of divergent paths depending on choices. Renders and the hot scenes are really well done. No engrish so far and the story is written in an interesting manner. Choices here have real impact and are not just cosmetic, they will you to different paths.

Definitely one of the best games on this site, with a lot of content for just 8 months of development. Good characters, soundtrack, dialogue, and the story is so good that even if this wasn't an adult game I would be interested. A truly great taboo fantasy story.

The only "problem" I see is that maybe the dev is getting a little ambitious with the whole choices/path thing, which technically wouldn't be a bad thing but this could affect the game development on long term.