VN - Ren'Py - Nothing Is Forever [v0.7.3] [MrSilverLust]

Amazing...
If you're just looking for porn to get off, you'll want to skip this one.
If you're looking for an "experience" (which happens to include some pretty good sex scenes) that allows you to shape a story to your personality, preferences or just roleplay a different "mood", stop waiting, download this one immediately, and get started...


Despite some of the early "art" issues (there's noticeable improvement as the story progresses), the sex scenes are still smoking hot, and the dialogue, oh my... And some of the art is spectacular, like the "parchment style" transitions and profile backgrounds. So, it's definitely not bad, just the character images could be cleaned up or improved, the shading is a bit "distracting". The subtle changes in facial expressions based on mood, tone, dialogue are a positive.

I really enjoyed the hints, skills, mechanics of this one.
The dev provides an excellent "user manual" so a reader can understand the skills & mechanic functions to make informed decisions, choices instead of blindly guessing or having to "figure it out"...
For replay purposes, there are different "modes" that can be turned on for different experiences.
So many different ways to shape the story, immersion, roleplay, etc.; see the "lewd scenes" you want, miss the ones you don't want to see.

So many good elements (large and small) to this one that are cleverly used and incorporated into the story. The "voices in your head" stuff is brilliant, because it really is that way sometimes...

Found it recently, and I can say in all honestly... is one of the best games here. Much more, if you reallly enjoy femdom as I do, but is not just that. It has one the best sistems out there to let you decide your path with the girls, it explores a great variety of kinks, and the desing of every character is superb, as well as their personalities. Everyone should try it, but for me is the best femdom game, hands down.

A very slow burn game without any of the payoff you get from usual slow burn type games. The thing that people enjoy about slowburns is the rewarding feeling you get seeing a romantic development between the characters but this game goes ahead and does the opposite.

The thing I hate the most about this game that all the LI's are locked behind some sort of fetish. I'm not exaggerating, every LI has some sort of kink oriented path and if you're not into that kink, too bad I guess because there isn't an alternative. You just need to hope that you like that particular LI and also like the particular kink attached with that LI for you to have a satisfactory playthrough. This classic fapfest game feature implemented in a slow burn story ruins the entire dynamic of the game and the worst thing is it's not even optional.

It's the classic case of mixing spaghetti with ice cream, ice cream in itself is good, spaghetti in itself is also good but if you mix the two together you'll most likely get some sort of gag inducing concoction.

One of the best games I'm playing so far!

I could talk about renders, animations etc., but for me the game's strongest point by far is how well it lets you tune it to your personal kinks.

Want to be a full humiliating and forcing dom? Do it! Just want to dominate the girl without hurting her? No problem!

Like sharing and NTR but don't want to be a full simping beta bitch like 90% of NTR games? Yeah, sure. Want to be the biggest SIMP on earth? Yeeeah.

Also, really good story and characters for those who are interested whilst not lacking in sexual content. Great job IMO!!

The visual novel is inundated with endless walls of text.. it just never seems to stop! I reluctantly threw in the towel around chapter 3, despite my usual patience for slow burns and reluctance to skip dialogues (I held that CTRL button like there is no tomorrow).
Unfortunately, I don't think this VN is my cup of tea. In fact, I found it lacking and wouldn't rate it more than 2 stars, to be honest.

[As of Episode 7]

Long story short:
'Nothing is Forever' is a very nice soap opera with some interesting, if not fully explored mechanics.

Long story long:

There are two interesting bits about this game: the story and the game mechanics.

I would say that the writing is quite good. It is a slow-burn type of story, although it is far from being THE slowest adult VN. It is, in general, a rewarding experience due to the pretty interesting and mostly sympathetic characters, mostly plausible events that do not break your immersion, and a variety of fetishes you can explore.

The game has two unusual mechanics:

- a list of kinks your character is comfortable with.
- an 'emotion' you feel toward certain girls, which stucks from your previous encounters and seems to close off certain interactions.

While the second one is mostly to spice things up a bit, it is the kinks mechanics where the game grabs my attention. Basically, it is an RPG-type system where you level up using something like an XP pool.

The way you talk, the choices you make don't just make the story go in a certain direction. They also give you points that you can spend on the kinks you're interested in. This, in turn, offers further story branching or at least different sex scenes.

It seems to me that the most important difference is whether you'd like to be a manly man or a more sensitive guy. But it has shades! You can be manly without having a humiliation kink, for instance, or you can be sensitive and caring without becoming submissive.

This is a great system, but sadly it may be overly complicated for the game as it is now. The girls are different, and they have different routes which are tied with the kinks you open. I'm not quite sure, but I suppose it IS possible to have a completely sexless life in this game if you're really unlucky with your choices. There is a hint system, so you know what the girls do or do not like, but that's it.

It doesn't help that certain love interests have more content than others. Two of the girls have a lot of possible scenes. And one girl in particular has almost nothing so far. There is a story justification for that, and it seems that the encounters will be more balanced in the future, but for now, the game is already too long and you may never become intimate with the girl you're interested in. And it is not a harem game, so it takes at least some dedication from the main character, cutting off other branches.

As you can see, the mechanics don't fully live up to the potential. It is also quite clear that the developed has changed some things as you go: for instance, there is a kink-discovery mini-game that I've played in the first two or three episodes, but then it simply fell into background. Or take the way you 'progress' from one scene to another: two times developer entertained 'a world map' of sorts, but it didn't stick.

To a certain extent the same goes for the narrative. Mostly it is quite consistent in tone, being a pretty serious story about non-sociopathic good-natured fellows (except for one bitch, which will be a real delight to any evil heart). They joke around, they have fun, so the underlying themes of depression, self-doubt and anxiety do not make this game depressing itself. That's certainly a win! Still, sometimes there are some weird parts.

Verdict

I suggest you try 'Nothing is forever' if you like slice-of-life stories. It is vastly superior to most of the similar VNs, and MrSilverLust seems to be a creative and talented person. I think this game already missed its chance to be perfect, but who wants perfect anyway? It is mostly fun, heartfelt, has something for different people, and surely shows great promise for the developer. I certainly enjoyed it and wait for the updates.

And holy fuck there is a lot of chess in the game. I love it. Especially the fact that you don't have to play it. You just have to watch a lot of matches (five? six? seven?). I enjoyed it, but yeah... Not for everyone.

Anyway, the review is getting too long. Cheers!

I first want to say that I think this AVN would be a lot more popular if the beginning renders, well, maybe the overall renders were a lot better because they are average at best, but the rest of it makes up for it by far. The story, characters and point system are what make this VN really great. One of a kind in fact. I just hope the dev continues making AVNs in this style after this one is completed.

I can't give it 5 stars for technical reasons, but the writing and character building is top notch.

Skill system is pretty unique and quite well done.
Lots of variety with the ladies and various fetishes to explore.
Interactions with the MCs personas is a very humorous and sensitive way to approach mental illness. I have never seen it really addressed with such finesse and vulnerability in any other game I've played.

Does not overly rely on unnecessary dialogue which is very nice. When the point of the conversation is over it just kind of faded to black. I like this a lot and would love for some other Devs who typically use excessive dialogue or inner monologue, to carry the narrative, to take a lesson from this.

If this Dev gets a better rig or refines their skill with renders and animations, they would be the total package, which is very rare in adult games.

I just highly recommend this game for anyone wanting a unique and interesting take on the Dating Sim. It is very good.

Lea best girl. Emma best girl I love to hate.

Oh, almost forgot, the music is great. Would really like some sexy sounds in the lewd scenes, but you can't have it all.

The writing and narrative depth in this game are both really raising a lot of bars. The character development is par excellence, with an array of differing kinks and personalities.

The modeling on the LIs is good, though I'd personally prefer a bit more variation in pubic hair. Too many of them are shaved for my tastes, but it is what it is. Still a minor quibble for a really remarkable game with a robust skill system and brilliant writing.

Story 2/5
I really like the idea of the skill system but its barely ever used, you gain a ton of points and theres barely any choices where you have a use for them and since its a none harem game the hole system is kinda pointless and useless since you will only need points a couple of times with the girl you pick, unless you play it as a fuckfest which its not ment to be.

As for the story its a real slowburn, chapter 1 has one sex scene but only if you want to be with that girl which i dident, i normaly dont really mind slowburns i like relationship build-up and such but i think my issue is really the story, i saw some reviews talking about it being realistic, not sure what world people lives in to think that its realistic having a psychologist helping girls by telling her to remove her panties and walk around outside to explore a kink she might have.....i found that idiotic to say the least and for MC to flirt with her none stop if even more stupid if you as the player has 0 interrest in her.

It also gets annoying that your forced to constantly follow every damn story for each girl since most if not all are sooo boring and has nothing to do with relationship build-up, its just a shitload of meaningless dialogs or drawn out chess games and a ton of wannabe psychologist dialogs, its just to much for very little reward.

And it feels extremly stupid when you then have to turn down girl after girl due to MC going after everything that walks.....girls paths should have been closed of soooo much ealiere or atleast the choice of doing it should have been alot ealiere which would also make game replayable which its really not now.

Its also very boring since there arent really many H-scenes doing the game due to MC going after everyone, so even if you play this as a none harem which it is and play faithfull to one girl, you will realllllly have a boring game since each girl dosent have anywhere near enough screen time for sex stuff, proberly because its expected for you to go after everyone which is also stupid when its a none harem.

It also just feels idiotic and boring being forced to constantly see MC flirt with girls and having to do all kind of pointless things with girls that you have turned down and dont want to be with, game simply just dosent alloow you to drop any of them, i mean even when you tell some one your not the right guy MC then goes on to say next time we can do it? it just dosent make any sense, its like game was ment to be a fuckfest and a harem.

How game has such a high rating i have no clue, my guess is its people that has a stuck skip button so they dont read the story other then when a choice pops up...but even then rewards arent good since animations arent great either....and to me its pretty clear most dont care about story since 94% fucks the first girl? that was pushed onto MC by hes friends and at a time where MC is pissed? makes no sense not even for the story, so not sure how much you can trust those % game shows, since everyone seems too play it like a fuck em all game even though its a none harem.

Also feel like devs has been a bit to lazzy not making a single virgin, Jens story dosent make much sense that shes not a virgin considering the one guy she liked broke her hearth before it got anywhere and her saying she had 0 friends ever after that and only doing her chess stuff but then somehow by magic she had a boyfriend at some point? story lacks in details and its just flawed and insted of making her a virgin they made it so no one has ever seen her nude or seen her tits or done a BJ, so MC will be the first man to ever see her nude, first for a BJ, but not the first to fuck her....its just to stupid.

Renders are nice sure but everything else is just meh.

Story also have some huge flaws where it ignores choices made by the player, take Lea if you say no to her in the park and nothing happens and then later agrees to do her kink with her, they talk about how she took off her panties in the park and gave them to MC and MC says she will never get them back, problem is nothing what so ever happened at the park, so game dosent only lack in details it also cant keep track of whats going on.

Girls 2/5
I dident really like the look of most of them, kinda liked the chess player but thats about it, as for diversity theres arent really any, they are mostly just about the same build.

Animations 2/5
Very boring, no teasing just jumps stright to fucking full speed, single position, its just meh and it dosent help that theres very few of them as well.

Musc 4/5
Mostly just average stuff but a few with lyrics so above average.

Choices 3/5
Nothing is forced and you can pick the girl you want to be with so that part works great, but for the rest of the game its feels extremly kineitc and the only thing you can change is who your going to end up with, problem with that is that it has 0 replayability which is idiotic in a none harem game, issue is play it once and you will have seen all the girls story and it would simply just be to boring to replay to just see a sex scene or two.

Hands down one of the best AVNs ever made. The story is incredibly engaging, the characters are all written as three-dimensional 'humans' (as opposed to one-dimensional caricatures most games employ), and your decisions actually impact the plot in extremely significant ways.

Play this game. You will not regret it. This is what an adult-visual-novel should be!

I don't understand why the game has so many good ratings. After 2 hours of playing, absolutely nothing has happened except boring dialog. And you can't really imagine that there will be any interesting sexual encounters, especially femdom scenes. It does nothing to stimulate the imagination. Not even the renders are particularly good... A complete waste of time!

This game is fantastic. Probably the best femdom focused game ever made. Excellent and well written story. A lot of paths and fetishes to chose. You can chose femdom, maledom or vanilla. Renders are very good.

I feel I'm almost being a little harsh but my personal opinion is that this just isn't worth anyone's time.

I found the concept of articulating your character through choices of personality interesting but it just doesn't seem to go anywhere. There are quite a few choices in the game that are dependant on your 'skill choices' and they seem to matter, but I just found myself trawling through endless reams of text without ever actually getting any kind of payoff.

Perhaps I found the one path where your character ends up a sexless boring individual (#tooreal), but this game was utterly boring.

I gave it two stars because there's clearly a lot of effort put in and it the models are very cute, but holy shit, that was a fucking tedious waste of my life I won't get back.

*edit* - Also just remembered, the one downside to the skills thing is that you have to pick a certain amount of choices to get to the later ones, which can lead to some odd combinations arising (in my opinion).

Story 9/10 deals with many themes but is never
Directionless

Art 9/10 great art according to me ,does the
Job it has

Choices 10/10: many branching paths,many
Kinks

Content 10/10 has a lot of content as chapter 7
So yeah 8hrs per path

Kinks 10/10 : many kinks like maledom,femdom,
Hatefuck,voyuerism all optional by choice

Not gonna win any game of year awards but
Damn good game

[0.7.3] Boring. There are too many paths, which (eventually) lead to the loss of the essential. An entry-level visual novel, with many scenes/events that make you to waste time... without a well-defined goal in the end.

Excellent, high-effort game. The dev has done a lot of work withing the Ren'Py library and I don't recall encountering any bugs during my playthrough, apart from some missing artwork in the current non-final chapter. The writing is confident and mature, was written by a fluent English speaker, and even the latest non-final patch has fairly minimal typos.

This game offers a wide variety of kinks. Progression is made by prioritizing 4 core attributes and using those points in a skill tree-like structure, which is a bit shallow but is refreshing nonetheless. The cast covers diverse archetypes (although I do wish that the role of evil bitch had gone to one of the five white women rather than the only Asian LI), most of whom are fairly three dimensional. Chances are that you'll really enjoy whichever core partner you end up selecting on your first play-through. As a Jen-stan, I really enjoy my kinky Queen's Gambit experience -- complete with chess commentary!

The plot is not one in which our MC suddenly gains super powers, a demon appears, or other strange "I'm not sure what to do now to keep things interesting" maneuvers. You're not trying to save the world, take over a company, etc. The stakes are personal, and I believe that the experience shines for it.

This game has quite a few songs, and, surprisingly, I find none of them annoying. I do wish that the karaoke songs had been more obvious and fitting, however.

The gripes: So far, I've been surprised by the lack of importance of the MC's ex except as a stage-setting device. The intro and first chapter led me to believe that she would play a larger role as she seemed to be a cipher for the MC's brokenness. I'm guessing that the author started wishing to do so, but found that the jack o' lantern face was more interesting/easier to render, but I think the original idea had more valence. Also, I appreciate the UI work that went into this game, but I do wish that the autoplay had some sort of indicator for when it was toggled on and off.

This game has minimal animations, and I find that a lot of the sexual animations lack a bit of oomph. The stills are very nice, though. Non-sexual animations were more common in the early chapters but they are less prominent entering the mid-chapters, likely due to resource-intensivity.

Overall this game is excellent and very polished. I would recommend that nearly anyone try it.

Review for: v0.7.0

Story: Despite finding the game from a story-first games list recommendation, the story isn't it's strong point.
Atleast not in the traditional sense.
There's no overarching plot, no consistent connection between scene progression. It's more like a Friends season with a loose plot rather than a movie with a compact plot.
It's not a negative though, but a choice in the games design. And boy does it work.
By giving up on these, it better showcases each scene, giving them more impact.
It feels like glimpses into the MC's life, showcasing the important parts while life goes on in the background.
It's a format that works very well for this game & you don't even feel the lack of a compact plot progression. Instead you can better enjoy the moments, for those moments are not swept up in being a part of a greater whole, atleast not right away.

Originality: It's not really original, but not exactly a copy of any other game either.
I guess this is as original as you can expect, with so many games nowadays. Definitely better quality than most.

Renders: They are okay renders, nothing that wows me, but nothing to complain about either.
Except that filter that does weird stuff sometimes. Like making it look like a characters head is detached from their body
The arrangement of the graphics is pretty well done tho, not your normal 1 full-screen render only, but a lot of different styles.
Works pretty well

Sound: Has some nice tracks & sounds. Definitely above average on this point.

Routes: Routes are mostly content routes that lets you choose between dom, sub, vanilla etc.
Only one route looks like "exclusive to a girl" route, and even then it just lets you choose between Loyal & cheating kinks. Loyal path ofc you lose scenes with other girls, while cheating actually adds cheating content
In short the game manages to somewhat hit the sweet spot of the choices being impactful without being restrictive, allowing you to play how you want instead of being forced to give up on certain girls/scenes.

Kinks: This the reason you play this game. Despite not having kink or fetish in the game's title, this is the king of using kinks in a game.
There's a wide variety of them, but I've only played my paths on the dom side so I can only talk about those, but those were God. Damn .Perfect.
Especially talking about rarely seen kinks like female orgasm control/denial, dominant ntr (netori/bull), cheating (actually used properly as a kink/fetish) etc. this game seems to have an understanding of kinks better than any other game & knows how to implement them to the max effect.

This doesn't mean romance is absent ofc.
But the way to get the best out of this game is to take part in the various kinks it offers, from dom to sub to neutral kinks (like exhibitionism).
You won't regret it (ofc don't choose stuff you're not into )

A great game that manages to achieve perfection in one aspect: 5 stars totally deserved.

A solid, 5/5 game for me, one of the best on this site.


The good stuff:

- Well-written story that keeps you engaged and interested for the most part (even if it does tend to get a little draggy once in a while).

- Well fleshed out kinks and fetishes system. Essentially you choose conversation options that forms the basis for the player character's personality and this in turn gives you points in four main categories. The unlocked subcategories determine whether you can initiate a sex scene with a particular kink, where relevant.
While this system as a whole is not necessary to the plot of the game and can hinder the experience of someone who just wants to see all the scenes and have a quick wank, I think it does a good job of coaxing the player into actually sticking to their established character's tendencies - which in turn provides a more immersive experience. Hence this is a plus in my book, overall.

- Amazing characters that are all unique in their own ways and actually have distinct personalities without just being mannequins for the player to fuck. Deb is a dominant woman with marriage problems and a sweet husband that I personally liked as a character. Emma is a conflicted feminist coming to terms with her own fetish for being degraded. Kim is a raging bitch that I despise to the core, and you couldn't pay me enough money to even try and romance holy shit words are not enough to describe the amount of hatred I have for this shameless unrepentant bitch even if I'm going off on a tangent right now. All the characters are realistic in their motivations and feel well-crafted, even the ones I don't particularly care for.

- The ratio of story to sex scenes feels perfect for me, and this is possibly very subjective. Many games try and fail to handle this delicate balance, ending up with too much story that drags on and tires the player out; or the sex scenes are too far and few in between, with too little frames such that they don't feel rewarding enough for having to slog through all the prior text. Sometimes it's a combination of both. This game, however, has a healthy balance of both in my opinion that I don't mind reading through the dialogue and text because I know the scenes that follow will be worth it, and all the more enhanced by my understanding of the story/characters.


Points for improvement:

- If there was one thing I'd say felt missing, it'd be the presence of some kind of conflict, climax and resolution. Most stories with multiple paths like this require some kind of overarching conflict or problem, with one or a handful of points where the scenes converge before resolving and ending in a proper conclusion with all loose ends tied. This can be seen in games like "Freeloading Family", "Acting Lessons" etc. This game's plot however, doesn't seem to be heading in that kind of direction anytime soon, so each girl's relevant plot still seems separate and unrelated to the game as a whole. Yeah, I love romancing Emma, but it doesn't seem to bring me closer to the conclusion in any kind of way, and each path seems to diverge further with each update. Maybe the game is still early into its lifespan and it isn't yet time for the story to start working towards its conclusion. Or maybe this isn't something the dev has considered - in which case I hope the suggestion has been helpful. Only time will tell.



TL;DR: As a whole, it's an enjoyable experience that I would definitely giving a try, because there's a little something for everyone even if you may not end up liking all the romanceable characters.

Also:-
Emma is love,
Emma is life,
She's a bit of a brat,
But still best wife

To be honest, the renders almost made me put the game into the trash immediately after downloading. Glad I stuck through though. The writing is very good. A lot of things feel pretty natural, there are some fun gimmicks to the game that make it entertaining, and I LOVE the development of the horny scenes. Lots of options, and I look forward to more of this game in the future.