VN - Ren'Py - Life on Mars [v0.9.0] [MiZtyl]

Pros- Nice renders.

Cons- Stilted dialogue.
Bizarre/nonsensical scenarios (I'm assuming there's a language barrier?)

Several of these games seem to follow a strange archetype and the 3D in them is usually very well done but the situations and writing are so strange that it becomes nearly impossible to get into the story. Might as well just hold shift till you get to something you like the looks of and use it as fap material because you won't make heads or tails of the character interactions/motivations. It's particularly bad in this one, usually even if a game is poorly translated I can still tell what is being communicated through context clues but the strangeness of the scenes and dialogue is so intense that it almost comes off as comedic because it just makes you go "What the actual fuck is going on?"

Ok, I love the NTR genre in a voyeur way - I never think of myself as the MC. This, however, misses the mark. There is little to no connection with the LI so as to render netorare moot. The dialogue is...painful. The renders are decent, and the women are attractive, so it has that going for it. Regardless, I played the VN before this update and deleted it. Two stars for interesting premise and renders, but not worthy of even some quick titillation in my book.

Pointlessly linear with dialogue taken from an online translator at best. If I want to read about "and I woke up and I went to work and I worked and I saw my boss day after day" - I will go to work and skip the boring reading!

The renders offer some promise but continuous use of the same ones for everything quickly gets boring

As for the storyline, its really confused to the degree the creator doesn't appear to know what they're actually doing or saying. Some ideas in life are worth having and exploring, but not without direction or planning; whilst many more should be recognised as worth consigning to the bin. This falls into the latter.

I gave this game as much playthrouth time as I could despite misforgivings from early on, and tried desperately to ignore instinct, but repeatedly was drawn back to the same inescapable conclusions.

Not worth it, move on and try something else, and get a translator and somone who knows how to write

The premise of this game is fundamentally flawed.

The society he currently lives in is supposed to be polyandry and polygamy. Fine. That means he was raised in a society that accepts sharing partners as normal.

So, where does the NTR come in? It's one thing if he chooses to attach himself to a political party that wants to change that--he buys into the exclusivity ideology attached to some kind of religious revival, but the notion of cucks and jealousy would not be normal in this society. The anti-polygamists would be considered fringe--at least at the beginning of the movement. But, attaching himself to such a party would have consequences, since most of the people around him would find that abnormal and annoying.

So, the whole idea of men stealing his women or being tricked, drugged or manipulated into it would not be a relevant issue. Jasmine would not need to be drugged or tricked into sleeping with someone else. She would simply act on it consistent with her desires. So, I have no idea why those interaction were even introduced.

In actuality, it's simply a game with today's social mores grafted onto a narrative set in the future. That was a huge disconnect for me. As a consequence, I rate this a 2.5 for a pointlessly flawed premise, but round up to a 3 because of the quality of the images.

The good:
The images are all well drawn and hot, even the men are well drawn, which is often not the case for many VNs.

The bad:
Pointless narrative device. If you want optional NTR in a futuristic setting, don't change the society you live in to be the opposite. This was one of the more annoying plot devices I've ever seen. It's like the Dev has no idea what polyandry and polygamy actually is.

The character Phlox from the TV series Enterprise is a good example of the type of sensibilities people develop in a world that is polyandrous. The concept of jealousy was foreign to him. He was an extremely well drawn character.