VN - Ren'Py - Mayfly [v0.2 Reset] [JasonTon]

This is really good, I held off on reviewing 0.1 because I wanted it to be fleshed out a bit more and this update has definitely proved me right.

The narrative as things stand is simple and straight forward, the MC and Nikita work as part of a vigilante team hunting down a couple of crooks but it appears that there is a lot more at play behind the scenes, since some dangerous villainesses and mysterious forces are also in play. Honestly the full picture isn't fully visible with all the underlying issues boiling up behind the scenes. The MC also appears to be a special case since some interesting encounters and potential hidden abilities are manifesting as the story goes on. Simply put, it's good, the careful build up is hyping up the tension and asking the necessary questions.

I like the MC, he is well designed and strong which makes him perfect to follow along in this journey. I'm hoping the narrative builds up more on his character and motivations, what we know is that he wants to make the world a better place considering what he went through.

The character designs are incredible, even side characters (i.e. Olga, who I was hoping is a heroine but a las some things weren't meant to be) beautifully designed which includes the male characters. The introduced girls so far are beautiful and have distinct character which is always a great bonus for an AVN which is story focused. Nikita is the embodiment of an elegant elf but shows the necessary sass and pettiness when she bickers with Jimin, Jimin is a mysterious sexy flirt who loves the idea of a loving family, Elena is a submissive sweetheart with bite and drive to go for what she wants, Havishin has that commanding milf energy that if the MC is not careful will leave him the bottom, Ling is the mysterious aloof police commander with incredible hacking skills and Raven is a sarcastic by the books cop who is a shut in more often than not. I like the heroines and I'm looking forward to seeing them grow as the story proceeds. I'm guessing Pandora is also a heroine but I'm not sure if she is the girl we see in the Chapter 2 end credits.

A lot of effort has been put into the effects, music and environments. We have just seen a little of how the action sequences will play out and I believe when things amp up, it will be a spectacle to behold.

Now unto the adult scenes, they are well animated considering how good the models look it is not surprise. But I have some complaints; 1. The orgasm animation loops rather than going into a still which when you are reading at your own pace is jarring since it gives off the notion that the characters are constantly cumming. It progressing to a camera shake and a still image would be better in my honest opinion. 2. The characters are rushing into sexual acts without proper foreplay, there is no point in having beautiful characters if the MC does not adequately kiss, caress and grope them (breasts. butts, thighs, feet etc) before the proceed to sexual acts. It builds tension and amps the romance between the characters. The fact that Nikita and the MC's first kiss occurs off-screen pissed me off, she is the poster girl so I expected some build up and teasing considering she is waaaaay out of his league before she drops down and gives him a handsy. It would have been better if the reward she wanted to give was a hot kiss but then things get out of hand since they are heavily attracted to one another which leads to the handsy and bowl lick. When it's one offs with random girls or quickies when the relationship has built up it's fine, but at the earlier stages following the ABCs makes for a more compelling build up for the later hot scenes since it shows progression of the relationship. Our boy is still on a one star so the sexual acts have to match unless the girl's character is more free concerning sex, things get out of hand or they have prior sexual encounters (i.e. Elena). my rants over.

I'd also like some back story on why all the girls like him so much, with Elena it is the childhood friend trope so it makes sense, Jimin can play it off with her most likely teasing Nikita by flirting with him which ends up leading to something bigger, Raven doesn't like the MC as things stand so we'll experience that ourselves, with Ling we need to know why she likes him because she is already just one date away from being his girl (he just doesn't know it), Havishin will take some good writing and proper build up for the mother-son dynamic to turn naughty and Nikita's route needs some work because she really is out of his league, what did he do to get on her radar, this requires some flashbacks and proper build up. NO!!! Him being handsome and them saying he has potential is not good enough... Part of the whole fun of playing AVNs is winning over the girls by being awesome or their perfect guy which I hope we get to see.

All in all, it is an awesome experience that will only get better.

This is almost like Broken Dream,Eternum
and i bet this engine using HS2 Mod ?

but im laughing when The Developer add , Gwen , Resident evil 8, and The First Descendant ,

well i can see the developer is Cultured person .... xd

anyway, i recomend this game and support dev.

Overall: Mixed/Poor

Firstly, the renders show some experience with Hs2 and StudioNeo, so I want to focus on the other aspects of the game. The writing and setup, which I think were not planned out as thoroughly as the developer had hoped, seem to be rushed. It appears that they jumped straight to creating the renders without adequately planning the actual story. Additionally, the game relies on a stale and cheap exposition of a drunk father and abused mother trope. This overused and clichéd narrative device fails to add depth or originality to the story, making it feel predictable and uninspired. Like WHY should the player care in the first place? They didn't have any involvement or meaning for the story or growth of the MC.

I think then afterwards.... this is where things went wrong. As a result, the game's narrative feels disjointed and lacking in depth. The characters may not be as well-developed as they could have been, and the plot seems to meander without a clear direction. The relationships with the MC and members of the organization feel lackluster. This lack of knowledge or a great setup can make it difficult for players to fully immerse themselves in the story despite the effort put into the renders and animation.

Review of Mayfly v0.2 Reset.

This game reminds me of another one whose “new horizon” is as old as the new one. Among other things because I have played both the original version and the reset.

Graphics 5/5
I give it a 5 because I can't give it more. This is the best quality of the game by far. The scenes are visually excellent. The developer uses HS 2, and with his game he has taken the use of HS 2 to another level. The aesthetic is very dark, typical of cyberpunk theme, with lots of light and shadows, which creates a great visual contrast of areas that are very visible and others that are not. However the light/lighting is excellent: you see what you have to see as you have to see it. The use of post processing is abundant and very well executed. The characters are also beautifully modeled. The problem is that it is very noticeable that the graphics are overcooked. That's not a bad thing, simply that the developer has put a great deal of work into the graphical aspect of his game. The problem is that the more work the graphics have, the longer it takes to develop the game.

Animations 3/5
High quality too. There aren't many, or rather they are concentrated in the sexual scenes. But the ones that are there are up to the general graphic quality of the game.

Music and sound 3/5
I usually mute the sound of the game, unless I find that the game has interesting music. There is, although as I muted the sound my opinion is not the most adequate for not having been able to listen to everything.

Gameplay 2/5
There are no bugs, and the UI is customized, well done. This is what makes it a 2 and not something lesser. In theory it is a visual novel. In practice the choices are scarce and unimportant, beyond the typical point of relationship with this or that character. But the scenes are... I wouldn't know how to define them. Some, a few, are quite good, like the Pandora Box. Others, on the other hand, are a real nonsense. Most of times unnecessarily long. Sometimes inconsequential. Sometimes they shouldn't be. Sometimes they literally make no sense, like the scene of the heist, unnecessarily long by the way, where they start talking... not even they themselves know what about. A lot of text that I consider irrelevant to the development of the game and even of the scene being played. A weird mix of text that either many times should not be in any scene or should not be in that scene, but in others, new ones included. The quality of the writing is not great either. English is not the language of the developer, and although there are no major translation problems, some sentences are a little weird. I have the feeling that the developer starts writing and gets lost in doing so, so much so that he even loses sight of the development of the scene he is writing, and even of the game he is developing. The scenes must have a sense, whatever it is. Something that I often don't see in most of the scenes of this game. Because the feeling I get is that the only objective of the scenes is that the developer can show off with the images of the scenes, the excellent renders he can make in HS 2, not with the scenes themselves. The references to other games, movies or franchises of all kinds doesn't help either. When a game has to pull references from others, bad. A good game or whatever should have its own personality, and not that of others. At least that's what I think.

Plot 1/5
Typical futuristic cyberpunk plot with great social inequality, poverty, lots of high technology, police, criminal gangs, special groups with superpowers, etc. The plot could be quite good... if it was well executed. The execution of the plot is the final result of the execution of the scenes that compose the plot, something that has already been commented. The truth is that the plot has given so many twists and turns before the reset, and gives them in the current version, that I'm not sure which one it is. The MC belongs to one of those groups with superpowers aka vigilantes. The police sometimes delegate to groups like the MC to solve crimes. Serious mistake in the case of the MC's group, because of the two great missions in which he has participated; a heist and an unofficial infiltration in a virtual reality event, both end in a resounding failure. Despite the huge advantage his group had in both cases. And little more I can say about the plot. Maybe it's simply that, the adventures of the MC's group in their fight against... crime? Inequality? No idea. And the scenes of the game don't help to know what is the main plot either. In the heist scene, the robbers have as much or more time in scene than the MC and his group. Also, in the second update new characters appear that, besides having nothing to do with the first one, seem to send the plot in a totally different direction. Which makes me wonder: was it really necessary ALL that has appeared in the first update? Because the feeling I get is that the vast majority of it, after the second update, was superfluous.

Characters 3/5
A strange mix of characters. The MC has improved compared to previous versions. An elf with superpowers (what's an elf doing in a cyberpunk world? Will mutant orcs with cybercocks appear later on?), tremendously rich and a member of high society. A cop, also with superpowers, or simply a very good hacker. A friend of the elf who owns a bar. Her half-sister, also a cop. The “adopted sister” of the MC. And the “aunt” who is more like the adoptive mother of the MC and her sister. Plus some minor characters. They are very well modeled and the women are tremendously attractive.

Final thoughts
Sometimes I come across developers who are “virtuosos” of HS 2 that I get the feeling they use the excuse of creating a visual novel to show the world the wonderful renders they are able to do. This developer is one of them, maybe the best in that sense. However this kind of developers forget one thing: what they do is not rendering in HS 2, but CREATING A VISUAL NOVEL. A novel, no matter how visual it is, no matter how good its renders are, MUST TELL A STORY. That's where this visual novel fails. A pity. If the plot was good and well executed, if the scenes made sense and were well executed, this game could be a masterpiece. The key word is EXECUTION, of plot and scenes. However, after at least 2 years of development, 2 updates and a reset, today it is more a collection of excellent renders than a well plotted and executed visual novel.

Edit: I have written a comment that I think is better here, in the review. So here it is.

Models look good, and even the premise seems promising. However, the pacing feels like it's a massive info dump that just never goes anywhere. Ended up skipping and was disappointed at the lack of scenes.

It a good game, with a good story that gives the Dev a lot of potencial to easly produce a 5 stars game. The models are all perfect, the animations could be better, i feel the Dev has a lot of room to improve in the department (animations). I'm eager to see the next updates. Thank you for your game

Great VN and one the most promising honey select VN in the f95 site.
The visuals are extremely good and the story is great so far.
Beautiful Lis and strong MC, Underworld and Vigilantes , Superpowers and Harem, Elfs and cyberpunk tech , it has everything.
Furthermore I liked MC a lot and also all the Lis which i found them very beautiful and unique.
My favorite LI is Nikita (love her so far) but i also liked Emma.
Thankfully the fetishes are avoidable so i want to thank dev for this.
and from what i see in the comments lesbian content isnt gonna be in the harem and personally i loved this fact so thanks again dev.
Nonetheless this VN have potential to be one of the best honey select VN so i hope it continue like this.
Im gonna bookmark it and keep my eye on it for future updates.
I highly recommend it.

Mayfly 0.1 Reset

This game looks nice, has cute girls (though mostly very similar in body type), and decent music/sounds. Otherwise, it's pretty awful. The setting is just a nonsensical mashup of popular genres that all seem out of place together despite attempts to explain portions of the world through really bad exposition dumps. We've already got corpos and augmented people with cyberware, elves, super-powered metahumans and other unknowns all coexisting in a cliche rich city + poor city setup with multiple criminal and law enforcement factions and characters that like to make poorly executed pop culture references from our own world. None of it gels. There's a part that is randomly done in a comic book style and I have no clue why. The writing is a mixture of incredibly tedious/boring and incredibly cringe inducing. None of it flows naturally and it can be hard to tell what's even happening at times since it's so nonsensical and poorly written. The girls outfits make it feel like everyone's in random cosplay a good deal of the time. There aren't many choices and the ones thus far are mostly fake ones that don't really affect anything except in variables/points set with the girls I assume. It's just illusion of choice quite a bit thus far. Perhaps worst of all is the incessant unnecessary use of random transition effects between renders... it's maddening and only delays getting through the story longer.

Wow, I just finished the first chapter, and it was amazing. I'm really looking forward to the second chapter and I hope it will surprise me too. This game has the best graph and render quality I have ever seen. but Some of the part is little bit confused. Very good game made my dick stand up

The reset version really brought me a lot of surprises. Whether it's the story content or character modeling, I feel it's much better than before the reset. The game's scene lighting rendering and background music application are also great

The recent reviews was high rated, so I thought let's give it a try, it have my favourite tag too superpower tag, I played the demo and 0.1 reset both, it's a new game I just found recently, after playing the game, I was proved wrong.

According to preview pictures game looks really interesting, but when I play this game, 1st thing I don't like is MC, he's a total shitass, and cocky as hell, it's ok to be little cocky/arrogant but at least you should have something special, this is our typical game where girls have abnormal strength, power and intelligence, and where MC is a shitass, I'm sorry but I can't control myself using harsh words, you could at least made MC a little better.

About lis can't say anything but one thing is for sure they all look dominant and look more powerful than MC, I think dev forget to add femdom tag.

Story is pretty boring not that much boring but from start it's boring just 10 mins I played I decided to delete the game but I thought let's finished it, still don't know about his purpose what actually his motivation, and what actually he wants despite his harem.

There's nothing much to talk about renders, music, sound effects and animation pretty much around decent, graphics is around average I think.

Well here ends my review, despite everything I said game defienetly worth a shot, but still it's boring for me, if he changed the MC then I might try again for now it's not my cup of tea.

Comprehensive score：9/10
Renders：10/10
Character Modeling：9/10
Music：9/10
STORY：8/10
It's a great game with a lot of potential, especially the renders, it can definitely be in the top 10.
When I play the game, you find yourself in a fantasy world, like in a novel. You get a very intense sense of immersion. Excellent image quality, appropriate music, gives you a very pleasant atmosphere.

This game has the best render among the same category in my opinion. I like the old two versions, but the reset version is even much better, quite impressive. The sex scene of the reset version is complete and with a lot of details and outstanding animations. The story looks grand, and we just discovered very little of it. I hope it won’t be too complex and we can focus more on the main LIs. Best wish.

This game is quite interesting and promising, the renders're also very impressive but I hope that it'll have something like piercing, anal or bdsm. It may make this game reach more people. Good luck to you.

okay so I tried but I couldn't finish it which is a shame because I really liked the graphics and the aesthetic but i'll do my best to explain why. First, the
but that's not where the issues end okay let's move on


I wish it was over but no
idk if it was implemented in future but exposition doesn't just have to be through dialogue. our protag can have thoughts that are just his own and sometime he can narrate things to the player. it's cool. just don't make it during urgent situations like a gd bank heist. also flash backs are just annoying if they add nothing to the overarching plot.

cool i get it, these guys have known each other for a while, i don't need to know unnecessary memories they have together. I'm playing now and I'll learn about the characters now yeah? Maybe that's how others talk but i don't hangout with my friends bringing up & talking about the past over and over again and if someone did that i'd find it annoying. unless it was relevant and added some sort of value to the current situation.

if i played some more i'd probably have more to say but i just couldn't get past everything i wrote above. hope this helps the dev

This is certainly better than average. And yet bad.

The game warns you that you'd have a better experience with the brightness turned up. That's the first game that's told me that. Makes me wonder why this couldn't just be developed with more light. But that's something I probably won't know the answer to.
I think this is the first time I've felt like the graphics are overdone. Some of the story scenes have too much to them, then they get switched out in seconds for another overdone background all while in story. This also doesn't skimp out on story so again, there's a lot going on.
A fuck ton of renders, a maybe above average amount of story. So it seems like extra stuff before the content I came for = extra word and graphic count to less content.
during the story, we get random poses out of the blue. Perhaps to showcase the girls. But we don't do anything with that or about the poses right away. Hell! We didn't do anything with that girl in this reset build.

I'm interested to get to the explanation where the mc's vigilanted group waited for a few guards to be killed, one of the bank teller's eye's to be yanked out. And more as they seemed to be a little more ready/aware than just reactive.

I have not tried this before the reset so no idea how that compares.

In addition, the sex scene came out of the blue. . . . I don't mind the girl. .. but that was quite random after a night of flirting with the elf.

For the record, I can in no ways match something like this with game making, story righting, or more.
But I wouldn't beat around the bush that much. Unless I was getting paid/supported that much over the average market rates for porn game devs and that was what my supporters wanted.

I really like the renders, they're fucking gorgeous. The addition of curated background music is also a great touch, but it is VERY jarring when the background music cuts to silence after the very short animation it was used for.

What is also jarring, is the way the animations end, and it cuts to a black screen at the end instead of transitioning smoothly to the static render. I had very high hopes for this VN looking at the screenshots, but it was tough for me to get very far through, also due to the rough writing.

I think starting off the VN with a Dark Knight reference is...a bit overly ambitious, since even Dark Knight had Batman Begins before it to build off of. There's this weird jumping between exposition that we're supposed to care about and the bank robbery scene . Part of the reason it worked out so beautifully in the movie is because it wasn't interrupted by any other scenes.

This VN has SO much promise, but I feel like it's held back by odd creative choices.

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24JAN25: So, updating this review for 0.2 (Reset)....this game did NOT get better after the rework. Much of what I wrote above is still true. Except that now I'm even MORE lost in what or who or why is going on?

Multiple named characters are introduced, interspersed with, again, a clearly-ripped-from-The Dark Knight bank robbery scene. However, it seems there are MORE random pop culture references that don't make a lick of sense in context. There is SO much filler in between ACRES of exposition. "Show, dont tell" is blatantly disregarded, and I have literally zero reason to care about all the characters that are introduced. It's like we're starting in the middle of a movie trilogy, where the first movie doesn't exist.
Since we're blatantly comparing, The Dark Knight can even stand on its own without having watched Batman Begins, because the characters are KNOWN entities. Mayfly...doesn't have that reputation or history or backstory established, so vomiting all the exposition about this world that lis just a jumbled mess of Gotham City/Night City/Insert-random-fantasy-here/Parody-reference-central.

There are also these seemingly random "Powerpoint-esque" transitions that feel incredibly out of place with no purpose, they don't even cut to a different scene, its just a "wacky" render transition in the middle of a conversation? Not to mention we have normal transitions with full scenery changes and no indication of why we're in this new area. Random renders of locations that have no apparent connection to the dialogue on screen, are these supposed to be establishing shots? Of random other locations? They successfully establish my further confusion, that's for sure.

At this point, the quality of the renders is easy to ignore when I'm just LOST in what the hell is going on at all. There's apparently a story trying to be told here, but it's buried under heaps and mounds of exposition filler, with no lead-in or backstory that prompts me to care about...any of it. Please do not waste your time with this, as beautiful as this food may look, it has no redeeming taste once you bite into it.

Ouch, this was worse than I expected.

Let's start with first choice of the game:
- Stand up for yourself = game over
OK, off to a great start there.

Moving on, MC is cocky as hell. His social and fighting skills meanwhile...yeah, let's not go there. He's borderline useless, constantly insulted and treated like trash while doing...well, nothing really.

Story COULD be interesting, and edgy MC would be ok for the environment, if he had ANYTHING going for him. But there is 0 investment in MC when he's all talk, no action, no charisma, no backbone, no skill, nothing whatsoever.
If I get out of my chair right now, then walk to some politician and start throwing insults at his bodyguards and him, while acting like they can't touch me, it won't make for a good book or interesting events (unless looking for a good laugh).

Girls are, well, female domination tag is definitely deserved. They all treat MC like hot garbage, and since, like established in previous paragraphs, his intelligence levels are lower than barbarian in D&D, he thinks it's all cool and interesting.

There is another story beat, about missing sister, which starts, develops, something else happens...then it gets forgotten, because landlady needed to throw the trash out of the room. Sorry, she threw MC out of the room, but that's the same thing.

And if you think there are choices to make, think again. It has, what, 3-4 choices total, 1 of which gives game over on selection, 1 is yes or no for sex with prostitute, and 1 is being nice or pointlessly rude to, for a change, innocent girl.
Hey MC, how about an option to tell RUDE ones to fuck off, and not the ones actually treating him like human being.

I do have 2 positives:
- 1: MC looks genericly decent (strange expression). Model is definitely used in other similar games, but I like it here. Looks cool (shame personality doesn't match...)
- 2: Girls are, mostly, really decent looking. Some are not down my alley (huge breasts are not my thing), but there's good selection, even if there aren't really any scenes with them yet.

Overall though, it's a no for me. Reading anything coming out of MCs mouth is painful. Actually, let's extend that to most of the dialogue in this one.
There's an early scene with 2 bandits and a girl. It draaaaaaaaaags for something like 50 lines of text, constantly repeating same thing, over and over. 1 guy asks something, another corrects him and says some fact, 1st says "no way, how can that be true". Repeat for 10 different things.

Dialogue is horrendous.

Rating for v0.1 Reset

This was a big improvement. The story and MC are very different, and in a good way. The first part - almost 30% of what's there - is well written, takes it's time, but isn't wordy. MC is no longer a doormat and can actually stand on his own two feet in this. He's much more likable overall.

Some of the same characters are here, but in a different way. Some are not, and yet to be seen if they will come back.

Music is well done and fits, but the transitions can be a bit overdone and jarring. Nothing to ruin the experience, once you get used to them.

I'm much more interested in where this is going now and look forward to more.

Updated Review for v0.1 Reset (2 stars -> 3 stars)

Now the remake certainly has improved the game when compared to the old version. Where I couldn't make it past 10 minutes before, I managed to reach the end of content this time around. Thing is, this game didn't improve much in the area it truly needed it: the writing. Putting it nicely, it's extremely rough. Part of it is still due to less than ideal translations, but this is one of those times where I think the script itself is just flawed regardless. It's kind of a mess.

I think the main thing is that this lacks a proper intro/setup/prologue/whatever you want to call it that would otherwise be that sort of hook that starts to immerse you into the game and characters. I've had this problem with a few different AVNs, and I usually aliken it loading into someone's mid-game save. I feel like I'm missing context and info that the game just doesn't tell you. Mainly with the MC and love interests shown. I know nothing about our MC and his motivations, nor much about his connection to any of these characters that keep showing up. I shouldn't have to exit the game and read the overview to understand what's happening.

Half of this version is also spent cutting away from the MC to watch token thugs do a heist for a mysterious villain that the game REALLY wants you to be interested in. And man, it did not work for me. It's trying too hard I think. Bloated maybe is the word.

Then we got this bar sequence. On the way there, we are approached by a lady of the night. As she's talking to us, the girl accompanying us just randomly assaults her??? Not in like a comedic way, but more of a "hey what the fuck is wrong with you" type of way. Not sure why a love interest kicking an innocent woman in the head would make me like her? Very odd.

The strangeness keeps going too, but I'd be writing an essay at this point if I started breaking it all down. Some of the humor and the MCs macho man act is also cringe as hell, but that's a lesser issue in comparison.

Good renders just do not make up for bad writing I personally feel. And honestly the dev's shallow use of depth of field for literally everything makes me want to puke. Another reviewer said the renders almost feel overdone and I'm inclined to agree in that way.

This still was a decent improvement when you compare it to the old version, but the game still feels deeply flawed. I'll say I liked the character designs and I think there's some potential way beneath the surface, but I cannot say I'm eager to check this out again if at all. The dev seems invested in their project so hopefully time does this favors.