VN - Ren'Py - Lydia's Chronicles [Ch.2] [Deus actum]

Very good "there's no other choice" game with rape, blackmail, corruption, exactly, how I like it.
Can't wait for chapter 3!

Review based on Chapters 1 & 2

A depressing story of a young woman from a middle class family who attends an elite school for wealthy young woman. She does her best to hide her middle class upbringing for fear of being ridiculed by her wealthy peers but soon finds herself in trouble when she gets caught sneaking onto a train without a ticket.

Pros:

1- Very nice renders and art design.

2- The MC is quite pretty.

3- Very lewd sex scenes.

Cons:

1- Kinetic. Your only options are to choose what happens during sex scenes.

2- No sound

3- The dialogue is very inconsistent. The narration being of high quality but the character dialogue is fairly mediocre with numerous errors. It almost seems as if multiple people were working on the script.

4- There really isn't much of a story other than watching the poor woman getting constantly raped (especially chapter 2).


Final verdict -Semi hard

It's a well made game with a gorgeous MC and very nice renders but the dark subject matter will limit the appeal of this AVN to those who can stomach the theme. This game is not for anyone who dislikes non-consensual sex.

This might get old quickly unless you're the type who clicks through the dialogue just to get to the sex scenes. Story be damned.

I'm loving the direction this is taking. Chapter 1 is a lot of fun, and sets up the character perfectly. Here demeaner is just realistic enough, though of course there is some "porn logic" to it, it's still grounded. Chapter 2 is an all timer. Things escalate exactly how I'd hoped, and set up for even more. I hope this set up doesn't go to waste, and I''d love to see her friend get roped in too. Bt so far an easy 5/5!

+ Pros
Good renders & H scenes
+ Cons
Kinetic novel (does not matter much since the story is simple)
The dev is making 3 games at the same time => higher chance of slow releases + abandonment
Overall, this is a promising game at this stage.

VERSION: Chp.2
SUMMARY: Decent AVN with overall good quality content even if kinetic.
RATINGS: (out of 5): ⭐⭐⭐+

NOTE: The following categories and scoring method are my own criteria and may require more context. Additionally, scoring is based on the state, and what is in the current version and not what may or may not be introduced at a later point.

1. Character (Model) Visuals......... : ⭐⭐⭐⭐
2. General (World) Visuals........... : ⭐⭐⭐⭐
3. Animation Quality................. : ⭐
4. Character Personality(Persona).... : ⭐⭐⭐
5. Story & Dialogue.................. : ⭐⭐⭐
6. Writing & Grammar................. : ⭐⭐⭐⭐
7. UX/UI, Game Type & Mechanics.......: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
8. Playtime & Pacing..................: ⭐⭐⭐
9. Music & Sounds.....................: ⭐
10. Adult Content & Fetishes.......... : ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Average: 31 of 50 possible points giving a 62% rating i.e. 3 stars.

PROS: - See my opinions section for details.

1. Good looking female MC.
2. Renders overall are pretty good quality
3. Writing is decent, structured and reads well.
4. UX/UI opacity setting is nice to have.
5. Chapter based progression is actually nice, it means you have a clear start and end to each scenario and don't end on cliff hangers.
6. Some decent kinky scenes if you can get over the potential moral implications. That said I am curious about kinks the game has planned for future content.

CONS: - See my opinions section for details.

1. Kinetic, no MC agency or choices, which is a bit of a shame but not a deal breaker.
2. Plot is fairly flimsy and has strong porn logic elements to justify the events and scenarios the MC finds herself in. (may be more to it than that, time will tell)
3. MC personality leaves a little ? behind her name for me, she comes across as stupid and naive but part of me thinks its all pretense. As such the jury is still out on if she is simply written poorly or not, but for now ill list it as a con, but there could be more to it than that...
4. Lack of any audio is pretty sad really, especially ambient and lewd scenes would benefit from it a lot.
5. Animations are non-existent also, which as with the missing audio is pretty disappointing and adds to the immersion and overall quality of the AVN.

OPINIONS, SUGGESTIONS & FINAL REMARKS:

NOTE: The following remarks are my personal opinions and thoughts, which may provide more context and could be useful to the developer. (Read them or don't)

• Scenarios the MC finds herself in is simple enough to get out of, yet she can't and that despite being educated as well as she is, she is naive to the point of stupidity. This throws the plot and how plausible the scenes are out the window for me. Still if you just go with it, its sexy and entertaining.
• Very little ramp up time and/or corruption of the MC, which adds to my theory I share in this review about the MCs questionable naivety and innocence... This is not a bad thing per say, it gets down to the action quickly so no blue balling, which is good, but a little sudden compared to most and does diminish any potentially "deep" or interesting plot creating.
• The forced/rape scene can be a bit much and many will squeal about it. The irony is that the MC liked it in the end, now be this that they broke her or she had this predisposition to get "taken" before, hard to say, so the rape aspect can be sorta overlooked, especially if we believe she is intelligent and not naive and knew exactly what she was doing going to a shady characters house in the slums...
• Future potential kinks like pregnancy would be nice additions, clearly its something thats possible as its mentioned several times in the one scene where the MC is creampied. Considering this story seems to be about the "fall from grace" of the MC into a world of debauchery etc, we can assume there will be plenty of kinks? Updated tags would be nice.

TLDR:

A decent AVN that has some good renders, but sadly missing and audio and animations does not do it favours, though not a deal breaker.

Some sexy content, and sure there are some morally questionable scenes, but there is more to it than that and I suggest further investigation...The writing has a ? for me when it comes to the MC and her character which I think is more devious than we know...this makes it even more interesting.

Good job and I am quite keen to see what happens next. I gave it 3 stars now even though my rating is only a 3+, but here is potential to be good or very good. Will re-review in future, if the developer can add some decent audio and possibly animations that lone will net another star from me.

Good luck to the dev and I hope they gather supporters for more future content and AVNs.