Ren'Py - Lust Academy [S4 v4.5.1d] [Bear in the Night]

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.

OK, since my initial review, I made myself go back and at least try to get through the story in its entirety.

SO.... First things first......

If you want any shot at all of enjoying this game at all, play the Sandbox version! The VN version is an absolute train wreck. It leaves out a ton of information you need going forward in the story. It is also full of all kinds of dead areas where timelines don't fit. Clearly you can see that no effort to port the story was taken without chopping it to pieces.

I have always and still continue to hate sandbox games with a passion. They annoy me enough to want to go up and slap someone. The problem with sandbox games is the flow of the story. To be able to follow the story in a linear fashion that progresses correctly, you have to interact with specific characters and situations in a VERY specific manner. If you don't, you miss out on important parts of the story. This problem is amplified by the fact that some developers refuse to help you in any way as to where to go and what to do. You are left to hopelessly prod along.

Example - I made the decision to simply avoid the Audrey character because I could not stand her attitude and when I found out what she was doing to Samantha I hated her even more. I went on and followed every other part of the story but what I failed to see were very important aspects of the relationship between the MC, Audrey and Samantha. By the time I began to get the feeling that things were missing it was too late and I ended up ending chapter 1 of the story with Audrey's progress nowhere near complete. I had two choices. Go all the way back and start over and make absolutely sure that I followed EVERYONE'S story equally or just live with the fact that I may never see the Audrey story develop.

Because I hate Sandbox games so much, I forged on with the story and just hoped for the best. You see? This is the problem with Sandbox type stories. If you miss ANYTHING you screw up the story and don't even get me started on how you invariably end up seeing bits of one character story-line that bleeds over to another, leaving you clueless about what is going on. WHY? Because you didn't keep up with everyone.

SO...... Now that my rant is over, lets get to the story.

So far this has been a game that I "want to enjoy". The renders are good and I like where the story line is going. The inconsistent flow of the game caused by the "sandbox" however, is a "glaring" issue that is just killing the game for me though.

1. If you choose to avoid a particular character or delay the interaction with that character it screws up another characters timeline and interactivity. The story lacks the branch tree to be able to supports the number of characters the story has. You are "Forced" to work with everyone whether you like them or not. If you don't it screws things up. If that is the case, then why have a "sandbox" setup? You would be better off with a semi linear VN style layout.

2. There are elements or quests within the story that that just go nowhere. You complete the quest and then what? I dunno? Story just moves on as if the quest never happened. Throughout the story you see alot of this. Most of it is small and insignificant but if that's the case, why include it in the story? Just get on with things and stop wasting your players time!!

3. The flow of "time" is the worst I have ever seen in any game I have ever played in the Adult game industry. It is simply awful. For example. Why does it take an entire afternoon to get a massage and perhaps fool around for a brief moment? EVERYTHING you do that advances time encompasses and ENTIRE BLOCK OF A DAY!!! This means that you only get 3 events per day that advances time. This also means that it get extremely difficult to keep up all of the interaction of the characters without screwing something up and missing something important. The story needs a 24 hour clock timeline where you can get more done and events do not take a full 1/3 of the day or more!

SO should you download it and play it? Flip a coin. If you love sandbox games and are only looking for the sex scenes, download it. If you want a great story where you can get invested in certain characters and watch the story unfold naturally? Forget it!! It isn't worth the hassle.

I had originally thought about giving the story another star. I mean there is a really cool story here. The way it is told however just kills the flow and the true heart of the story. It is just another click click click story that like so many others, is completely ruined by the sandbox element. It stays at 2 stars and I am being generous.

Lust Academy (season 2 v1.1.1d version) is a pretty nice game but not a perfect one. First off, it's too much of a Potter reference, and I'm not interested in Harry Potter but that's a matter of personal preferences. The story has some interesting ideas in parts while others a very meh, making it a bit irregular. Gameplay it has the base to build on something interesting but hasn't yet exploited it completely, even though the Sandbox version (the one I played) does have a pretty nice set of tools to know what to do and where to follow the story. Sex is not very present, as most stories require some time to develop, but I actually like that it takes its time to at least flesh out a bit the characters, though in the end most of those stories do feel a bit rushed.

Render quality is very high though and there are plenty of animations in many places, which make the whole world come alive. Sound doesn't have much presence in the game though. And I did find a pretty major bug in a quest that prevented me from progressing Leona's story in season 1 meaning that I had to start season 2 without using my own save, which is something that almost made me drop the game.

All in all, it's interesting and we'll see how it develops going forward as it has potential to be a great game but also to end up falling into mediocrity.

Poor writing without depth, shallow female characters, an MC who's only interest is sex and who he can shag! Magic?...he is only concerned about the 'hot babes' he can shag.
There is no magic in this game! The art is beautiful and the animations are fine...but the writing needs to grow up and get itself out of the teenage years!

It is a very beautiful game and the models are great. I was actually having a good time until i hit a point in audrey's story. Spoiler ahead. turns out her and sam are fucking cause audrey is a succubus. I wasn't thrilled about that since i like for love interests to not be involved with anyone else. I tried to keep going but then there is a sex scene with audrey where it was good for the most part but then once she cums she acts like a bitch and due to being a succubus sucked the life out of you so you lose your boner and can't finish. Which she of course makes fun of you for. Not like it is her fault her anything. Selfish cunt. Honestly after that i'm not sure if i'll ever keep going cause between the LI's not being exclusive and that bitch acting like that i don't think i ever want to play this again. 2 stars for the graphics and sex scenes aren't bad but i never really felt anything towards the characters and then that stuff happened so there nothing really pulling me back.

The character models can be rather pretty, the UI is nice, and it is interesting how there is a VN version and a sandbox version. However, the plot is a pretty standard college plot, with the standard bland/obnoxious college characters and standard bland/obnoxious dialogue. The MC seems more driven by the plot than by an actual personality, and the whole thing seems more annoying and dull than anything else.

The game visually is above average good character models that look different from other games , the guide and hud work pretty well apart from a lack of "GO TO MAP" button , the minigames are dog awful boring and tedious but they can be disabled ( only at the start though)

The main thing holding this game back is it feels like its meant to be a story based gamed but the writing is just bad, the MC ranges from good person to very creepy from scene to scene (not affected by choices) , the overall story is pretty predictable and uninteresting coupled with bad overall English leads to the game being a drag to read.
Maybe it will get better when the other characters get more fleshed out and the dev gets more experience writing but currently it's pretty mid

So damn amazingly pretty, its like the Dev got the source code of Emma Watson and even added onto it without making her hideous and actually making her looking even better and so so good.

Every frame is a piece of art that I instinctively save it every frame cause its just so damn memorizing.

So blessed to be existing in this era

review based on 0.7.1d version
beware, this review writed by sandbox fan
PRO:
- great cg
- good animations
- good code
- flaweless ui
- ig hints
- good story
CONS:
- none... ok, two story ewents starting simultaneously in tuesday, so u must w8 1 week

welcome in my top, dear game , "my precious"

Reviewed as of 7.1 (end of what appears to be Season 1).

The weak point to this game is generally the fact that much of the plot is too similar to its obvious reference materials to really draw you in (the story is fun, but kind of tough to stay engaged when it seems like every 5 minutes you're reminded of something else).

Familiarity aside, the story IS still fun. The characters are (mostly) hot. It's possible to feel a connection with a couple of them. Developments with some of the LIs feels forced, but for others it feels earned. Overall enjoyable. Rating a 5 instead of a 4 mostly because of the potential I feel for things that have been set up for the coming updates.

0.71 Season 1

Pros
+ excellent UI, very easy to navigate and easy to find what you're looking for
+ excellent in-game hint system. No walkthrough needed
+ visually the game looks good
+ Good models
+ Gallery contains like 99% of all available H-scenes, so there's almost never a need to make saves to revisit scenes
+ developer is active in the forums and seems to take feedback seriously
+ animated H-scenes with audio. In my opinion, there should have been more H-scenes. Many of the potential love interests lack H-scenes entirely (e.g. Adele, Victoria, Sabrina, Samantha, Vanessa, Molly)
+ If you like Harry Potter, this game is a parody of sorts

Cons
- Story driven game with really bad writing. The plot has no depth and tends to be predictable. Characters are underdeveloped and the important ones tend to make stupid choices. You're playing a character who's inexplicably chosen without doing anything to earn it
- Combat system remains basic the whole way through and never really progresses anywhere. You can only cast 1 spell per turn and 3 of the 4 spells you can cast, can only be used every other turn. All the damaging spells do roughly the same base damage. Practicing a spell in class only adds 1.5 damage to that spell per lesson. It's so bad that the only spell worth leveling is the most basic spell (combat bolt) because you can spam it every turn. So practising that tends to be the best way to do more damage.
- Dueling lacks progression. You duel basically clones of the same opponent. You never get access to higher level opponents
- Money feels worthless. There's just nothing you can really buy that progresses the game, or gives you an advantage
- Thin on content. I expected a lot more content and character progression, but part 1 has finished and there's not much compared to other story driven H-games
- The gameplay loop is very basic and lacks variety
- The H-scene animations often look mechanical

Suggestions
- Hire a writer or take the time to get better at writing before doing season 2
- H-scenes could be faster and more intense. It would be nice if the H-scenes did a better job of building arrousal as they progress (and I don't mean more foreplay). The dialogue for the H-scenes could also be better
- Rework the combat. Add more spells, a passive skill tree, gear, maybe team compositions, and don't limit which spells the player can use. There's a lot of ways to add depth to combat, the minimum is to copy the combat system from another turn based strategy game


Conclusion
I've held back from rating this game until now, because I expected there to be a lot more content for it. Since the game has abruptly finished part 1, I feel like the time is right. There's a lot of potential for this game (still is) but the execution continues to be disappointing. It's thin on content, the story lacks depth, and it tends to be predictable. Characters are unintelligently written, and they make dumb choices. If the H-scenes and gameplay were good, you can still salvage this, but those are mediocre as well. This game is like a movie with fancy special effects but lacks substance

Fantastic game. Btw they really need to spicy up the main quest, put some real evil threats in the game, or something. I don't have anything else to say but I really want to rate this 5 stars so I kept talking XD

Visuals (renders&videos): 5/5
The renders are great, the videos (gifs?) are great. (dude, are you running two RTX3090 on NVlink? XD)

Story (characters/genre): 4.5/5
Fantasy/HP ripoff, but it's great!You guys took a template of an existing franchise, but you managed to give charisma, backstories and high interest (for the player) to find out/discover more about the heroes of this game.

Smoothness: 5/5
It runs perfectly fine in my xiaomi 9. I've never experienced any lags/crashes to this day.

Gameplay: 5/5
The mini-games (sorcerers duels, Fishing, Magic training). The basic things (Roaming around the different areas).
Once again, 0 bugs.

The lewd part isn't what I look mainly for when looking for a game, but if you ask me, the renders are great.

Conclusion: 4.8/5!
It's the best game on this site, and by far. Btw, thanks for the option of being able to remove the "shemale".
Your main character, (I named him Señor Akabur XD), looks physically weak, I don't know if it's the face or the body, but it's the only thing graphics wise that was unpleasant to my eyes, but then again, I'm not into guys, maybe I'm being jealous haha! (Also, he looks like Lando Norris! xD, I mean, right?!)

Version tested: Lust-Academy-0.6.1f.apk

What could have been a very good game is destroyed by a dev who is more interested in forcing certain personal kinks (humiliation, femdom) onto the players. Going so far as to make progress with fan favorite LI's (Sam) progress tied to you as the player dealing with completely awful characters (Audrey) with no recourse to even attempt to stand up to her. You either take the humiliation and total emasculation or say goodbye to two characters.

Then if you can stomach that you get the privilege of playing as a totally retarded MC who likes any semblance of a spine. So if playing as a beta/wimp who is a total submissive loser this game is for you. If not then look elsewhere for your fantasy style gam, this here will only lead to frustration.

To be honest, if I was very strict I'd rate this game with 3* and not because I want to be mean, but there are so many concepts that are not really thought through. Like earning money that you cannot spend, fighting in a competition that you win every week anyway (why have the competition in the first place, when there is zero risk and no tension at all?), having the story peak and taking all decision-making away from you. If this game wasn't so unique, with beautiful art and interesting characters I'd say it was average, because those flaws hit hard when it comes to my immersion. But I cannot really bring myself to go as far with my rating. It wouldn't quite do the overall experience justice.

A visually well done game, good designs and that's it.

Beyond what I already said, there is nothing else positive to say, MC's design is horrible, MC's personality is terrible, dumb, empty, the plot level of the game are boring, slow burn, to all this we have to add the vile and nefarious "Sandbox" mode, it does not help at all in the progress of the game, in any way, quite the opposite, it highlights more the great defects that this game has at the plot level.

Forget about reading a good script, forget about developing a sentimental relationship with some protagonist of the game, forget about watching something exciting, the only thing you will find are boring dialogues and a lot of empty and repetitive grinding.

Its ok, the inspiration for it is pretty clear, but its done pretty well.
Visually the game looks pretty good, characters look good and so do the environments. On the writing side, dialogues between characters can be on the boring side at times, but in general its ok.
Unfortunately, for me personally, all the characters i was the most interested in have the least amount of story content. The rest of the cast and their stories are ok, but i want to see more of the teachers and the vampire lady in the club. But of course these are just minor annoyances.
Overall the game is definitely worth a try.