VN - Ren'Py - Completed - Leap of Faith [Ch. 8] [DriftyGames]

Spoilers….

Despite some glaring flaws Leap of Faith has been one of the better VN’s I’ve played in a good while. The story is very good (for the most part) and the characters are all well done (for the most part).

The writing is also well done, except for a few grammar errors peppered throughout which could have been corrected with a proofread.

MC – It was refreshing to have an MC who isn’t a thirsty simp simply looking to crush puss everywhere he goes. MC starts off in a fairly dark place after a few bad years and starts to live life again after his best friend finally gets him to get back out there. The MC is smart, witty, funny. Although I never really did like his hair.

Lexi - Lexi is best girl. Lexi is by far the best-looking girl in the game with Stephanie being a close second. After meeting all the LIs, and despite the game clearly being centered on CeCe, Lexi was always going to be my first choice. I have yet to see a game (I may just not have come across it yet) where you meet an insanely popular pop star and start dating her. It would be interesting to have a story about both the joys of the relationship, and the struggles of maintaining it on both sides. How the MC meets Lexi is perfect for the concept, it would just be nice to have an entire game centered on it.

There are a few things I wish the dev would have done differently with Lexi. First is when you’re on her yacht and the MC catches her making out with Holly the MC should have been much more upset at the situation than he was. He was just like…meh. Granted you are given the option of how to react, but either way is just so milk toast and disappointing. This could just be my own personal issues I have with cheating seeping in, but at that point the MC just felt like a doormat to me.

Second, there are a few things I find extremely unattractive in women…smoking, farting and shitting. There is a point in the relationship with Lexi where she and the MC are in a limo and the dev is running the trope where they keep trying to kiss but something always interferes. They go in for their third try and suddenly Lexi farts really loudly. I’m sure the dev thought this was funny, but it was just off putting to me. Then at the very end of the game and her story the MC wants to go to the bathroom to brush his teeth Lexi is initially fine with it, but then suddenly tries to warn MC off. At first when MC walks into the bathroom I thought he was going to find a positive pregnancy test that Lexi accidentally left out, but no…she took a fat shit and the toilet won’t flush and it’s stinking up the bathroom. Really?! What a terrible way to end an LIs story.

CeCe – CeCe hit close to home for me. My brother suffers from severe depression and has attempted suicide twice. While I liked CeCe as a character, I didn’t gravitate towards her as an LI because of her issues. I have to deal with this stuff in real life, I don’t need more of it in my games. I know that probably sounds bad. It’s just the way I feel. I did return later to play her route and it wasn’t anything special. Imagine CeCe as the only LI and nothing changes except the developing relationship with her. There were a few nice little moments, but nothing I haven’t already seen before.

This part might get me a lot of hate but I’m going to mention it anyway. Apparently, CeCe is based on the real-life daughter of the dev who committed suicide. While I don’t want to throw shade at the dev if it’s true, and I would know how it feels after last year losing a very close friend of over twenty years to suicide, I’ve seen people speculate that it may have been just a ruse to keep the dev’s Patreon going. Because, as someone pointed out, if you’re a dev and you lost your daughter to suicide the last thing on your mind would be to create an adult visual novel based on her and make her a romanceable LI in it. While I feel for the dev if his story is true, this is a bit…odd to me.

Kira & Robin – The bi-sexual lesbian couple. Robin was the worst looking girl in the game to me, and Kira looked better after she dropped the piercing, dark makeup and went back to her blonde hair. You have the option to enter a throuple with them. This route was okay with a nice little ending.

Holly – Lexi’s playful friend. I liked Holly. From what I’ve read the only way you can romance her is suggesting a throuple to Lexi after catching them kissing. Even then the only way you have sex with her is by cheating on Lexi with her. I never experienced this path myself. I accidentally spoiled this path beforehand and given my dim view of cheating I never bothered to pursue it. Which is a shame. Holly was a good character and should have been her own LI.

Linda – The old high school crush whom the MC reconnects with. Nothing special about Linda. Typical “reconnect with old high school crush” romance path.

Stephanie – The ghosting ex-girlfriend that spawned all the MC’s woes. Her backstory is kind of ridiculous. She was an agent for Homeland who was assigned to keep an eye on the MC after his father gifted him $200,000 from Afghanistan. In the process she fell in love with the MC but was forced to abandon him after Homeland determined he wasn’t a threat. That being said her romance route is actually pretty good. She has the best lewd scenes in the game followed by Lexi.

Lexi and Stephanie were my favorite routes.

There are several elements in the game which go nowhere leading to the game’s ending feeling rushed, and I’ll get to why shortly. The MC is contacted by his father who he has never met and decides to meet him. This is a single encounter conversation that leads to nothing. At the same time, you find out you have a half-sister. This also leads to nothing. If you romance Lexi there is a short scene right after having sex with her the first time of a man standing outside looking in with binoculars. This leads to nothing. After having returned and played all the girl’s routes there is a sex scene for whichever girl you choose at Lexi’s mansion and after every scene there is that same man watching with binoculars. Again, this never goes anywhere. There are other instances, but these are the ones that immediately spring to mind.

As to why none of this goes anywhere, the dev had licensed music in Leap of Faith. Upon the release of episode 7 the dev put the game up on Steam. Shortly afterwards the licenser updated their terms banning the use of their music in porn games and Steam pulled Leap of Faith from the store. The dev then spent the next few months reworking the music in the game. From what I understand the dev was originally going to develop Leap of Faith for quite a bit longer, but my guess is the thing with the licensing spooked him so he rushed to end the game with episode 8. Which is a shame. As good as this game is it could have been that much better if the relationships were all developed even further.

There is no harem route, and you are locked into an LI fairly early on.

There are a couple of fourth wall breaks done for comedy that didn’t work with it. Mainly because I don’t like fourth wall breaks in VNs since they break the immersion for me.

I could have also done without the pseudo-lecture about how “love is love”. Like we’re not constantly beaten over the head with this shit in real life every fucking day.

I’ve gone through and played all the different girls’ routes and I by far had the most fun with Lexi. Mainly because of the relationship dynamic with her. Stephanie was a close second. It was nice seeing them reconnect and continue with each other.

I’ve written this review over the course of a few days. I wrote the initial bulk of it after my first playthrough with Lexi and made revisions as I played through the other girls. After I was finished, I found myself still thinking about the characters and starting to miss them. It made me realize I liked Leap of Faith more than I initially thought. That is a compliment to the dev for making such good characters. I’m still only giving the game 4 stars because of the issues I’ve stated, but now it’s a hard 4 stars instead of the mid 4 I had in my mind.

I would highly recommend this game. Unfortunately, the journey is much better than the ending, but it’s a journey worth taking, nonetheless.

Wow, just wow. I did not expect it to be quite so emotional. Not only is this the smartest and heartfelt VN, but also the graphics, humor, and gameplay in general are great. I am so happy Drifty did this game, he is the real inspiration.

You have to give this one a try! It may not look the best and the lewd scenes honestly aint that great.

But the rollercoaster story full of emotions, funny interactions and different high quality romance makes it one of the best VN on this site! It ended perfectly.

Does a story have to be perfect for it to give a lasting impression ? No, it doesn't, and Leap Of Faith is the perfect example of this.

Yes it uses a ton of clichés, and shortcuts that make no sense whatsoever once you take it out of its story. (Amnesia does not work like that, at all) But they work because they fit the characters and the almost rom/com style the dev went for.

In terms of mechanics it is however severely lacking so if that's your focus, don't bother.

But after a certain point, I stopped playing for the porn and stayed for the characters. This is a character driven VN, not a story driven one. Everyone will find a girl (or several) that they'll want to romance and see where the story goes. I even found myself replaying it for the various routes to go and being able to confirm which one I thought would be my favourite.

It's funny, cheesy, sometimes witty and makes you remember to cherish your loved ones. Is it perfect ? No. Is it good to great ? Most definitely.

Also the fact that the MC is not a total asshole and he commits early to a specific path with a specific girl is really enjoyable given some trends I've seen around here. And I really enjoyed the soundtrack and have added several of the songs to my playlists.

the game at first was ok, it was good but nothing special imo, as the game continued I started to actually care to an extent for the characters and the story and i never thought i would get teary eyed by a porn game lol. great job on the writing for this game

For the first time on this site i'm going to make a review, for in my opinion, one the best VN if not the best i'v ever played (and i've played a lot of VN on this site), but with this one there something, i can't tell what it is but there is something true about Leap of faith, the creator of LoF put all his heart in is work and you can feel every beat of it at every step of the story it pull you closer inside the story, closer to the character, closer to the struggle of life and i'm not going to be shy for this one yeah some time in the story you can feel real emotion that can make you shed a tear.

But enough i'm not going to spoil this wonderful story if you read this line (no why are you still reading this review, go ahead and download this little gem that is LoF ) your not going to regret it.

And for finishing my review i would thank the creator of LoF (even if he doesn't read this line) , you made a gem full of emotion, you understand the meaning of making an AVN and not just a succession of porn picture and a story behind.

PS : sorry if you don't understand everything English is not my native language.

This is definitely one of the best if it not the best storyline ever.. Thank you for this masterpiece, just finish my first experience with Cece path and im not disappointing at all, brilliant and beautiful storyline, i definitely will replay this game and explore other path, also will looking foward for your other games

I had a good time with Leap of Faith, and found myself entertained and engaged during the vast majority of its duration, so I can definitely recommend it and mark it as worthy of your time and money.

With that said, I need to refer to all these outstanding reviews talking about an experience, and using very flattering words (this is the reason why I tried it really, Leap of Faith is a title completely outside of my comfort zone, when it comes to adult games).

This is a story that used convenient amnesia, suicide with no lasting consequences, bad guys having a change of heart after one talk, convoluted spy stuff and surpassing one hardship, as an entire character arc.

Let me be blunt, if a kid eats at McDonald's and claims that's the best food in the entire world, you don't take it seriously, even if the food does taste pretty good.

I feel like I got my hopes up, only to surmise that some of these opinions likely come from people who never read a book, or a visual novel, or even a light novel (in other words, a very limited perspective).

Now I think it's great that this story had an impact on them, and I wanted to experience something similar, but it didn't happen (I do understand that any expectations are my own issue, but there you have it).

Let me start with the good:

- Leap of Faith is really funny - It's not the best kind of humor, but it's up there. Silly, non-sequitur, avoids toxicity, makes easy to understand references, not pretentious. I almost cried (from laughter) at the "fast food cook protagonist" with Samantha. Priceless. The high point of the story.

- Leap of Faith gives the illusion of choice - It does feel like you are leading things towards one of the girls, instead of just picking her events all the time (a major problem in visual novels that makes things "mechanic"). So in my case I ended up with Cece, and wasn't exactly happy about it, but it did feel like my choices lead to the protagonist's behavior. That's a very good thing.

- Leap of Faith has a stupid (it's a positive) amount of slice of life - It's the same principle behind watching a soap opera, or a long running show, at some point you just enjoy their interactions, and become interested in what they are doing by default.

- Leap of Faith has all the girls bringing something to the table - That means all of them do enough to be interesting. Crudely you have: The ex, the crazy one, the superstar, the high school crush, the rebellious phase one and her partner, and the ginger. It's a good mix and in the end they are all "diamonds in the rough" (very nice people, with problems to overcome). Can't ask for much more, the sense of picking the right person is there.

- Leap of Faith has the best friend and the "rejected" romantic cast do their own thing - This was refreshing. I'm fine with the universe delivering all the girls to the protagonist on a silver platter. I'm not fine when after the choice is made, everyone is left "hanging" except the main couple. Leap of faith has the characters moving on, and do their thing, that's great.

The not so good:

- The music - It's not the choice of music itself, it's the lyrics, they are distracting, and make immersion more difficult. I would prefer more tracks with no singing, save those for more dramatic moments. Turning the music off doesn't make it better, I want some audio. This one is completely personal and subjective, but I still have to mention it.

- Character development - Most of them have two modes: Party/funny and "currently contemplating hardships/feeling down". This is a major problem, because outside of backstory everyone feels the same, talks the same, and reacts the same. Excessive character tropes in fiction exist for a reason. That reason is going from extreme to normality and provide a sense of depth and empathy towards a "living" character. None of that here.

Cece (my choice) has nothing going for her, other than pity for her situation and being hot (Yes, looks are very important, I'm not even sorry). She is the same from start to finish and saying that there's a lot on her mind and she's very troubled all the time only goes so far. Try to justify why the protagonist likes her (sex with her does count as a reason, but it's not enough). I can't. It's the mystery of LOVE.

- Persona 4 Syndrome (Important: I love Persona 4) - Facing ONE problem and overcoming it, means very little in real life. Realizing the truth of the universe, your role in life, and what's really important, means very little in real life. The real difficulty is maintaining it on your brain long enough that it actually becomes the norm instead of an enlightened moment, and that's because we are hardwired (biologically) to run on "auto-pilot" most of the time.

Translation: Realizing something is 10% of the difficulty, putting it into practice is 80%. Life screwing with you, fills the rest. The story has some life coach speeches that make everything OK, and it's disappointing (again reviews, expectations).

- The Cellphone tasks - No idea what is up with that but at some point I just began ignoring them. If you have a "quest like mechanic" make it understandable. If the idea is to experience different things with multiple playthroughs, then it doesn't work for me. One run did the trick.

- Romanticized ideas on the value of being special/unique - I'm not gonna explore this, but let me be clear, telling someone that they are special, that they deserve something by default, or that they can achieve anything if they try, is one of the reasons that leads to some of the situations I saw in the story. It's an authentic poison that Leap of Faith decides to perpetuate.

You DON'T need to be special to have value, you NEED to work (hard) for your happiness, and there's a distinct possibility that you might FAIL at one of your life goals. How many depressions could have been avoided with that mindset? I get it, it's entertainment, life through a screen. The lack of reflection and self-thought, makes me genuinely sad.

I could go on, but what's important is to notice, is how much I wrote about Leap of Faith. I'm not giving this one a score, what I will tell you is that you should try it (definitely), and make up your own mind. I for one I'm tired of people echoing the same old ideas and concepts on all kinds of media, that have no translation to real life, though I will admit that I had some fiction change my viewpoints in the past, so I can understand the role Leap of Faith served to some of its reviewers.

Ugly and what looks like outdated graphics, story way too serious for a porn game, almost all girls look weird and not hot at all and sex scenes are limited. Biggest drawback is that the game feels and looks really old and graphics has aged really bad.

This is one of the best games I've played... Love the story, the characters, renders and everything... I like how story twists and multiple choices and endings.Thank you once again for making this game, I had my eyes wet more then once...

One of the undisputed greats.

Leap of Faith stands as a testament to the art of storytelling in gaming, where characters are not just pixels on a screen but conduits for an emotionally gripping experience.

Drifty pushed the boundaries of what most people think of AVNs.

A definite 'must play' for all those able to handle raw emotion wanting to be fully immersed in a story.

5/5.

best story in a vn
i never tought that i would cry with a vn like with this game
you need to play this game and you will think like me
all things in this game its perfect the music the character but the story make u think you are reading a book and the sex comes a second place and dont bother to you this

My notes, which I will formulate into a proper review soon.
Pros:
1) loved the story
2) loved the character depth
3) loved the emotionality
3) loved lexi (only really sensible choice)

Cons:
4) didn't like the change in pace
5) really wanted some "every day life" scenes with Lexi, like we had during the first few chapters with Linda and Cece
6) really wanted to see Lexi and MC in the not-too-distant future with a family, or at least pregnant
7) Because of 6 and 7, the ending left me somewhat unsatisfied, we went from a day-to-day pacing into something more abstract, and ended far too abruptly as a result

I'm giving a neutral 3 stars review, for this game is amazing and lacking at the same time.
What I hated the most is the "do this at this exact time stuff", it really kills the game, and there's a lot of it.
It is really lacking on the sex part, is more of a 'dramedy' story with some elements of erotic. The story itself though compeling doesn't make much sense.
Every character is absolutely in love with MC, and is deep, and emotional, but then you have to choose...
Dev really put a LOT of effort, and it really is well writen, a bit bloated on the dialogs.
My advice would be do one play throught without any guide, to see if it is for you. And then if you really like it put the work to see all the paths... but it really is a LOT of work. I'm giving up with about 9 hours played, it is not for me, maybe it will do it for you.

Loved the game. The story is so good and the subject of depression is so well represented. I cried, a lot in some parts because of the events transpiring at the time (not gonna say which, since they're spoilers). Loved it 100%

In terms of how hard a story has hit me, this is among the top. It is well written, I laughed a lot, I cried like a bitch more than once, and there were moments of beauty that had me smiling ear to ear. If you would like to play a game that is more than just lewds, that has emotional connection between the characters then you might find this as enjoyable as me.

The visuals are great as you can see by the previews, the lewd scenes are not that long but this piece of art would suffer from that so I am glad that it is what it is. You can still get off to it. Something that surprised me was how funny it was, and the choice of music was superb, not at all my usual taste for music but it worked so well in this game. There are meaningful choices aplenty, and I will definitely play this more than thrice.

This Adult Visual Novel is among the best I've played. The emotional story and excellent characters hit hard. But, there's a downside - too few lewd scenes, and the story is on the short side.
But this game was really special for me and influenced me in a way I didn't think was possible. Thank you, Drifty for this.

Rating: 99/5 - Undoubtedly the Best Game on F95.

I'll provide a longer version of this review later, but for now, let me share my thoughts.

Positives:

1) The game offers an engaging story and stunning renders that truly immerse you in the experience. You become the main character and feel a range of emotions. Finally, a game on F95 that isn't solely focused on nudity.

2) The choice of music is absolutely perfect. It effectively sets the mood and enhances the overall atmosphere of the game.

3) The renders serve a purpose in the narrative, making the story unfold before your eyes as you read and watch.

4) The user interface is simple and easy to navigate, ensuring a smooth and hassle-free gaming experience.

5) I highly recommend using Sanchomod for an even better gameplay experience. Trust me, give it a try right away.

Negatives:

1) The only drawback I could find is related to the choices in the game. It would be great if players had the option to pursue all the girls and not be limited to choosing between two (just played 2 chapters, maybe its no the case).

WILL COME BACK AND MAKE A DETAILED REVIEW.

Okay probably one the best story I have played. Gorgeous characters and beautiful backstories. Cece made me cry for real. Great narrative, excellent renders, detailed and relatable story, overall 5/5.

Going through some heavy anxiety and depression issues. This game hit hard. Nevertheless, I could feel so related to some characters that their stories and how the relationships developed kept me from leaving the game. Also, it so fucking helped in a time when I struggled to even get out of bed. I loved it.