Ren'Py - Lust Academy [S3 v3.9.1d] [Bear in the Night]

(Review is for Season 2 v1.7.1d)

I really used to like this game, it clearly has a lot of effort put into it with really beautifully crafted models and, very unusually for these types of games, the menus look pretty much professional-grade, really top notch.

The problem is the game is just way too much of a slow burn. Do you like a particular girl or a particular thread of the story? Too bad, you'll be lucky if it gets revisited once or twice in a full year. And even then when you get content with that one girl that you've been looking forward to it's way too little and is over before you even get to enjoy it.

Let me be clear I am not at all adverse to story-heavy games but the story in this one isn't particularly enthralling simply because it's all over the place. Suddenly new events spring up from nowhere when it already felt like we have more than enough going on and meanwhile some storylines are left untouched for 10+ updates at a time. It's impossible to feel engaged in what's going on when there's always something new going on that has basically no basis in anything that happened before.

And the bad english really doesn't help at all. It's far from the worst I've seen but it's bad enough to constantly bother me and prevent me from trying to get into the story.

Unless you're specifically looking for something incredibly slow-paced, stay away.

Been playing the game for a long time now. And I gotta say I was pretty impressed by season 1. It wasn't boring or bland, the story kept me interested. The animations were lovely and the fact that i could choose who I spent time with made this game so much better. However, season 2 lacked in story and options. I began feeling like my choices didn''t matter and maybe it was never meant to be a "multiple ending" kinda game? Still, I wish it gave me the illusion that my choices mattered like in season 1.

I got invested in this game because I like the characters, some of them feel quite realistic to me. And most are quite beautiful, as can be seen from the screenshots.

There's a fair amount of content, including simple minigames which can be quite fun. I played the sandbox version which people seem to recommend.
I don't like that the dev wastes time with the non-sandbox version, just pick one and stick with it.
Another drawback is that one of the main girls has very little lewd content. But I was lucky that other girls whom I also like have good content, although I still wanted more

If you take your time to enjoy the game (which you definitely should), episode 1 alone will take over 10 hours.

I really like this game even though I'm not a Potter fan (haven't seen any of the movies). It was worth buying it on Steam too, to support development of season 2.
Keep up the good work!

Review for season 1

I want to get into this because I think the premise is fun for an AVN, but I just can't get past the dialogue.

It's bad. Part of it feels like a rough translation, but I could maybe get past that. However, I think the script itself is just flawed from the bit I've played.

The MC has the worst of it. Do you approach random women and call them "sweetie, cutie, baby, etc?" I'd hope not, it's creep behavior. Seeing the MC do this makes me genuinely cringe. Combined with the random blurbs of his inner thoughts, I just straight up dislike the character we are playing as. Often, the choices we sometimes get in how to respond feel like they have no good option. His only semi-interesting plot point is that he's a "pureblood" mage or something. Well, you wouldn't really guess it. I don't feel like I'm playing anyone special.

I found a lot of the events with the love interests a bit disjointed and almost random. As an example, one girl we meet doesn't like us. Two interactions later, she's grabbing our dick in class. I mentioned how it seems like there's a rough translation going on and this is where it really comes into play. Some sentences just read so awkward that it takes me out of the game. These characters aren't leaving a strong impression on me.

As you can tell, I'm someone who values dialogue and writing. The game looks good enough, but you can say that about a lot of games on this site these days. Beyond the idea of attending a wizard school, nothing is keeping me interested enough to play.

I will caveat this a bit by saying I didn't play very deep into the game. Maybe some of my issues improve and the story picks up, but my initial first impressions aren't that great. Certainly not enough to hook me into playing more.

As per season 1

this game is under my top 10 rn, previously top 5, altho there are just many other great titles I played, even ones thats not as beautiful as this game but fortunately have more solid contents so this game fall down in my personal rank. If this game is anybody first adult game they might have too high standard in term of arts and features cause this game riches in those aspects. I played this game from early version and just play it again and early on I'm not into some early LIs model introduced like samantha and audrey, especially samantha, and oddly enough they are like a pack. No, Its not that I'm not into lesbian stuff, their persona and background are great, I would so into that character in another game with that background, a sister like persona and a tough punk woman, but strangely enough not in this game. Tbh I don't even bother do their progressing in season 1 cause I'm just so uninterested, except when its mandatory to progress others quest, as if I can progress to season 2 and skipping their content i would. It's just samantha is like the first main LI to introduced so she's kinda like the game first calibre, she sorta set standard, but I personally not into her model which gave me quite skepticism to keep playing early on. Although the good part is the game has quite plenty of LIs which models are sooo astonishingly beautiful, like for me adele or molly. But out of that personal reason, this game definitely a great pick.

Story 7/10
Interdimensional magical fantasy world in modern era theme, a heroic mc with mysterious background to save the day and collect harem. The story right up my alley but at this point there's still lots of plot holes to unveiled. The story could benefited with some more humour and funny situation for more appeal by make uses of existed extra characters. There are plenty of moments where it can be more memorable with some fun or surprising twist, altho it doesn't happen unfortunately

Features 7/10
The biggest Mark boost come from the dual playstyle option vn/roam. It's awesome but also gotta say it's crazy because I believe it comes with drawback in term of development workload and development priorities. It can be clearly seen that free roam is not fully utilized yet, for example world map. There are only two freely accessible area which are school and campus while cordale is locked under event and that's it. With this only two point travel this world map become something too extravagant and unnecessary for now. Another example world map is not fully utilized is what happened to events in magic forest. Magic forest could potentially become a world map location, probably with more sub location in it, npcs/LIs, event, etc, but it's currently like cordale locked under events like lily event and the librarian event. Tbh the current sub locations could potentially disperse to create illusion of richer world map like translocate school parks, cafe, fishing shop, fishing lake, and many more, maybe create more sub locations to grouped with it, npcs, events, and the world map will feel less empty and unused. Other than that, this feature aspect justified by other extras the game offered, but personally I would prefer focus on main features of how the game delivers.

Arts 10/10
We don't have too meddle too much in this aspect cause this game arts just great, probably one among the best in adult games.

UI 10/10
another excellent aspect. Distinct UI, interactive extras feature like phone, interactive mini games like magic practice, potion making, magic duel, fishing.

Adult content 7/10
In term of quality, each scene arts and animation are great, it has decent duration and involve many positions, although I gotta give this much cause in term of quantity, with this much time, another game could offer much more solid sexual contents, but for this game, I'd say I can count how much adults content are there on the fingers of both hands. I get its justified with how hi quality the arts and probably the drawback of dual playstyle as well that end up eat up dev workload. The sexual contents are also lacking spicy dialog/monologue/narrative stalls which makes the scenes become even faster. The sexual pacing is just right and natural, in fact I feel like non of em are nymphomaniac alike, well maybe audrey given she's succubus or some sort tho I'm not sure since I don't progress her story. One great thing to pinpoint for me is haley bloody virgin moment which is rare to get actualized in many others avn scenes. While virgin may implies first time it's also originally implies that sacred untouched part. That bit certainly nice touch, altho no logical follow up to it like messier ending.

Sound 8/10
Nice bgm picks.Nice moan sfx touch, even tho there is no voice volume bar in setting which is odd where many other game has the voice setting bar but has no voice at all lol. Would've been perfect with more sexual sfx like flops, spurt, etcs.

Overall good game. Definitely recommended. Tho I wish the game focus on 1 playstyle so the effort from creating another playstyle can be directed for more contents creation. I played another adult rpgm that the dev suddenly lost interest in the rpg aspect and create another game with same story only it's fully novel and to my own taste it's better, it has richer story and sexual contents. Definitely less game aspect but personally I played adult "game" for story and sexual contents as if gameplay aspect I really seek I would just play actual game.

Maybe I ll update after play that season 2.

Just finished S1 & got TBH this was indeed a welcome surprise. Honestly I wasn't expecting much cuz i thought it was gonna be another mind control magical Voodoo game but man wasn't expecting a Potter world.
The animations r quite stunning & those gorgeous renders was a joy to feast.
The story was engaging & the memorable cast keeps it afloat. Though I did feel like the lore was a bit too much at times.

Also can't praise the Dev well enough for introducing a pure VN route & a Sandbox route which i genuinely appreciate not many games offers that ,so Kudos Dev!!
(I tend to keep myself away from sandbox)
Overall a really enjoyable game & definitely worth your time

This game has many positives: high quality character models and animations, really detailed & beautiful environments/backgrounds, plentiful scenes, etc., but the number one thing that amazes me about this game (that I wish every sandbox game had) is the event calendar. The thing I absolutely hate the most about 99.9% of sandbox games is having to click through every possible combination of game locations and times-of-day over and over again to find new content. It's frustrating, a waste of everyone's time, and absolutely unnecessary. This game eliminates that problem entirely by having a calendar that not only shows you all available content at every time for that day, but teleports you to the relevant location when you click the event portrait. Brilliant, superb, ingenious, miraculous, there aren't enough superlatives for this simple, but (literally) game-changing mechanic. If you are a developer making a sandbox game, PLEASE, for the love of all that is holy, implement something similar.

Love the graphics. Played season one unfortunately the season two is not available on android i tried to run it on joiplay but it won't work, so my review is only based on season one. The game is ofcourse parody of Harry Potter with some unique character. You play as a guy, who just learner about magic school and invited to attain it just like every typical story. I love how the game give you the option between sandbox and V N. I choose the V N one because not a big fan of playing game in a porn game.

One of my Fave Five. The included kinks, for lack of a better term, are handled well thus far, and optional of the storyline. While I'm not really interested in BDSM the build up with Amelie has certainly peaked my interest. Well done overall.

I am a big fan of this type of games, but for me ANIMATIONS are playing the big role. Unfortunatelly I have some complains about them, however firstly I try to write my prons and cons, and then move to animation aspect of the game..

Prons and cons:
+ story
+ renders
+ sand box and visual novel
+ fast updates

- girls
- animated scenes

For instance, Im sure there are many people who like all female characters in this game, but instead of trying to make scene for every female character we have pointless scenes in striptease club with random non sexy girls. I would have understood if those scenes included anal scene or something we couldnt yet have with others girls, but no. Handjob, massage, next time titfuck and then finally deepthroat? And as I mentioned few days ago, there is no progress in animations, I even can say there is a regression in quality and in ideas.
For instance this scene. Are there better scenes if we take QUALITY and IDEA into the consideration? I dont think so. This is the first and still the best scene in game...Or for example there is only 1 character in entire game with huge boobs (Teacher), but since december 2020 there are no scenes with her, but instead we get scenes with random girls that are not important in plot.
https://attachments.f95zone.to/2020/12/966161_1_061_a5_011.jpg

Gorgeous renders, especially the teachers (I like the milfs). I like the spoof on H@rry P0tter for the story and that there are specific story points with each character and a very convenient hint system. I thought I would hate the combat element, but it's pretty fun and not grindy. I also don't seem to be a fan of sandbox style games on here, but have an open mind and really don't notice that it is because of the nifty calendar. High hopes for this one.

this is an amazing game with a decent amount of content nice visuals, a good story leading up, easy navigation ,cool minigames just so much and its easily one of my favorite games right now great job to the devs and i hope to see many more updates to this game over a long period of time

Just finished Season 1 and...wow. Note: Played in sandbox mode with mods

- The models are gorgeous. All of them.
- The sex scenes were very enjoyable
-The story was engaging; It took a while to get to the actual story, but the character developments were good as well.

If you put my feet to the fire for critical feedback, there were a few places where certain things seemed non-sensical or overly contrived. For example, why was Molly running the cafe in stripper clothes?

Excited to see Season 2 completed!

On many levels, this game deserves 5 stars.
The renders are gorgeous, the models look great and are pretty diverse, not just in hair-do and colour, but also in body types.
The setting is of course well done, being basically an adult version of a certain Magic School, and it has not only a gorgeous, more curvaceous version of Hermione, but also fe. a potions' teacher named Sabrina etc..

It is the only game I know of that not only features a character based on Hermione as a central focus, but also offers significant content for her.
Including actual sex scenes, not just nudity and teasing.
Of course there is a certain fore-runner to most games here, but that was eons ago.

Based on that and based on the dev offering both a VN and a Sandbox mode, based on the regular updates with a good amount of content, this game definitely deserves five stars.
In fact, compared to many, many high-rated games, this one deserves it far more.

Sadly, I have to stick with four, because it loses one point due to two factors.
The English, while adequate most of the time, isn't great, that not only includes spelling and grammar, but also how sentences are build and structured and what the characters actually say.

The other problem is the MC, I find him written very inconsistently.
Sometimes he is a complete and near disgusting little perv, then is a straight-forward good guy, then he is caring and emotional and seems to have real feelings for most of the girls, then he tries to look under skirts and drools over how a girl looks, sometimes he uses language that isn't fitting for the scene at all or almost seems inappropriate.
IDK whether this is a cultural thing, I have seen similar changing character behaviour in quite a few games coming from devs out of Eastern Europe fe. or if Bear-In-The-Night is just not good at finding a consistent voice for his hero, but it can be quite jarring at times.

That's why this game is a four, a good four and well-deserved, but still just a four, not a five.
Though if you read my other reviews, you know I do not tend to give notes in regard to whether I like the idea in general or how much potential a game has, but to the quality and content that is actually there.
So this four means it is a four-star game, which is a good game, not the hope and dream of a good game or the hope that it will improve in the next two years, no.
A good game now at this point with a ton of content and very good-looking girls and milfs.

I'm surprised this game isn't more popular. It's got great-looking renders and character designs (one of the main LIs is just a bustier Emma Watson), good animations, and solid writing. Overall, it's a very polished game. Also gets updated at a surprisingly fast pace compared to other games of similar quality.

Renders are GREAT, pretty much all the time. The Sandbox mode is pretty good if you want to pace yourself with the story and still cover everything. Honestly the mini-games are pretty fun, though I just use an autoclicker for the fishing b/c there's nothing else in Dale that takes time and progresses/does anything. The Spell Practice isnt very clear either, had to search the forum to realize you had to click the spell when the bar is "full" at the arrow. Honestly there's really no way to lose the weekly house points either, I can find about a dozen or more books laying around a week to make up for any lost points.

My biggest gripe is the script though...MC is SO. CRINGE. Like I can't even self-insert because he has the tact of Borat. Every single female character is written pretty damn well, but MC? In one conversation with a girl he just met, he calls her "baby", "sweetie", "babe", a whole bunch of pet names and dear god I feel like a boomer creeping on a young teenage girl. Maybe its bad translation, but the cringiness on top of alot of typos and lack of QA/Proofreading, is making me drop it after a few hours.

Alright, I played through Season 1 and the latest update for Season 2:

• English is still kind of spotty, which really isn't a good look for characters that are supposed to be based in America. Takes me out of the story.
• Doesn't really seem to be any point in playing sandbox because there's not much to really explore or do. You're basically just following along the main story in a disjointed manner.
• Volume levels are still kind of wonky. Season 1's sound effects blew out my ear drums and there was no other way to avoid it other than turn off sound completely because the "sound volume" did nothing. Season 2 was just too quiet and it seems like neither of the volume levels did anything.
• Main character looks terrible, like a slack-jawed idiot. It's not that important but it's just hard to imagine how he could pull anyone looking like that while everyone else looks like they're models.
• Nice looking renders.
• The "Harry Potter" stuff is kind of corny and coupled with the on-and-off awkward "English" just takes me out of the story. Season 2 saw improvements but not enough and at some point I just stopped caring and just clicked through to see the good-looking renders. Feels like machine translation at some point or the dev team's native language is vastly different from English, especially American-English/lexicon for it the country's setting to believable or the story to be all that compelling.
• The potential for all the different mechanics seems great and really immersive but ultimately there isn't much of anything. Season 2 is still in development so I won't touch on that much but the beginning of Season 1 hyped it up to seem like there were going to be wild parties and a lot of interactions between characters. Before I knew it, I had reached the end of the content for Season 1 while still wondering why the hell I have to go into town every weekend just to do nothing or not win the "house competition" and just skip the weekend entirely.
• The environment renders look amazing but again, not much to really do or explore.
• Animations are kind of meh which kind of makes the character renders feel flat even though some of them look really good.

Think I was too harsh so I'm going to edit this. I think it's good overall. There definitely could be improvements in some areas but it's worth a try. Maybe it's just the theme that makes me bored.

Version played S2 v1.3.1D
In visual novel mode

Just a short summery:

Story / settings is pretty decent while not amazing it still has some high points and surprises at times. The VN is also of a decent lenght and at this point does not feel like it stayed past its due.

There are not that many scenes, especially not in Season 2 and while the girls from a technical point of view look pretty decent, they are definitely not the best around.

Personal taste wise I find that they all follow the same body plan, mostly large breasts, thick lips, the usual. But I won't take that in my judgement too much.

Especially the animations are quite poor, I would even go as far as to say, the way they are now they are better left out entirely.

Great art and animations with a nice mix of characters. The sandbox felt very manageable, I was never struggling to know where to go to do what or having to grind out anything to progress. Hopefully S2 can build on the exciting points S1 reached with each character and can avoid restarting any of the relationships.

Great renders, great animations, well-written. Some things are skippable that might annoy players. Overall, very player-friendly. Kinda unique setting for porn VNs.
I am not sure how the "free-roam" mode works, as I've always went for the story-mode.