Unity - Morningstar: Book of the Fallen [v0.5.6g] [Droid Productions]

As always from Droid Productions, we have an actual story with its own character, which is very rare in the AVN world.

If you've played "Love of Magic," you know what to expect. If you have not, then you should probably try it before "Morningstar," because the new game seems to explore what can be achieved using a similar premise and gameplay loop, albeit on a relatively smaller scale. The links between the two games are so numerous that I cannot imagine myself playing "Morningstar" without prior experience with "Love of Magic," but I feel I have to try approaching this gave with a clear mind for the review. This will surely make the following text somewhat strange.

I. A closer look

Let's try to approach "Morningstar" with a newcomer's perspective. What we have here is a story-driven game with some sandbox elements. You have a relatively tight but not overbearing time schedule. Although there are sandbox elements in it, the story takes precedence, with new events occurring every few days.

What type of story is it? It is an urban fantasy romance. It is not overly complex but has enough substance for you to chew on. It is an actual love story that will try to evoke sentimentality from time to time. The world-building is quite rich while being subservient to the story, allowing for one of the better lore-presentations you will see in the AVN world. The main character has an agenda and a story arc, so there are no meaningless info dumps.

How does it feel? Surprisingly comfortable, given some themes it entertains; moderately horny; relatively light-hearted; occasionally suspenseful; and pleasantly formulaic, yet with a human touch that makes it all work. The basic gameplay loop is somewhat uninspiring, but this only makes the story bits shine brighter, and in this game, we're all about them.

The basic AVN gameplay is combined with, first, free roaming among possible locations, and second, a relatively challenging and entertaining mini-game reminiscent of casual mobile games.

This is the formula. It is the same for "Morningstar" and "Love of Magic." For me, this formula is perfect, but I think not everyone would agree.

II. Is it as good?

Comparing "Morningstar" to "Love of Magic," I would say that the predecessor is generally better. The story was more polished and much more emotional; the contrast between the romance path and harem side questing was less jarring; and the mini-games were better integrated into gameplay from a narrative standpoint. This is why it doesn't feel right to give "Morningstar" five stars. It is both not perfect and somewhat inferior to its predecessor.

III. Some final remarks

I do not wish to sound harsh. I think that Droid Productions may be one of my favorite AVN creators. When I look at the result, I can't help but say: "This man gets it!"

I bought "Morningstar," played it for 20 hours, and enjoyed it immensely. I like how it feels and how it works. I enjoy the developer's touch and his idiosyncrasies. I adore how he loves the world he creates and how he's not willing to part with the characters he has developed. The games are formulaic, yet they're personal in many ways: those are passion's project, filled with love of craft and certain details that you can't help but pick up over the course of two games. I think you will recognize them If you've played "Love of Magic". Love for describing food, appreciation of powerful and humane characters, enjoyment of casual mobile games, love of multi-verse... These games are good-natured, and I love them immensely.

And I will wait for the new projects.

Great game. It's getting 4 instead of 5 stars cause Love of Magic is just better. I don't want to take anything away from this game, but it just doesn't reach the same heights. I loved the urban fantasy setting, I loved that we had multiple endings to work towards, and I loved the story as a whole. I didn't like the match game combat system nearly as much as the poker system in LoM, but that is probably due to the fact that I'm colorblind and hate match games in general lol. All and all, a well made game with a bit more player agency. Definitely worth your time if the characters or setting intrigues you.

I wish I could fast forward the time and have a complete game/story.

With Love of Magic, I was more into the story compare to the sex scenes, heck, I would say Love of Magic the 4th game here where I am actually READ and ENJOY the story.

As far as I can tell right now, this is prob gonna by my 5th

I guess this is the "alternative reality" mentioned in the Love of Magic where Katie can be more than just FWB with MC best on the discussion I see in the thread. I guess this will ease off some of the regrets that I have from Love of Magic

Same soul, but different reality

Protagonist of this game start like expendable rough, serving as entertainment in fighting showbusiness. After losing a fight , he is in risk being discarded and forgotten. With that in mind, MC moved to New York, where lies his chance to reverse his decline into oblivion and return on top. However in light and fire of New York, protagonist will find fare more than how to save his career of fighter.

Morningstar is about classic hero path from unknown outsider to "saving world" champion. Together with protagonist, we will get to know the world, on this path, but more importantly we will get to know protagonist as he didn't know himself before.

All Love of Magic fans will be interested to know that Droid has cast our familiar and beloved faces in the lead roles as part of the eternal soul concept. They will have similar appearance, but they will be formed by different environment and experience. They will act and communicate differently therefore. However after you spent some time with them, their soul will reach to you to let you know how much same they are. Some new faces appear as well to claim your interest, asking for their place among "heroes of the Pattern".

Morningstar has same game construction as Love of magic had, with different story. Days are divided in same parts, morning, evening and night. Game has main story content, which has its assigned time parts across calendar. You don't need to hunt main story as you didn't need it in LoM. Rest of time is open for your exploring of side content.

Game has two main love interest you can choose from. Both paths, path of light and path of fire, are intertwined in main story as well as side contents. If you choose none of two LI (heresy). There are 2 other paths and number of side girls to choose from.

Game has also its combat system, build around matching gems (or how is this type of game called) instead poker. Open to different strategies, defensive, aggressive, combined. Player is free to choose if they want to interfere with it or skip it. Droid has always been about letting the player decide how they want to play the game. So ctrl+j bug will appear if you call it. But be wary not to get bugs in your game by frivolous abusing it.

Morningstar is way how to spend expanded time with our loved characters from Love of Magic,
with new story and new environment. Yet it fells like home.

Let's start with something brief.

1. First lemme be very clear. This game doesn't hold a candle against Love of Magic, not even close.
2. The models are bad specially the old models.The newer ones are really promising like Lin, Ciara, Mu etc.
3. The novel(story and execution) is a significant downgrade from LOM. Messing with lot of mythologies is the culprit here. It keeps the novel from being immersive as the lack of coherency disturbed that. Still the story is engaging looking forward to seeing how the story ends.
4. I can bet on my life that the dev haven't spent nearly half the time he spent developing Love of Magic novel(storywise).
5. Addressing among the characters and MC is a mess.

Now for details
**Let's start off with the models. The models are as bad as it can get consider it's 2024 and these will still be used in the upcoming years. The new models look promising(mostly the Asians) but still there's an issue. This guy is stubborn or lack creativity. All asian models so far he created have bangs(hair covering forehead). Man, get real (not only for giving ugly blemishes all over the western models body and face), will you ? Bangs ain't the only haircut Asians know. Also all the models are fucking overexposed(harsh lighting) like the porns in 90s. This was a mess in Love of Magic, it improved a lot but still bad. Ciara and Lin are my top picks among the models.

** The introduction could have been auto or as a kenetic novel rather than making like MC(father) .
**. Mentioning completely different mythology from the current one really fucked up the story. I wish he would be more around the pure Western(Christian Theme) Mixing Mythology almost always is a bad idea. He mixed Chinese(East Asian) mythology, then the Horned Lord(Ancient Western Mythology), and there is angel and fallen angel I guess. What a mess. I believe mixing angels, fae, dragons(Asian) would have been a good base but no, he had to fuck up by mixing up Horned Lord here made the story a turn off for me and definitely for those who have sufficient knowledge. I mean how can you mix Angel/Fallen Angel mythology with Horned lord!! Horned Lord is the god of Paganism, I mean the god. You can't just come here and mix him up with the Angels. If you hadn't already stablished the fact in Love of Magic then it would have been more acceptable. But now it strongly conflicts between your own creation! Keeping mythology at different geographical area is no problem, for example if it were only Chinese legend and Angel/Vampire/Demons then it would be much better. Now we had already stablished Horned Lord legend in Love of Magic. Now you introduce Horned Lord here who is kinda the master of Underground Fight ring. What a pathetic Joke!!!!
I'm taking 2 stars for this. Let's see if the story in the future makes up for that or make it worse??

**. I prefer Poker over these shitty candy crush but I won't really let it affect the review as it's totally unrelated and kinda personal opinion. But I won't deny that this is somewhat a improvement because it is more versatile.

** Another annoying part is Serra/Emily shit. You say one or two times about calling by your first name and that's it. But no, you need to say it dozens of times, It's so inconsistent that it's getting on my nerves. Not just Emily. Addressing btween MC and others ladies are no exception.

**Things getting worse at this point. Why the hell did the dev arm the Angel(Emily) with a Katana????? This is Western Mythology, not Japanese or Chinese. LOL... not just Emily all the Angels are armed with Katanas. What a LOL moment. Here I was thinking the writer as Genius after reading LOM. Bullet count of the M9 was also a proof of not enough focus on the coherency of the story. A regular M9 holds 15 rounds in the magazine and some special case 18. Never heard of an M9 which holds 19 rounds. Yes you can carry a total of 19 rounds with one bullet in the chamber but none does that. I'm starting to ask myself a serious question here. Who actually wrote the Love of Magic Novel specially the first 2 book. Things have gone consistently worse from book 3.
.
.
Suggestion to the Dev:
Go back, refocus on the dialogue and addressing. Better off with the Horned Lord story unless you have something big planned for him, which would still be a mess but you cannot really change the big part of your story, what's done is done. Try not to make all the models with too much blemishes. The approach to the new models are improvement over the past ones. Try ro get rid of the harsh lighting.

0.4.0

tl;dr

story 4/5
graphics 4/5
characters 4/5
gameplay 5/5
writing 4/5

This is pretty much a remake of Love of Magic for those that have already played Love of Magic, and with a dev that's got a few years of extra experience. If you liked Love of Magic you will see this is a straight upgrade, with some of the more vexing elements from Love of Magic toned down a bit (id est the clan stuff and the endless embellishments of power). You will recognize the characters quite well as they fill similar roles.

Story
The story is similar to LoM and works well. It has a great pacing, with no moments feeling too slow and no moments feeling too fast. The moderate to harsh culling of the endless power descriptions of characters in text has also made the world much more coherent and reasonable. The combination of the grandiose plot and the personal plot is quite well synced, and feels better than in LoM. All in all this is a straight upgrade, and the story flows well so far.

Graphics
The style is the same as LoM, with cutscenes of similar quality and movement. Some characters look fine, like Emily or Molly, while others, like Snowdrop, look at bit weird. Some are a combination of both depending on angle, like the coffee lady. The cutscenes, while not perfect, do a great job of conveying significance, intentional or not. This is not a game you play for the graphical fidelity, but it does work fine for portraying the story. The only graphical improvement I would ask for is related to the angel wings. They are tiny.

Characters
The people you talk to now are much more even in quality. Katie is less annoying and doesn't have long-winded anger issues, Emily is still Emily but some words have been switched, and the new sub is fantastic. The characters you meet are all fine or better.
One thing should be mentioned here: not only are these characters available in person, you can also view their most profound thoughts on not-Facebook in the game. I'm not sure what purpose that is supposed to fill (there didn't seem to be any point to "hearting" or replying to these posts). Personally I did not find much value in that feature as the posts are almost all dumb and nonsensical in context. Perhaps this feature will be more relevant in a future update.
Overall the characters are a pleasant experience.

Gameplay
The weakest point of LoM is massively improved, though issues still persist. Switching out the poker style game and its incredibly tilted gem slots for candy crush was a great move. Matches are more consistent in speed, and the absence of Molly for free trips/quads makes all the skills (what was previously gems) more available. The gameplay here would very much benefit from an expanded tutorial (explaining what exploding tokens do for instance, or giving a heads up on what the benefit of upgrading a skill will be, and most importantly the fact that charge only goes to the first skill that can use it) though the basics are clear.
The new mechanic is not without issues, however. Some skills give you an endless turn and win you the match, others seem pointless regardless of combination. While hitting a 4x or higher gives you an extra turn, this only applies if it is the first or second combination popped, not third or later. Thus, hitting a 3, then a 3, and then a 5, does not provide an extra turn. It is also possible to use your skills after you've used your turn if you do it fast enough, though the results are unclear (using shield quickly after using up your turn seems to work, dealing damage only works sometimes).
All in all, this looks like a solid upgrade to LoM once the kinks have been ironed out, and I did enjoy the harder matches.

Writing
Mostly good. A bit more differentiation in semantics and expressions between characters would be lovely, taking their intended experiences into account. With the wide range of backgrounds used in this story, I wouldn't mind seeing more difference in expression. As an example, the term backstop appears somewhere around day 70, and is from that point used quite frequently by multiple characters with vastly different experiences. That does break immersion for me, as it feels like every character is coming from the same source.
All in all, the writing is a pleasant experience.

Summary
After having played version 0.4.0 I have high hopes for Morningstar, and I think it will turn out even better than Love of Magic, a VN I very much enjoyed. Best of luck to the dev!

0.4 opinion

If you like love of magic, you like this one. I think the creator has found his thing, and you can see the passion and skill. Yeah, you can say it follows the semi same route as love of magic, but I quiet like that route. The main MC discovers things, he trains and get skills, you meet fun and different kind of side characters. Why fix if it isnt broken right?

Came for he porn, stayed for the plot and toned bellies.

I find the writing and pacing, just like love of magic, top nodge. No need to drag out and explain things too much. A quick hint here and a wink there, is so much better. Like when you look at a character and it "glitches" and you are thinking, did I see that right, is so much better than some overly explained plot or twist.

10/10 writing and pacing
10/10 audio, and theme
10/10 characters, yeah they are reused from love of magic, but again, why fix when it isnt broken.
10/10 story, world and direction it is heading

The only thing I want to see improved. But that is also because I dont do game making. Is the resolution of some pictures/scenes. Most are great, while others are pixelated/lower resolution.

Keep it up Droid <3

Excellent writing, and fun gameplay. Only complaint is the UI isn't the prettiest thing in the world. It's definitely functional, but the text box definitely doesn't need to take up half of the screen's vertical space

After "Love of Magic" we are here to witness another Droid's game.
And after playing first 3 acts I am pretty sure that we have another masterpiece here.

Characters
We can find some faces from LoM with similar attitude and characteristics.
Emily is Still Duty over everything
Katie is still hot tempered fighter (sadly no brogue here, she is american )
Chloe is mastermind (this time acting more independently)
Bella is still fierce enemy, but most loyal warrior.
Snowdrop is now human sized, but still little minx.
Molly is again master of manipulation and sexiness, but who knows her loyalties now? I certainly do not
But new characters are just as good and interesting. From Dragon that is able to turn NY to fiery hell, to "antagonists" that are clever and inteligent powerhouses.

Story
This time our MC is more streetsmart MMA fighter that has some interesting relatives... He joined gym in NY just before his next fight. And due to events he stayed longer than planned.
Great new lore, new slices of life of characters and their motivations we are unrevealing plot that might be demise of our world, or at least milions of lifes.

Minigame
Now we do not have cards, but bejewelled type of combat, that I love. Combine gems anduse them to create moves. Punches, kicks, block.

Renders
We can see here how much Droid improved in his technical skills with renders and animations and it gets even better over time.

5/5 because 6 is not on the scale

An excellent follow-on game from the Love of Magic trilogy, featuring a few familiar faces in a completely different setting. This is NOT a sequel, the characters here don't know anything about the events in LoM.

Morningstar is an exploration of the masquerade genre, with supernatural forces maintaining the veil between 'normal' society and their power games. MC is older and more worldly than the MC of LoM, making a living as a supernatural fighter in the 'plausibly passes for human' MMA league.

The story so far is fascinating, with a rich world of intrigue already showing up even this early in development. Angels, demons, uptight and scheming noble families and a giant dragon claiming the city as his own.

Combat minigame is match3/bejeweled/candy crush with skills fueled by matches. It's also optional to the story, outside the tutorials you're allowed to skip it for an automatic win if you're allergic to minigames in VNs.

The sex is limited this early on, especially since one of the primary LI paths is a literal angel and will take more than a date or two to get into her pants. Katie has no such qualms about a bit of fun, and the allure of the supernatural has seduced a smart lawyer lady (Lin) into your circle as well.

I'm very excited to see where this goes, and to see the characters develop further.

I love the way this world seems to be ours, yet has that subtle underground of supernatural happening. Using PPV for supernatural fighters, and bringing the main characters (in soul at least) over from his LOM games, boosts the playability and enjoyment of this game.
Using a gem matching battle system, is hilariously strange, and fun to play.
All in all, I give this one a full 5 out of5stars.

Great story, gem combat is fun, and the girls are lovely. Really looking forward to seeing where the story goes.
The art and animations are really showing off Droid's increasing skills.
This game has several possible story paths, although so far, the meta story seems to be unified. More content than you can fit into a single playthrough.

Can't believe I haven't reviewed this yet. Another excellent game by Droid.

-Compelling story
-Excellent renders
-Top-tier character development
-Important choices
-Good layout
-Fun gameplay
-Good production speed and quality

I have supported Droid longer and more consistently than any other developer, and as of the writing of this review I have no regrets.

You may already know that Morningstar: Book of the Fallen is a spinoff of Droid Productions popular Love of Magic. You may also know that sequels suck. Fortunately, Morningstar is not a sequel. It's a parallel universe and a full on 5 star story. Emily, Katie, Bella, Chloe, Snowdrop and MC are all back; same but different.

Emily is an angel. Yeah... no, she's an actual angel. Yep, in this universe there are gods and powers, Seelie and Unseelie, the clan, dragons and a full assortment of monstrosities including vampires... and angels. Emily can be romanced and, it turns out, angels do... like hand holding!

Katie is fiery as ever and an MMA fighter as well. She's still the Red Devil, smokin' hot and 100% your bestie. Katie is a LI. This time though, she can be your #1 girl. Oh, yeah! I'm in.

Bella works for the devil; ol' Lucifer Himself. At his command, Bella practically raised MC and taught him how to survive. Huh... mysteriouser and mysteriouser...

Some things never change. Chloe is still a bartender/owner. She still knows more than she ought; she's still aggravatingly mysterious and still very independent. Yep, that's our Chloe...

Snowdrop works for Chloe tending bar while she studies to be a performer. She's ditsy as ever and she's taller; a lot taller. Interesting...

So, you play as the MC. You grew up in SoCal. Raised by Bella, you were trained to kill supernatural beings. "She taught me how to fight so dirty God Himself would turn away from me." Your an MMA fighter and you've moonlighted as a hitman for the Seelie and Unseelie Courts of SoCal and Vegas. You start the story in NYC preparing for a big fight, and the adventure begins.

Damn good thing Bella didn't raise no mamma's boy!

(English isn't my first or even second language, please excuse my mistakes)

I love the way droid stories evolves. Morningstar features many characteres we know from LoM at least from the outside:
Same look different story, character and habit.

For me his games are the best I find here. I love the depth of character, I adore the looks (even if i prefer them myself a bit more curvy) and I play the minigames for fun, the last part is a absolut exception for these kind of games i normally rush through those. I get the choice here ( ty!) but instead of doing it i prefer do some extra rounds for my stats.

I am a fan of old rpg games that's something doid does integrate without overding it for ppl with different perferences then mine.

Test it yourself and LoM too! If you have to read a review to decide to do it, you don't have played LoM before, otherwise you would download it without a question after seeing "developer: droid"

Top of the line start. Not as good as his other game, Love of Magic, but excellent non-the-less. Good looking characters, interesting story, good writing. Not too much superfluous wording, just enough to get the story across. Not a lot of content yet but the author has shown the ability to finish what he starts. Keep an eye on this one.

Played up to most recent chapter, 30c. Still a top notch game. Great story and writing and the updates are coming along at a good pace.

Well,

it's a droid game, so we already know the story will be top class.
Many of the beloved girlies are back, however, it is NOT a follow up to the previous games.

The characters are visually the same, saves snowdrop, but their personality and history, can be different.

The renders are top notch as usual.
The fighting, this time, is based on Match 3. While there are some differences to the basic match3, is does remain match3, so if you can not stand that, the fight may bother you.

The first chapters is not extremely long, and there isn't too much sexy time, unfortunately. But, there is plenty of side content to be done.

The game being pretty fast paced on the schedule, and several days being virtually blocked for the story, as was the case in the other games from droid, unless you know exactly what you're doing, and when to do what, you'll need to load the save after finishing the chapter, to be able to finish the side content.

As usual, a high recommendation, as for any droid games in that world/setting.