Ren'Py - Completed - Long Live the Princess [v1.0.1] [Belle]

Version reviewed: v0.32.0p

I picked up and started playing this game because it was recommended by a friend. I'm glad that I gave it a try!

Pros

• Good and compelling story
• Good writing
• Diverse and interesting characters
• Good character development with skills
• Freedom to move around and do quests in different orders
• Semi-open world setting
• Magic and spells
• Normal human world mixed with fantasy world - good blend
• Isn't a pure visual novel
• Game keeps you interested and hooked

Cons

• Game is rendered in 1280x720 resolution. Very few players use this low of a resolution and so the Ren'Py engine has to stretch the images to fit higher resolutions. This greatly impacts image quality and detail.
• Graphics and renders in the game are average to low quality
• Game could really benefit from a quest journal. It is a bit too easy to get stuck in the game and have to ask other players for help or refer to a walkthrough.
• Belle and the majority of female characters in the game don't have realistic personalities when it comes to sex (more details in the notes below)
• Anal sex in the game isn't realistic (more details in the notes below)

Notes

Belle and the majority of female characters in the game don't have realistic personalities when it comes to sex. Belle's personality is 100% male with the male being bisexual.

The game is a male teenager's wet dream. Most of the female personalities in the game are good until it comes to sex. They then take a 90 degree turn into how males wish females would act. Most of the female personalities act like males in the bedroom. It is quite the fantasy and will satisfy most of the male population but is far from realistic. If you don't care about realism then you won't have a problem with this.

Anal sex is portrayed very unrealistically in the game. Several times, the player has anal sex with anal virgins in the game. Anal sex hurts them for the first minute, is uncomfortable the second minute, and then feels good for the third minute and forever.

This is not even close to how anal sex works. Anal sex is painful and very uncomfortable without lots of anal training and anal sex experience. It takes quite a while and a lot of experience before anal sex is pleasant for the recipient.

The second problem with anal sex in the game is that the player can go balls deep the first time having anal sex with an anal virgin. In reality, a male usually can't get much more than the head or two inches in the first few times. The anus is so tight it just doesn't allow going balls deep without serious anal training and experience! Even a lot of porn stars can't go balls deep with a long and large cock. What hope does an anal virgin have?

No lube is ever used for anal sex either aside from the occasional spit. Spit is not enough! Porn stars squirt a syringe full of oil up their anuses before doing anal sex scenes. Normal people use lots of lube otherwise it is too rough for the anus/colon and can do real damage.

The game treats all females in the game like experienced porn stars when it comes to sex (especially anal sex).

Most teenage males aren't aware of how sex works in real life and so this reaffirms my belief that the game was written as a teenage male fantasy.

Final Thoughts

The game is fun and enjoyable if you don't take it too seriously! Just accept that parts of the game aren't realistic and you'll have a great time!

I do wish the renders were better but they are acceptable.

I do recommend this game and encourage others to give it a try!

Review of v0.32

This is easily my favorite indie porn game.

I'm not even in the target audience for some of the central fetishes like incest and mind control / molestation, but they don't bother me either. Similarly, I don't generally like sandbox games, but I enjoyed the other aspects of the game enough to not be put off by the sandbox elements.

Enough about what I merely tolerate.

The game has great writing and gameplay! Writing means many things: dialogue, story, characterization, plotting, structure. The story is unexpectedly interesting, and there are some fun twists (even if you see them coming). There are many unique story elements, and no soap opera or filler mundane plot beats.

The women are strong, independent characters. Each gets a character development arc which involves more than just them falling in love/lust with you--though you must advance the character arc to have sex with them too. (Nighttime visitations tide you over until you get that far.) I'm not sure how intertwined the character subplots are with the main plot; because of the sandbox nature, probably not very tightly, but at least on my first playthrough it wasn't obvious since I didn't know whose paths were really important, so it all felt mostly like one plot with reasonably matched subplots.

For gameplay, the clue system manages to make you feel like a real participant in solving the problems, discouraging you from just trying every option and instead encouraging you to actually understand. I guess you can brute force it, but I generally knew what I was looking for. Linking much of the clue system (and character advancement) into mind-controlled nudity is a weird (in a good way) and unique touch. I had no idea I was looking for good gameplay in a porn game but it was compelling enough to make me finish the current almost-complete version over a single weekend.

The sex scenes are varied and in varied contexts to fit the characters. Much as soap opera plotting is avoided, all the situations in which you have sex with the characters are pretty different (except the sleep sex scenes, which unsurprisingly have similar options and flow). Most of the sex scenes are pure POV, which I for one appreciate.

The graphics are pretty good. I like all the character designs. In the later parts the renders are great. I think in some of the earlier renderings the backgrounds seem a bit mushy; maybe not that well-lit or maybe it's just that the stone texture environments don't lend themselves well to looking good, but if it bugs you, see if you can push past it anyway and if you're anything like me you'll be rewarded.

The ambient background noise is a nice touch and seems to be a rarity in these sorts of games.

Could anything be better? Sure, smoother, longer animations and maybe lengthier sex scenes. I got stuck a few times and had to check the forum for hints. At least one of those, I just couldn't find a clue that I had and knew I had but had forgotten the picture for it, so some way to see the clue text without mouse-over would have helped that time.

No doubt if the author could magically spend twice as much effort on it in the same amount of time there'd be other things that could be improved. But why would I bother trying to think of improvements? It's already my favorite indie game on this site.

this is odd but i came for the porn side of this but it got me hooked by the story and I cannot seem to stop. with how the plot lays out it is almost like but not quiet porn was added to a good story. that being said it feel more earned when you get to it due to the learning you will have to do along the way

Very interesting game. Good graphics overall and VERY good and unique gameplay mechanics.

With a little bit of polish, there is certainly potential to become one hell of a game.

The investigation mechanics needs a little bit of polish, with more descriptions and insights of the clues you find. Maybe a "clue log" or a "journal" would do the trick. The problem is, when you play this game and leave it for, let's say, 3 days, you won't remember any of the shit you were "investigating", thus making it really difficult do keep track of what's going on some times.

With a little bit more of guiding (the pixie would be a very good way to do so) for the struggling player, it would be a very good mechaninc.

Overall, it's very focused on molesting and taking advantage of women, so that needs to be your thing.

This is a five star game. This is how indie porn game should look like. There's a story here, and quite original one, with deep characters and surprising, meaningful twists. The art is great and the dialog interesting. Surprisingly for a porn game, the plot provides independent and strong cast of women (for you to fuck) making you respect and desire them at the same time. Kudos.

I played it with a walkthrough (I always do when I play a porn game) but I suspect it can be quite challenging, if not downright frustrating, to play it without one. Even with a walkthrough I managed to get stuck once or twice but eventually found the solution.

My only minor gripe is the renders. While beautifully rendered, the artist decided to render all the sex scene from first person perspective. While this works reasonably well in doggy style position and blowjobs,the results are very unsatisfying in missionary position and are downright creepy when a girl "kisses" the MC: you basically get a screen full of the girl's face puckering her lips. Erotic? Not so much. Which is a shame for a game which put heavy emphasis on the plot and the first kiss with a character is actually an erotic moment.

All in all: great game, interesting plot, great renders. Highly recommended.

I gotta start by saying i'm a sucker for medieval settings. They don't have to be super accurate. That's what made me even download this.
(The following is just my opinion which could vastly differ from the general pov)

The PROS :

EDIT : I had to come back and say this is a major Pro for me. Characters have Normal - Small sized boobs. I hardly ever enjoy those massive atomic bomb death star tits most VN characters have and I GREATLY appreciate the variety here

The best part about this game is the clue system that you need to pay attention to. You bring pieces of clues together and come to conclusions that progress the story. The writing is not overdone and also not a dumbed down Click Here To FUCK game. I really enjoyed the way it developed. It didn't feel rushed and it didn't feel like I was reading walls of text to see what happens next. Some VNs although great, have moments where I read dialogue fast just to see what's happening next because a lot of it while nice for the 'detail' touch, just makes it seem draggy (new word).
I found myself actually reading every line properly with this one.

The Characters are super interesting and fun to interact with. My personal favorites are Belle, Nell and The MCs sister. I don't want to get into spoilers so I won't elaborate on details. Very well written with looks that fit the personalities.

I'm also glad this VN has audio. I know it's not a big deal for most, but I do enjoy some white noise / background music filling in the scenes. It just gets me more immersed. The audio does match the emotion of the scene a lot of the time so kudos to the Dev.

Smoosh scenes get better as you progress. They're not bad in the beginning but pretty much your basic VN scenes and I don't mind really. I play adult VNs for the plot too and so the scenes didn't really bother me that much. They do however grow in quality as you go through the days so I appreciate that the developer put more work into bringing them to life.


The CONS :

The biggest Con for me ( by no means is this gamebreaking. It's just my personal preference) is that sometimes you might get stuck and not know what to do next. That happened to me a lot and while I do appreciate the freedom the player has, a task list would've greatly helped. I found myself stuck with 'what do i do to progress here' a lot. Again this might just be me.

With regards to the Story and writing, the only thing that threw me off like 1% was that a fair bit of the dialogues fit current times and so watching characters dressed in medieval outfits talking like its the future kinda bothered me at first but it's really no big deal. I'm really just nitpicking here just for a complete review.

The renders in the beginning may sometimes feel weird like only the selected body part is vigorously moving while everything else is a statue. I understand it's not easy to develop these scenes so it's fine but I figured i'd mention it.


Overall a definitive 4.5/5 at the very least. Got much more out of it than I expected and i'm eager to see where the story takes me with the next update.

***** 5/5 Story telling
**** 4/5 Renders
***** 5/5 Character Development
**** 4/5 Animated Scenes

Okay so I generally don't have a very high opinion as far as story telling goes for most games in general. I'm often of the opinion that devs care more about cheap sex scenes, and making a quick buck off of fetishes than they do about telling a good story with good character development. That is not what you will get with this game
I was skeptical at first because the beginning was very slow and slow beginnings often end up telling a slow or dull story. Man was I wrong. The story doesn't start off very fast but as it picks up pace the lore and character development had me playing untill 5am without even realizing it. I highly recommend this game for anyone who enjoys page turners or great story telling.

I give this game a total of 5/5 stars ***** any dev who takes the time to focus on a unquie, lore rich story with well developed characters deserves a 5 star rating even from me.

The endgame gave me chills. Excellent story. Never expected such twists in a game. There are a few games which have a good start but only a few end it the same way. And this game is one of those. Loved all the models. The tag mentions pregnancy but I have not come at that choice. Maybe I need to play differently to get through that route. Overall the game is excellent. Can't wait for the ending.

Good game: Awesome story, neat puzzle/investigations mechanic, women look normal with normal proportions, character development is good, choices in relationships is good.

Animations are meh, but solid art lets the imagination take over where they fail.

This games story-telling is great although the intro kinda drags. it also doesn't actually feel a whole lot like a VN, it's more akin to a sandbox point-and-click game. the characters are likeable and make you care about them, the renders are good as well. The music is surprisingly good.

My only gripe with this game is that the MC like 99% of all MC's acts like a sex-starved junkie.

You can't play this without a walkthrough, the gameplay is too confusing with a bit of grind too. what killed the game for me is the MC he is one of the most stupid MCs I've ever seen without any backbone. I'm not looking for an ALPHA BADASS MC but this MC has no redeeming quality at all.

Generally, people play erotic games for you know, erotic stuff, I have a bad habit of playing erotic games for its story. Sometimes I start to care more about the story than the sex stuff and this game is one of the top examples of that exact thing.
This game does something other top erotic games rarely do is setting up there world and lore. Although you don't meet all people you can guess how people are like in this world.
Characters are pretty well crafted in this game. You started to care about a lot of people in this almost no one is a throwaway character or Stereotype fetish characters. (Well, I think Callie could be developed more) . Belle is the best character in an erotic game period.
The story is pretty dark compared to normal romantic complex stories we get in these kinds of games. The protagonist is relatable with the story and mysteries are well crafted and don't seem placed just to be mysterious.
The gameplay is good. Despite this being the Grind style game, this doesn't seem like a chore. And earning those skill points are fun. And despite their warning at very first, I am astonished how the choice affects the game. This isn't I want this specific girl ending or anything the choices affect the original story which is very nice.
Characters are well rendered. Although I have seen better animations it doesn't matter. I'll play this game even if the remove sex stuff lol.

Good graphics, but more importantly one of the view games with a good story.
Good:

• graphics.
• story
• puzzle/clue system.
• characters

Bad:

• Time/turn limit on solving puzzles. I'm ok with spending time finding clues. I'm not ok with having to do everything all over again because I'm running out of time.

Review of 0.32
I've been following this game for quite some time...probably too long. LOL. Now we're near the end...and I've not been let down thus far so here's my review.

This game has all the elements which make up a very good erotic game. The story is interesting with real stakes. The characters are interesting and beautiful...the women are varied...no BTS here. There's some good humor in the game which is worth noting because many times humor in these games is unintentional.

The renders are excellent, sex scenes are varied as are the renders of the women who are beautiful and varied (note to other devs, this game is a perfect example of having varied female characters both in body, looks, and breast size).

Overall, I really enjoyed this game is just interesting and fun to play. I can't wait for the end as I'm sure there will be a payoff worthy of what Belle has built here.

Graphics - 9/10
Story - 9/10
Characters - 9/10
Fun - 9/10

The game is nigh-perfect all along and definitely among my favorites. Belle (the character) has banter with the MC that isn't distracting nor conflicting with the tone of the game, characters are interesting but, most of all, I think that the gameplay elements are among the best-handled here. Most games feel that they have a choice between being linear and including a stat-grind, here the fact that character- and relationship-progression are handled by puzzles as in a point-and-click game make it actually challenging and enjoyable.
I don't know if it is among the scheduled updates but it is weird that one can't watch Evelyn and Thaddeus make out (despite there being the ntr tag) and that you can't do much to Samarra and Neil in their bed (only fondle Samarra's boobs I think). Anyway, it's almost nitpicking at this point, the 5-star rating is completly deserved.

---- Chara Design :
A lot of variety, a lot of personality, a lot of cuteness, a little bit of sexyness, and quite fun. Well it works, they are interesting and match the lore.

---- Renders/Graphisms :
The models are not top notch, but sexy/cute enough and the background is fitting well the story

---- Story/Writing :
Yup, the main sucess of the game. The setup of the story works, the progression makes sense, the detective/mentalist aspect also works well, the writing is excellent, the humor is on spot.

---- Background/Atmosphere :
The lore is well done, the music and sounds help the immersion, good job.

---- Animations :
I am surprised to see a lot of comments saying it's the best animations ever. They clearly did not play much other good games. That said, it is still above average and you have a lot of variety due to the different type of characters.

---- Sex scenes :
The good thing is that there are some original sex scenes, some cute ones, and some scary/disgusting ones as well, overall it is nice, but not great.

---- Gameplay :
The dev tried to create a meaningful gameplay, although a bit tedious at time but still playable and interesting overall. The next step is not always obvious but somehow you will get to it, it's not like there are always 35 options. Objectively it is well thought, but it makes the game slow and the story less epic/memorable than what it could be with a better pace (imo).

---- Contents/Updates :
In total, you will have some hours of play, no problem. But if you consider the number of updates and the fact it was released a few years ago, it is not that much. The progress seems slow but the quality is there.

------------------ Conclusion -----------------------------------------

I had hard time deciding between 4 and 5 stars, I will still go with 5 because of the creative work, the nice story, the lore and blablablah...
Ok ok, in fact it's because Belle didn't leave me much of choice, it was either I rate it 5 stars, or who knows what she will do in my sleep...-_-'.

I hope belle release a new update as quickly as possible (the pregnant route of all the girls and the route of the princess), it is an excellent game, with one of the best 3d animations out there... Good job Belle

I'm a big fan of big tits tag. But I know well whether the storyline is unique and deserve appreciation. This game offer different premises than most of others. The idea of magic and truthsaying are also fresh idea for gameplay and story. However, I suggest developer to add other prominent tags possible to make it more attractive as an adult games. Some character with bigger tits, harem or pregnancy may help

A hidden gem, one of the most engaging storylines I have played. The plot was wonderfully woven through every character.

I would have liked to have higher resolution renders. Keep up the good work. Let's hope for a pregnant harem ending...lol

A pretty great game with good graphics and interesting characters. As somebody who usually isn't a big fan of fantasy style adult games, this is probably the best of the genre.

Only major issue is the incredibly slow development. I discovered this game around a year ago and in that time only a couple of disconnected scenes have been released, still less overall content than you would expect from 1 major update. Sort of feels like the dev is deliberately dragging their feet in completing the game to keep sucking up patreon money.

All that said, this game is still undeniably a quality product and the rating should be bumped to a 5 when its finally done.

Edit: After 4 months my views on this game haven't really changed. Updates are still painfully slow and thin and the game's total content is still disappointing considering its promise and prominence. Good game, but the update cycle is killing my enthusiasm.

Edit 2: Another 4 months on and the game is in total limbo. I have lowered my score to 3 stars to reflect my disappointment.