VN - Ren'Py - Imperial Chronicles [v0.8] [Lazy Monkey]

This game oscillates wildly between the kind of greasy, half rotted three-day-old garbage you'd find in a fast food dumpster and brutally realistic takes on power and family like a drunken yo-yo. Dostoevsky would be proud. Five-fucking-stars!

That said, the game is .... something else. I think its well written, but it's hard to be sure, because english is clearly not the Dev's native language. The renders are pretty and the animations are sparingly used (that's a plus in my book, but not for everyone). The sex scenes are interesting.

Oscar Wild once said, 'everything in life is about sex, except for sex. Sex is about power.' Good sex scenes often involve a power element, or a state of change or a culmination of a long build up. Bad sex scenes are just the Dev throwing "hot" bodies together and the usual words into a bowl and mixing them up, 'take it' 'slut' 'harder' 'it's my first time' 'i've never seen one that big before'. The point is, the former is far more sexually charged than the latter.

As for the plot, I'm loving the branching narrative and the characters have their own ambitions and depth, which only adds to both the overall narrative and the sexiness of the game. SPOILERS!!!!! Don't read if you're not caught up!!!!

My favorite character is Cass, simply because she is a rarity in LIs. She's diametrically opposed to the protagonist. She has her own views and she doesn't fall into the MCs orbit. In fact, you have to join her to continue the romance right now. I love that. It both deepens her as a character and stays true to the narrative the Dev is building. Frankly, I'll be much happier if she can never be romanced on the other paths, because I'm not sure it would be believable.

Anyway, this game is well worth your support and your clicks. Internet pervs, do your (filthy) thing.

wow i imagine the amond of work to have all this choises , one of the few games where to play all the paths is worth; is like baldurs gate without the combat, the story is better game of thrones inspired than finalfantasy 16

Now this shit is what I'm looking for in this site

Plot : 5/5
Gameplay: 5/5
Lewd scene ; 5/5
Animation: 4/5
(W)incest: 5/5

This game is definitely one of my fav now, I hope the story will still go far after the coup.

A short review for now:

+ One of the more interesting games on this site, easily.
+ All characters are interesting and have some subtle layers to them. The writing hints that all have their own motivations, despite not all of them having much written about it.
+ Overall look is good. Characters especially, feels unique.
+ The paths are different enough, I understand there is hard limit what is feasible for to do in small games.
To get into details, some paths felt like the conclusion of end of the chapter 6 was a little off compared to the chapter played before it.
+Short development times, but I had a chuckle when I saw other people say it was long. Your mileage may vary.


Nothing overly negative to say about this game.
It has room to grow a bit, a bit more meat on the bones. A good sign really, wanting more of it.
Could be more sexy times, but story wise it makes sense to tease out.

Abso-fucking-lutely insanely good. Beyond anything on this site.

The extremely low standards for porn games means that every other game gets a 5 star review. If stuff on the first page for the site gets 5s, then this game is a 10/5. It is just so much beyond anything else on the site.

See, I play literally every porn game ever on permanent skip because porn developers are terrible fucking writers. This game is one of the very, very few exceptions and by far the best one.

The writing is actually, genuinely, interesting. Characters are great and are more than walking fetish baits, they have different motives and depth, the dialogue and backstory is engaging, even the fucking sex is more than "OH MY GOD I LOVE UR COCK MC OMGG". It's just so good.

And the paths ACTUALLY matter. Whatever you pick, there is a sense of loss because you have to let go of a charismatic, intriguing character to get more out of another one you like a tad more. It's fucking excellent.

And while the renders are grainy, the animations get increasingly better, and are second only to the seven realms in quality by the latest updates.

Play this shit. You will not regret it. If I could give beyond 5 stars I would.

Edit: Been 3 updates since this review so I thought I'd update it. First and foremost while I still do love the writing I forgot to mention in my fanboying that it's very obviously an ESL game. The author is Russian and often writes with minor grammatical mistakes which can be ignored, what can't be ignored are the ESLisms. None of the characters speak naturally as the author seemingly translates the exact dialogue in Russian literally to English, instead of localizing it.

Furthermore, while paths do diverge, they need to come back together otherwise there would be too much work. That reconvergence has recently happened in the game and it kind of sucks. Sometimes, the story takes a hit.

Still a good game.

This is by far my favorite game, the story is very good, I almost never press CTRL, the characters are so pretty and distinct, almost every choice matter and I have 10 different saves. I very much recommend this game and would happily support the dev financially.

This game is underated imo, the renders is nice and beautifully done even tho its a little bit grainy.

The story are decent enough unlike most of the AVN on this platform but the multiplies path kinda ruined my impression as i'm not really a fan of that, and it can be confusing if you're not playing it by using a walkthrough.

Overall its deserved a 5 star as this game obviously getting an improvement from his previous game, i just hope that he toned down the multiplies path since you can missed a content if you're playing a certainn path and made a wrong decision, a single developer shouldnt made this type of game imo unless you had a team like most of the Japanese eroge out there.

A good game i cannot deny ,
but it has some positives & negatives ofcourse :

The Positives :

most of the girls are very sexy ,
my favorites starting with the best to less :
( Arcadia , Priscilla , the Mom , Isis , Tira the dwarf , Sona , Alaina , Ahara , Val , Cassandra , Lia , Elin , Rosa )
I can say ( Girl Spring - Aurora - Patty - the slave girl ) are OK , but not really my type. they are a bit skinny for my taste
the sex scenes are one of the best in all the games i have played , specially the sex sound effects , instead of writing the moans & the boring nonsense " OHH YEA , MMM , YOUR PUSSY ARE GREAT , OHH FUCK ME BABY " hearing the moaning & cum sound effects instead , will do the job perfectly & way better than using unfeeling texts , & you gonna actually read an interesting conversation during sex , its very unique , and adds more feeling to it , even the animation movement are great & not robotic like the other games , to bad its very short scenes
the story is not bad though , he made it serious some times & humorous at other times .
im also so glad there is no narrator that keeps on bugging my head all the time like most other games.

The Negatives :

girls that are in the game just for show & they are unfuckable , like :
( Alessa - Priscilla - Arcadia - patty - the girl predicting the future )
this is one of the major problems i face with games sometimes even the good ones .. some players might like those characters , you never know .. maybe they are not that important characters to the DEV or the story just because they were irrelevant side characters , but some of them are actually my favorite even more than the main girls , when the game ends without having at least 1 sex scene with them is very disappointing , but lets wait & see what the Dev will do with them in the future updates , who knows .. after all , the game is not completed yet its still in progress

i also have issues with the sex scenes , its very impressive as a mentioned before don't get me wrong , but it takes to long to get to a single sex scene ,, and the scene is very very short with only like 1 pose or something & you may not even reach them if you missed up the choices .. although the sex scenes themselves are great & well made , yet the amount of the sex content are very little in this game , and that's because the game is not realty rich with side characters unfortunately , it only focuses on the main girls most of the time , which is a bit lazy & boring .. again , it seems to me that the Dev is really underestimating the side characters , which he shouldn't , because it can be a huge flow in any good game , the side girls like ( Ahara , Val , Tira ) they are the invisible soldiers who adds rich sex content in any game & keeps the player entertained until he gets the main girls at the end of the VN .. less side characters leads to more blue-ball in game .

the story problem : the MC talks to much when it comes to irrelevant details ,, like , he spend more than 5 - 10 minutes listening or talking about " the history of this building - the past life of the king - the details of this war & that war - the explanation of this magic & that magic " i don't care about those deep details , its not gonna effect the story or the game , and if you want to talk about these topics at least make it short , or else it will just slow things down and drain your eyes energy , which made me end up skipping them latter on any way , i only read their conversations with their daily life situations , that was more entertaining than " the history of this & the dark past of that "

the choices : i appreciate the hard work , but im not a big fan of sacrificing some of the girls with every single choice i make ,, like for example , if you choose left , you will fuck ( A , B & C ) Only .. however if you go right , you gonna fuck ( E , F & G ) instead , why not make it 1 path with all the girls , yet The success depends on your choices ? that would be easier than this Chaos , that kind of tree branches stories with different roads & every road has another plot & different characters is just confusing & makes it hard to understand the main story-line , besides missing a huge amount of content

any way , its still a good game & deserve 4 stars .. but here is the short cut Conclusion :

---------------- BAD ------------ OK ------------ GOOD ------------ EXCELLENT
STORY :

SEXY GIRLS :

SIDE CHARACTERS :

SEX CONTENT :

SEX SCENES :

HUMOR :

CONVRSATIONS :

CHOICES :

DIFFICULTY :

TYPOS :

GLITCHES :

GRAPHECS :

+ Good plot.
+Narractive/Genre
+ The story is very good and there are several plot lines.


- Spelling errors and may be issues with translation
- Long development times but they are improving. Will see how it goes.

Average. Better than other VNs were the dialogue seems to be written by 5yr olds. The girls are good and the plot seems intriguing. The problem is the mc. Dude is just a clueless beta wimp. Constantly pushed around by those around him. Fk Cassandra overpowersand dominates him every chance she gets. He is just clueless and just goes along with the plot

Overall, great VN. The only major flaw is the English translation. 9/10
Version 0.5

+ Great story. The plot is intriguing. Political, mixed with important interpersonal relationships along with some interesting prophetical elements. All that in a fairly well realized fantasy world
+ The characters are interesting and well-written. That's the case not only for the main characters, but also the supporting cast.
+ The LIs are good looking. (No ugly DAZ models chosen poorly by a creator with a poor sense of aesthetic in this one)
+ Charismatic MC. Actually has a personality.
+ Choices matters. There's a lot branching. Some choices you make in early chapters affect what happens in later chapters. It's not just some inconsequential dialogue change. The game feel reactive.
+ Good world-building (for an AVN). Typical medieval fantasy stuff, but most other AVNs don't even try.
+ Very fast updates. No 1 year of waiting for only 30 minutes of gameplay. Roughly every 2 months, I believe.


- Renders a little bit grainy (the cost of fast updates)
- Animations are just okay.
- The English translation is a bit rough. Some proof-reading would squash a lot of the mistakes. I live-corrected in my head as I was reading. A couple of times, I couldn't understand what was written, so I just had to roll with it.

Render quality is good but never comparable with top games. Too many grainy or dark renders.

English translation is not good. Wrong genders for persons and objects sometimes also have a gender. Words are missing. Strange sentences.

Story is interesting but it would have been better to focus on one scenario (medieval fantasy). The addition of SF/dystopia and time/world traveling is unnecessary.

The women are good looking but this AVN seems to mainly focus on incest. And the incest is nothing special, just the same morale dilemma as in most other incest stories.

Pros

• A nice story emphasizing incest & poly-amorous. Incest approach with mom was very good, especially mom’s reluctance to give-up the morality was very well expressed.
• Jealousness of mom is nicely portrayed.
• Good to see three major characters of MC option to choose. Other than that though simple yes / no type of options included makes the game mode little interesting that player can opt for.
• Nicely expressed three different kinds of sister’s attitude in all sense and especially the incestuous.
• Excellent quality of image renders.
• Excellent quality of animations.

Cons

• Spell errors
• Mismatch of dialogues’
• Playful / mischievous little boy attacking his elder sister leading to blindness is unnecessary exaggeration.
• Image quality of dark scenario has to be improved a lot; Attempt to be more logic for too dark leading to poor contrast / visibility.
• Few Errors: Crash few times for some errors but able to ignore and continue.
• Walk through refers to relationship points but inside the game there is no clue / indications about the relationship status.
• It could have been good to have some lewd sound.

Reading the walk through; guess the story could go long mega series. Eagerly looking forward for next release.

A truly excellent game set in the Middle Age with you as the long gone heir to the throne who comes back home after 10 years exiled. There's a lot to like here: LIs look fantastic and all of them are lovable, the characters are well developed and backed up by a pretty solid story. Sex scenes are hot despite some cockblocking at times. The MC is more than likeable (he looks much like The Witcher) and has a normal sized penis for a change. There are funny moments for good measure too, and even sound effects and good music playing in the background when appropriate.

You will find some renpy crashes and a few jumbled character names here and there as well as dialogue sometimes too large to fit in the text box, but this is all minor compared to the great entertainment this game offers. If this is only the second project from LazyMonkey and the progress in quality keeps at this rate I'm expecting their third to wipe the floor with about any other adult game out there, but I'd be just as happy seeing anything this good. Truly remarkable stuff.

Great game. Not polished (spelling mistakes etc) but considering its translated its not bad. Well done story and the characters are all uniquely written, there are tons of player choices as well. Amount of content relative to how long its been developed is also on the larger side which is a plus.

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.