VN - Ren'Py - Nephilim [v0.5.5] [BuuPlays]

I am pleasantly surprised by the quality of this VN. The logic of choices doesn't always make sense, I'm still slightly unsure of the good/bad paths. Choosing the girls (or not) doesn't seem to have any meaning? I mean there doesn't seem to be a logic behind these choices, so no real paths, just collecting them all or not, with no consequences otherwise.
The girls look great. Dialogues are ok. Scenes are ok, a bit simplistic sometimes. Some gorgeous animations.
If anything there's too many girls, I would have preferred a bit less and more in depth relationships with them. The story with the main girl is quite detailed and I liked that, however my favourite was the childhood friend who seems to be forgotten and ignored by the protagonist which, considering their relationship at the start, seems like outright treason to me. she's handled like a side girl when she finally joins the harem.
I would prefer that choices of girls mean a bit more, I like a harem game like anyone but too many diminishes their value. Fiery pirate girl, or the queen seem fascinating, but they are also lost in the sea of conquests a bit; more consistency and streamlining in the story - a bit more focused time with a handful of girls - would have been preferred. I know i can skip the ones I don't want but on one hand it doesn't seem like is actually skipping a lot of the content with them, and it doesn't seem to have consequences other than not seeing some scenes, so superficial.

But I cannot fault the production overall. I am completely baffled how some people can act so childish to give 1 * since the extent and quality of this is definitely in the top 20% on the site, whether or not you like certain aspects or not.
Would I like slimmer girls? Would I like more in depth stuff with mature women? Maybe some kinks? Hell yea, still, it doesn't diminish the quality, it's just preference.

This one was a VN I knew about but somehow skipped for a long time - the introduction seemed kinda meh, too fairy tale - but it's actually pretty great and I hope we will see its competition.

It's good. The girls are gorgeous, there is some decent story, and some decent sex.
Unfortunately, the game is hindered by a lack of a gallery, and a lack of focus. It has TONS of sex scenes, with tons of different girls. I have a save for each scene, and now they stretch onto page 10 of renpy's default save slots, even skipping the scenes I don't like. It needs a gallery, or else the sex is just ancillary. There are some good scenes, as I said, but there aren't any great ones.
That's just the tip of the lack of focus iceberg. There are too many girls. Way too many. A normal harem game is like 5-8. This is already over 20, depending on whom you count. Inevitably, there are only a handful of girls whom you actually get to know.
Early on, you get morality choices, which I liked. But they appear to have abandoned that. For most of the game, your choices are just who you want to fuck.
The plot is the most unfocused part. At the start, it's the story of a guy meeting a special girl on a journey of long revenge, and protagonist slowly coming into transcendent power. Unfortunately, the protagonist ends up getting sidetracked protecting princesses, saving pirates, fucking pirates, and now there's a very large arc on an island, where he has to do like four different things before he can return. It wouldn't be so bad if the LIs on the island were the main girls from before, but only one of them is on the island with him. Two, if you count Tazzy, who's another excessive LI. The arc may relate to the protagonist growing into his power, but it still feels almost entirely disconnected from the rest of the story. And it's waaay too long for something tangential.
The dev needs to slow down, think about what it is that the story can provide the player, and focus on that. The game was very good when it was a protagonist and his tight-knit group of friends/lovers moving towards revenge. Now, it's nowhere near as good.
Ultimately, while I have a lot to complain about, and I have been substantially disappointed, I still enjoy playing each update, so I'm giving it four stars. But I'm not convinced that it won't end up falling to three.

it´s as Pixillin said, started off great but went down the hill fast.
poor writing, no character personality, endless lines of lovey-dovey talks, meaningless choices, not to forget the stolen content, so yeah if you just want to see some poor sex scenes this VN is for you since there are enough to go around, but if you want to read a good story, then better look for another VN

This game is for you if you’re into harem games with lots and lots of sex. If you like a good story, it will let you down hard. It starts out ok, like the developer had a really good idea but didn’t know what to do with it beyond a certain point.

It starts out as a classic fantasy tale, you’re a boy living in a small village until, at the age of 10, your parents are murdered in an effort to get to you. You’re whisked away by a mysterious stranger (not the murderer) who keeps you hidden and trains you. When he dies you set out to avenge your parents. On your way you meet a woman in danger in the woods. You rescue her and she turns out to be the daughter of the man who had rescued you. The two of you immediately hit it off, and she quickly becomes your forever girl, you become a team – targeting the same man for vengeance.

You make a lot of early choices where it gives you a light path option and a dark path option, and you and your forever girl have a few adventures and then .. it falls off a cliff and becomes a never ending stream of women who instantly fall in love with MC. (A few dozen at this point.) They are all poorly written and have no real character development or story arc.

The light and dark path choices end up meaning nothing. The MC becomes increasingly inconsistent, sidelining his forever girl for months at a time, reacting to betrayal with cold blooded murder in one instance and then a little while later reacting to betrayal with not so much as harsh language. And taking off on an adventure that actually appears to be borrowed from a different game – like the developer didn’t know what to do so he just had you play a completely different game with the same character for awhile.

Writing 0/10 – As I said, it seems like the dev just borrowed from another game and didn’t actually write it all.

Characters – 2/10 – there are one or two good characters out of 106 listed on the VNDB page. Most of the Lis have a personality somewhere between an inflatable doll and a horny (1940s era) Disney princess.

Gameplay 0/10 – Aside from deciding who you do and don’t want to fuck, and making some choices that don’t’ impact the game at all it’s basically linear.

Art / Renders – 6/10 above average but the renders and poses (especially in the lewd scenes) quickly become repetitive and predictable.

Coding 5/10 – No errors, but no branching paths either – just a linear story.

"A great idea very poorly executed"... That's the best way to summarize this AVN; the story has a lot of potential, being able to choose between "being good" or "being bad" is a good idea, buuuut... all of this is ruined because the Dev is a terrible writer... Unnecessary and childish dialogues, cliché and boring characters, plot twists that feel more like a pretext... Sometimes it seems like the Dev is 13 years old by the way the characters speak; I reached a point where I could no longer tolerate continuing to read and I found myself skipping all the text... I'm not going to say it's one of the worst AVNs because it's not that bad, but honestly, I wouldn't recommend it even for a fap.

your storytelling is nothing short of captivating. Every choice, every dialogue, and every character feels so thoughtfully crafted. The art style perfectly complements the narrative, and the music enhances the emotional depth of each scene. You've managed to create a world that's not just experienced, but felt deeply. The emotional connection to the characters is powerful, and the way you’ve intertwined the plot twists is pure genius. Thank you for creating a world where players can lose themselves, reflect, and connect on such a profound level. Your hard work and dedication are truly inspiring

Honestly i'm surprised.. surprised by how good this was but also at the lower rating and peoples opinions of it that dont rate this higher...
The characters are well done and its a wide and varied collection of LI's that make the harem building actually a joy given the diversity of characters..
The story is pure elder scrolls, world of warcraft, black desert GOLD for anyone who is a MMO gamer fan and while some moments are repeated (scene and animation wise) they still make the scenes progress onwards..
Eliza the main LI is just adorable and by far one of the most enjoyable characters to interact with, the storyline has a scope to last a long time with various nemesis being introduced.. the prospect of the mc setting up essentially he own harem estate is interesting and i hope we get to see something SOLID in that aspect as more LI's are introduced and giving them all a place to reside when not doing their own thing..
The writing is as good as most VNs out there, some occasional slip ups but FAR better than most who dont even bother to fix these issues..

Hopes for the future - Better Nemesis.. as a World of warcraft fan id love to see some form of Lich King level nemesis, especially since we have already now had a Jaina Proudmoore esq character added and i'd love to see a daz rendered Goldshire dev.. make it so lol

Overall a great story, visuals and future outlook.. well worth supporting and looking forward to more

Starts off reasonably strong, quickly gets bogged down adding dozens of bland side characters and nonsensical plot developments, with the player moving from one brief, paint-by-numbers sexual encounter to the next. I think the dev might have a good game in them, but next time I hope they start with a strong, focused outline and stick to it, with an eye towards quality over quantity.

Love a good fantasy game where you play as an absolute unstoppable force. Plenty of likeable characters as well as constant new areas being unlocked. Great stuff. It's rare a game on here would be just as entertaining without the NSFW. Keep up the great work!

So far the game has been enjoyable. The renders are decent and animations are smooth. LI's are pretty with each having their own scars and demons MC helps them deal with. It is a cliche harem trope so keep your brains at rest when such situations arise where women just get wet the moment they see MC.

The story is more like Adventures of a guy and his quest to bang different woman across different worlds and not of a guy who is out there to find the killer of his parents and in the path meets different girls who help him deal with his inner demons. So far only Eliza has done that for him while rest are either damsel in distress or too horny to think.

One thing I wished it did differently was introducing evil folks in a better way. So far the game is light hearted with MC managing to deal with the toughest opponents and situations easily. You just don't really feel any tension building about the fact there are so many evil men out there ready to hunt MC down with some even stronger than him or the fact his parents murderer is still out at large. When there is a final boss out there, the story needs to have moments shown where player should feel worried and thrilled about the build up to their confrontation something the story lacks.

I pushed myself to play until Chapter 4, but I just couldn't get into it. Personally, it never clicked with me. I found myself cringing at most of the dialogue, and the story didn't really capture my interest. I can enjoy a "slow burn," but I need to feel entertained at some point. That said, I can see the effort that went into the game, and the animations are decent. It's just not my cup of tea, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be for someone else.

This is an poor game overall.

It's a story focused game which has so many characters and plot threads that it feels schizophrenic in it's story telling mechanisms. Due to the fight for camera time between so many leading ladies it makes most of them come off as incredibly desperate. My best in universe explanation is that this is a world designed literally for him but it feels like a huge negative in a story focused game.

The plot has some nice set pieces and fight scenes which are ambitious but overall lacking in narrative tension as it's a porn game so we know the protagonist isn't dying and the dev doesn't seem to have any inclination of letting you lock yourself out of a path unless you explicitly choose too.

Linking in to choosing paths, it's completely pointless. The story suffers from it because it pretends that you might not being in a harem with half the fucking world's women but you are and it feels like there is a complete disconnect. The women even say to each other "Let's pretend nothing is going on around each other because that'd make each other sad.". Avoiding unpacking the in universe clear acknowledgement that the protagonist is making each of these women actively unhappy, it really limits a lot of scenes where someone you are close to is now acting strangely distant or conversely someone you have said no too still being all over you but stopping just before giving you a blow job.

Most sex scenes are basic in terms of imagination and length but well executed in terms of animation and direction. The female leads are pretty well designed too (aside from the fact they all seem to basically fall under a stupidity spell for the Protagonist). Some of the leads are actually really engaging with Eliza, while having a story that seems rushed at points, being a very fleshed out character (at least comparatively - she still suffers from Protagonist took my brain syndrome).

If you play a Story Focused Porn game you are playing it because you care about a good story with sexual content through out. When it fails on pacing and narrative and characters I don't know what it has left to offer.

Eliza l'une des meilleures LI de tout le VN !
De nombreux LI sont beaux, bonne histoire
Impatient to follow the future adventure ! Give a great role to Eliza please, perhaps a pregnancy ??? it would be great !

Good models, good story . This is one of the better games here. I hope this game continues. I'm already waiting for the next update to the game. This is my opinion after playing version 0.5.3 i was playing the light path. i will play the dark path too.

English:............9/10
User Interface:.....3/10
User Experience:....7/10
Art:................7/10
Dialogue:...........4/10
Story:..............6/10
Opinion:............5/10................
Avg:.............5.86/10 [2.93/5]

Every time I boot this game up, I quit early. No. Not because of limited sexual content. Contrary to what the first few frames of the game think, I have never cared that there is or isn't sex in the game yet. It's because the story lording the possible future sex over you is in fact, boring. Love at first sight and building all the relationships off-screen. It talks about relationship and world-building, but can someone point to where the relationship building has been? MC meets a girl, they travel to a couple taverns, and are horny for each other. The end? And the childhood friend? They were childhood friends and... That means she loves him. And the world-building? From what I remember, they go to MC's hometown to find his parents killers, a decade later, and angels exist. So the two major points they say they want to focus, don't exist. Nice. Granted this is from memory, and I DESPERATELY want to be proven wrong. ALL THAT SAID, I don't remember bad English, the renders were mostly good, and I don't remember the dialogue so that means it didn't make me angry at least. None of those are compliments, sure, but they're not bad. To be honest, I had a computer crash last time I played and lost a lot of my review so I got fed up and haven't touched the game in ages. This review might seem a little disjointed because it's me in two separate points of time. Here's hoping I like it a bit more or something.


I'm gonna have to call my review here. I'll finish to end of current content (5.2) and chime in if something of value happens. But honestly this is absurd. Kira once again loses the ability to function as a human when he's around. MC is suddenly sexually forward with her. It's annoying. Around the time MC leaves his village with Eliza, I had mild hopes for this. But the writer CONTINUES to avoid writing character building of any kind and just time skip to when they're in love. Which, SPOILER ALERT is about 3 seconds after they meet. You have no concept of time. The villain just escapes using pocket sand. And nothing is happening. MC had one goal, but because Eliza exists and there's some ethereal tie they have, he didn't just kill Taron and be done with it. Better yet, his allies all now know Taron is the bad guy, this should be over. MC will walk up to a new character, read their character sheet and tell them their traits every single time. Instead of getting an adventure, this is MC saying something will happen and it happens right after. And last time I played, I SWEAR I remember Rin being in the story, or whatever the other childhood friend he had was named. MC learns or remembers he has new magical powers whenever its convenient for him to do so. The only other semi-competent human is Dalen and he's just there as a plot device to give MC access to whatever he needs. He's known them for 3 weeks, maybe, and gives them land? The lengths the heavens and earth bend to facilitate MC is astronomical. The only problem MC has in the story is that traveling and doing things takes time. There's no adversity, there's nothing negative that happens. You're left not caring for anything because the writing is so infantilized it might as well be an episode of Blues Clues. Even Gods are in love with him. There's no end to it. His character is just "I want revenge" what does anyone see in him? I'm playing as him and I couldn't tell you anything about him, that's miserable. And upon getting to the part where they COMPLETELY REMAKE ANOTHER GAME'S PLOT ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! All respect I had for the game was gone once I saw that. It probably means other things from other games are stolen too. This is a joke and I'm not touching it again.

Let's be real, no one's reading this long of a review. I get it. The synopsis is: The English is fine. I noticed a few weird lines but that's about it. The UI/UX is stock, nothing touched outside adding more save slots. The Names NEED an outline though. So many names are orange or mid tone and you can't read who's talking. The Art is okay. The animations are all tine slow motion loops that just don't look all that good. Whoever needs to hear this, speed up the timings, my god. The Dialogue isn't terrible. I'll give it that. When it's not some maiden pining for MC to come fart on them or whatever, the dialogue feels natural. Too bad it and the story just ell you what is going to happen next at all times. No mystery or adventure here. But MOST of the dialogue is a character acting like a lovesick teen that just started dating for the first time in their life. The Story itself is what drew me in. I was hopeful the story of a Nephilim would have cool things to show me. But no. It's a simple revenge story that I'm uninterested in. Can I see them doing something positive with this? Maybe. But the dialogue and crap characters kills it for me. Forcing competent people to suddenly be bumbling morons and giving Love Interests, the whole point of the damn game, zero agency or importance beyond what they theoretically mean to MC, that's a joke. They had all the time in the world to make it so I give a shit about these characters. But no. Time skip "They talked a lot and fell in love." That is the character building in this. MC never questions if he should seek revenge. Never has to work for anything. The "villain" even leads him right to him. I'm so unbelievably frustrated and disappointed by this game.

Review as at [v0.5.2]
I know it does not feel good seeing nasty remarks about a game you created, but some of us players do enjoy the game, and we definitely feel some of these points would make the experience a lot better, so I do hope you take the time to review some of the comments!

The game is a fantasy/medieval story revolving around a boy from a small village, seeking revenge for the death of his parents, while making new friends and unlocking mysteries along the way. It is pretty interesting, enough for me to continue all the way to the current version. There are some parts of the game where I've the urge to skip, so it can be a little draggy in some areas, but overall, I do enjoy the story so far.

An important aspect of a game is the characters, and the girls/love interest here are generally pretty well designed. My favourite has to be Diana, Pearl, Maia and Rose, I find them just beautiful. Each have their own personality, and you do see some growth in them as the story goes on. Art and animation is also pretty decent. I do find the animation slowly improving with the newer versions, which is great! Now I'll move on to areas where I feel improvements can be made.

Choices/decision. As it stands, it feels that the dialogue options have little to no impact to the game at all, and it's mostly about gaining points with a certain LI, or whether MC will have a scene or not. For a game with choices in the first place, there should be more impact/consequences depending on which choice we pick. The Light/Dark path should branch out very differently from one another, but it doesn't feel much difference at the moment.

Love Interest/Girls. While the designs of the girls are great and all, there are just way too many LIs in the game, and cause way lesser screen time for many of them. Many of them adds very little value to the story, and I find it better not to include them at all, instead of trying to force content in for them, as this would affect the overall quality of the game. Quality is definitely better than quantity in this case. Speaking of the LIs, I keep rejecting Eliza, and even chose to "friendship lock-in" on her, yet there are still "relationship choices" with her, and she still sleeps on the same bed naked with MC, hugs him all the time, being lovey-dovey and all, now this is very annoying and frustrating as a player. If you gave us the choice to stay as friends, It would be good to keep it that way, instead of always having these additional contents with the particular LI, the same could be said for all the other LI's that are rejected. Some of the dialogues in the game are also a little cheesy/cringey, and somehow each of the girls MC meets all seems to want to jump on him, I think this is a little excessive, showing very little buildup in the relationship between the characters.

Pros:
-Interesting story
-Decent art and animation
-Beautiful girls

Cons:
-Decision does not seem to matter
-LI seems to all just fall for the MC
-Too many characters, causing content to suffer for each of them
-Lack of character/relationship building between MC and LI
-Mediocre UI

V0.5.2
a simple version number. no over inventiveness that other devs choose for version updates, which they seem to lack in their games. clearly this dev sees the wheel and knows it does not require reinventing.

odd rant aside, this one i do quite like. it has it's issues, like we see the booty, we can touch the booty, but we cannot plunder the booty.....game even has pirates in it and we STILL cannot see the MC plug any females' hamster mouth. work THAT logic out!!
an anti pirate game that has pirates....

some of the art is suspect, with a few females pulling faces that has me thinking i have inadvertently switched to the nature channel and i have an urge to throw breadcrumbs to the swimming birds. but most of it is more than up to the task. my occasional chubby is living proof....oh...it was livin......no. wait. there it is again....

the writing and plot are pretty good. pacing is not the best but it has enough about it to be interesting, which is more than most. some of the dialogue can be a little immature but i don't feel luck i am stuck in the young adult section, which is where they keep the enid blyton and old mills & boon bodice rippers.

oddly, i get much of a muchness vibe about this, like another devs works under a different name. 23-22-13 is your only clue, though this is much better plot wise. just serious de ja vu on occasion with writing and art styles.

can't really fault this one as it does entertain me. MC being a protein enema applicator, to go with his skin cream dispenser and egg fertiliser duties, would be nice. it's booty waiting to be plundered and even half gods love a bit of piracy

Unfortunately I'm gona repeat what others said: game/story starts strong and turns to a childish brainless harem. Just meh. You keep rejecting lis and they just come again and again and again. I'll download it again when/if it gets finished to know what happened to the main girl.

Thank you and best of luck.

Definately one of my favourites. Great graphics, strong characters and good story. I love it. I plunge into each new episode with excitement and can't wait for the next. I hope tthat this one goes on and on.

Nephilim [v0.5.1] [BuuPlays]

It wasn't that good. Cheesy writing, boneless MC aka "disgusting wet blanket" with cast of 1,5~2-D characters, great models, interesting premise but edgy story with poor execution and just general feel of a fanfic.

Story - ~1,5-2.1/5. Eeeeeeeehh, meeeeeeh.
Choices - 3/5. Points, points, points!~
Characters - ~1-2/5. Most of the time it's just 'whatever'. Alice is shit.
Models - ~3.7/5 Good, sometimes not so.
Animations - ~1.6-3/5 Differs. Some are good, some weird, some boring.