Ren'Py - Love's Champion [v0.1.4.0 Public] [Grimaga]

Has potential but:

I have nothing against a "fuck fest"/"all you can fuck" VN!
Story is on the flat side, but ok it can work.
What does not work is the sandbox and the stat grind, my recommendation to the dev would be to kick both and make it a kinetic VN or work in choices.

Why i think the:
- Sandbox does not work is that there are annoying "time gates" talk to her later and play character X first.
Clicking through multiple points to interact with a character to get (home, work, college) to get events that feel like jumping on the timeline.

- Stats do not work is that you can grind 4 stats directly and die 4 bound to every girl you have to make a "choice" that then gives you X points in X stats.
Just to then get to a point of "you need X points in stat Y to do Z" how do i grind them if they are the girl specific stats?

These are my 2cents, regardless of the choice the dev takes good luck.

So far, so not-great, in the little i played (up until free roam becomes available).

So, let's start with the two biggest pros.
1) The girls are attractive
2) This is either native english or a very good translation

So, cons.
admittedly, I like more of a slow burn, so games that get "right to it" generally have less appeal to me, but this takes it to another level.
Nothing is earned. In the intro you meet and fuck two girls, who then agree to share you in a threesome.
Just absolute breakneck speed. I don't know anything about these people yet. There is no real character development. Meet girl 1, she is flirty, then she's on your dick. You knew her in college and she's your best friend, but you also need to pass a knowledge check to even know her name.
Girl 2 is a childhood friend who conveniently needs a place to stay they day you move in to your new place. You haven't seen her in 13 years, putting the split between you two between ages 5 and 9, most likely. So, of course she remembers that she has always been in love with you, and gets you to fuck her just to prove it.

The logic is the goddess of love is making things move faster. Sure. that logic works for a porn game. But taking her virginity on night two, as opposed to year three you are together with her (which is what the goddess says would have been your future without her interference) just means your fucking a stranger.
The game needs to slow WAY down. Develop the MC. Develop the plot/world. Fuck it, develop the girls. I've no doubt that more character development comes, but the intro is so ludicrous that I don't want to stick around to find it. Hell, sex with both, the threesome, and the start of your harem could have happened within the first week of the story, and would feel well paced compared to what we got.

Now, what about the other girls? According to the goddess, you would have had a happy life without her interference, but it suits her purpose for you to have an even better one by starting your harem, so she plans to throw several girls your way. And between the plot point that she needs you to be with them all, and how the opening throws the girls at you, that means you have no choice in the matter.

That has two implications. The first being a linear story line, where you develop your stats, and more content opens, but where the story has no room to branch.
The second is that you don't get to turn down girls you aren't interested, like little miss free use, or little miss femdom, that screenshots tell us are other main characters.
and while I have no objections to those sorts of characters being in these games (or even having prominent plot roles), I do object to them being "required."

Lastly, the stats are obnoxious, and while I can see how they can be used well in these kinds of games, it just seems like they exist to grind away time in sandbox mode.

This isn't a "bad game" or "badly made" game, but the breakneck pacing, required LIs that we can't avoid, and linear story without branching paths, make it one I'm likely to avoid.

If you don't care about a linear story, don't care about forced LIs because you plan to play it as a fuck'em'all, and you're hear more for the porn alone than to enjoy the story that the porn comes packaged in, you may find this review worthless, and think this game deserves 4 or 5 stars. And by all means, more the power to you. Play what you like.
But for people who want more character development, more plot, and for the scenes with the girls to feel more earned... this game will probably disappoint, and my review is just a warning to those folk that this is a shallow experience you probably won't get much out of.

I'm leaving a review because the devs seem to read here. This is a review for version 0.5.0.

The game is really good, but in a different way from, say, Lessons in Love or Ripples. It's not fantastically well written and it's not a serious dramatic story; rather, this is a self-aware, humorous game that, from the get-go, has an over-the-top goddess character straight up tell you "I'm gonna give you super powers so you can get a harem and make everyone happy. Also, this is a video-game". Literally.

It's nice. Among all these games that just feel ridiculous with how the MC is some sort of chosen one or just for some reason someone that all women want (usually despite being an idiot with no redeeming qualities), it's cool to have a game that takes a humorous approach to it. In particular, it's nice to see an MC that isn't either an imbecile, a mindless pervert, and/or constantly giving life lessons that nobody asked for. The characters are also funny in a subdued way, without repetitive humor or excessively vulgar dialogue.

There's no story to speak of, or if there is, the devs haven't introduced it yet. It's a character-based game, meaning each girl has her own sort of self-contained story, and the stories are always about the girl, not about some overarching plot. The girls are sufficiently different to stay interesting, while retaining that humorous touch that makes all their stories quite lighthearted. No "fun rooms" (Lessons in Love reference for those who haven't played it) to be found here, only actual funny rooms.

Now, as for the sex scenes... They seem like the default honeyselect stuff. There isn't anything too crazy, and I couldn't tell if any of them were custom or not. The writing is to my tastes, and the scene styles are to my tastes, but if you're looking for the more hardcore/freaky stuff that goes on in this community, look elsewhere. The MC is not physically abusing or torturing anyone, no one's getting randomly pregnant for no apparent plot reason, no one's peeing on anyone else, and there's no massive pointless orgies or humiliation. If you're like me, are not into those things and kinda wishes the adult game community was a little less excessive, then definitely give it a go.

One thing for the developers: as has been pointed out by others, there are some things you could do to improve the models. For example, Aria's eyes are too dark, and I can't help but think she's some sort of demon every time. Hers and Alaine's hair doesn't work in some types of light, especially in the very early scenes of the game. The girls' skin is sometimes a little off during certain scenes; maybe add a tiny bit of gloss to it? That always seems to make it a bit better for me in ILLUSION games. Also, some scenes cut off awkwardly, like having black bars at the top and bottom, or having climax last for a fraction of a second before cutting off to a different CG. You could try making them a little more expressive: while I actually think your game is better, I'd have a look at Corrupted World, since they actually got the Honeyselect facial expressions quite well. Another one to look at is the aforementioned Ripples, which also uses Honeyselect models and, especially during sex scenes, gets the facial expressions to work really well. These things aren't necessarily your fault; the Honeyselect models can be hard to work with and require some strange lighting effects to not look like dolls. But they're things that can be fixed with a few simple tricks (at least inside Honeyselect itself), and that's basically the only thing keeping me from bumping this review up to a 5 star.

PS.: The stats seem like an abandoned feature to be honest, since they only really matter during the intro and can then be grinded up before actually starting the game proper. While I approve of trying to add actual gameplay to the game (unlike most VNs), you might want to rethink how it's done here.

GARBAGE. Ever escalating stat demand for dialogue options, basically forcing you into min-maxing stat points or not being able to choose any option other than the worst. Subpar story, mediocre background, good animations, at least it's not buggy. Too much talking, Idk couldn't get invested. -_- 2/5

I get that this game is still on its early stages and maybe changes will come on its way. The story is.. okay in my opinion, not too bad but not good either. The characters don't really have any expression in their faces other than the moaning expression and the default expression.. It really hollows the attempted "intimate" scenes where the heroines try to open up and they look at you with that blank stare on their faces. Playing through this feels like watching a PowerPoint presentation..

The models and animations are good and the ero scenes are very well put together with a lot of passion. However there's a lot of spelling errors and clunky dialogue which could definitely use some revision. The story feels very rushed, which if you're just in it for fap fodder you may see as a good thing, but I'd like to see a little more development in future updates.

I'd give it 3.5 stars if I could, but if future updates come with a bit more polish, it'll be an easy 4-5 star.

Good first effort, I'll try to be constructive here.

1) Aria's white hair needs a bit of fleshing out, it's mildly jarring in that it doesn't look like REAL hair (though that may be a honey select issue, take a look at Life Changing Choices/My Bully is my Lover for reference)

2) The dynamic between the (currently) 2 LI's is very well done, especially how Lia goes a bit overboard on Aria and then feels terrible about it.

3) As has been said in the forums, the choices are a bit one dimensional. Meaning most of the time there's an obvious "right" choice except for what personal stats you want to raise.

4) I'd recommend a write up on how you want the stats (confidence, knowledge, etc.) to play out so people can steer themselves down the path they want.

5) Sex scenes were well done and showed genuine passion with the text.

I was torn between 3 and 4 stars, chose 4 due to it being a demo release with some good content.

All in all, a nice first release, hope we can bang the Goddess of Love in the future

Version 0.1

This game is a gem! Very well written story and dialog. The graphics are very good and the game play is smooth. The character design is very beautiful. The scenes are well thought out and well implemented. An awesome looking game over all. Looking forward to seeing it develop and progress further. Good luck to the dev. Extremely promising game.