Ren'Py - Completed - On Distant Shores [v1.0 Final] [Professor Amethyst Games]

It is an 8 out of 10 game, and here is my review of it.

It might contain some mild spoilers, so be advised.

First of all, I am not a native English speaker, so I cannot judge the writing.

The graphics and renders are pretty decent, and the animations are good too, especially considering it was made by just one person.

The story was one of the best I've played lately, though unfortunately not until the end, so let's get to that.

The message at the end with that girl hit me hard. As someone who has been struggling with depression and life for a long time, unfortunately, I have had more life inside the VN than in my own.

The story was captivating and very interesting. I really enjoyed the pace of things and the way they were going, BUT a little more control over certain choices and possibly different paths would have been awesome. The religious concept and the idea that God abandoned that universe were amazing. I was really excited to see a happy ending where I would finally be able to deflower Breanna, but sadly, that never happened </3. The ending was bad for me, but that doesn’t mean the game is. When you have a depressing life, the least you can expect from some games is to have a happier one.

Sorry if my review sounds a little off. Again, I am not a native English speaker, and sometimes I struggle a lot when trying to express my thoughts and feelings. Your characters were really good and well-constructed. I grew attached to a handful of them and really wanted to help them and give them a happy ending.

That said, I thank you for this game and for the time I enjoyed while playing it. You don’t have to, but maybe in the near future, you could revisit the game—perhaps a remake? If you manage to have a small team in the future to help with it, that would be awesome. More choices and endings, more renders, and more time with the girls. I am looking forward to your next works and wish you all the best and good luck. Thanks for the game. I also hope that in the near future, my life will change and give me the possibility to support your next games.

Hands down one of the most anticlimactic endings of an AVN that I have ever participated in. I enjoyed the story very much for the most part. The animations were decent, the models were pretty good... I had planned a 5 star review until that ending. I can't discredit the rest of the work done though. Kept me wanting more. Garbage ass ending.

what a fucking story! Extraordinary! First of all I want to say that I totally disagree with those who described the ending as abrupt. I found it perfect with the final explanation. What other ending could there be? Certainly not a final overview of what would happen next (as so many games of this type normally end). I don't want to make any spoilers, so I won't explain what I mean, but for me after the final explanation the ending could only be like this (I've played all the endings). One thing is for sure: at the end I was 10 minutes in front of the screen crying overcome with emotion. Real tears. The whole game had me emotionally involved from shortly after the beginning. I found the story very well thought out and constructed. I recommend reading the whole thing without skipping parts even in the parts where the action slows down.

I went into so much detail about the story because I think that's the main thing about the game. Yes there is also the erotic and pornographic part... but it's completely secondary. It even annoyed me at times because I wanted to continue in the story.

What else to say... the characters are really well constructed. Each character has his own characteristics, his own personality, his own fetishes. The dialogues are hardly stupid or unrealistic.

One small flaw: there were some paths that were opened and were not continued (e.g. Sarah). But it was impossible to finish all the open paths before reaching the end. It would have taken years and the game would have lasted far too long.

The animations... as I said before, this part is completely secondary within the game. In any case, I found them adequate and they serve to do what they are supposed to do.

Writing: I also liked this aspect a lot. I'm not English and I have to say that I learned dozens and dozens of new words.

I can't wait to see the first releases of this author's next game which I will definitely start supporting. Great work!

To sum up, since I can't give 10 stars I'll just have to give it 5.

Interesting story, beautiful art but the ending felt so rushed and did not provide any closure. So much build up for everything and everyone just to literally fade away.
I look forward to the next story.

I first downloaded this game because I saw that it was complete and I really get tired of the play-stop-play routine of unfinished games. I was also a little wary of the "horrible accident killed your family" premise, as it seemed to be used and used again. However, I liked that there was a supernatural element to it, so I fired it up.

I am so glad that I did. Wow!

Things I liked/loved about this VN:

* Gripping, intelligent storyline. I wanted to keep coming back to it even though I was knee-deep in another VN when I started
* Beautiful characters, each with their own unique personalities
* Unexpected twists
* Amazing endings - I recommend a save so you can see all that the Professor had in mind
* The music was awesome - not the canned music bits that often show up in different VNs but well-written and well-produced original music that really set the tone of the scene

Things I didn't like about this VN:

Well, nothing really, but some parts were so heavy that I was at times overwhelmed with emotion. I won't reveal any spoilers but I am sure that anyone who played through to the end would easily identify the half-dozen or more places where Professor Amethyst skillfully manipulated me into a near-profound sadness. I tip my hat to the powerful storytelling and look forward to the next one.

BRAVO!

Oh wow. I wasn't prepared for this to be such a long (!), intricate and profound story. Before I get more into that, let's discuss some basics:

- This is a VN. There is few choices and they don't ultimately matter for most of the game.
- This is a Harem game (urgh), but while other games spend time trying to sell you the idea of a completely unrealistic concept like this, the implementation here is sound and perfectly reasonable. It's also an integral part of the story. This is really well done here.
- The H scenes are ok... ish. They are serviceable at best, but given the strength of the story, it doesn't matter much. There's enough of them to please the discerning "customer" of F95zone, I am sure.
- The MC is growing over the course of the story, but for most of it, he's annoying in his self pity. At first it feels warranted, but as time goes on, his relapses get annoying, given what happens around him.
- As a MAJOR plus though, the MC is not a creep (beyond being annoying single minded at the beginning) and has socially well adjusted relationships with all minors in the game. It's depressing that I have to say this.
- The overall story is strong, but it suffers from being too tame in terms of the darkness it tries to display. Tien is a good example as the "Whipping Girl" the author's idea of hard sex / BDSM / Punishment is so laughably vanilla that it is hard to take the idea seriously. At the same time, there's a number of unique kinks (dollification?) that you probably won't see elsewhere.
- While it is commendable that it is completed, it sort of just... ends? Given the slooooooow build up, I can't blame anyone to be disappointed by this. If an ending is important to you, this one is as poor as it can be.

So, what it comes down to is the STORY. And what can I say, it's an actual story, it's the heart and soul of this VN and the reason to read it is that alone. It's engaging and fairly deep and unique. If that's what you are looking for, you won't be disappointed.

What a let-down… the story was great, I was even taking some notes, update after update, of the different things to remember, all for nothing, 3 years of taking notes for a 2 minutes ending (Krista’s ending is even worse with its unique render).

Well, don’t get me wrong, I don’t criticize the ending itself, it’s genius, it’s the kind of plot twist you only see in great movies, it blows your mind, but it’s horribly rushed, like if the dev was already starting a new project and didn’t really care about this one anymore. The ending consists of 2-3 renders, the famous 5 choices (useless in the end), and you immediately get a black screen congratulating you for reaching the end of the game. It’s frustrating because the whole concept of the story and the ending twist are great, but it leaves you with nothing but emptiness, not even a last look at all your Lis, not even a look at your wife and daughters, just nothing but a black screen.

3/5 for the nice voyage over the last 3 years, too bad it ended so abruptly…

So I really fell for this game early on, but the last few updates made it clear that the dev either lost passion for this project, or was just rushing to be done with it. We all knew the of the MC early, and we all accepted that, not everything needs a "happy end". But the final release was so rushed, and had such an abrupt ending, it made every decision feel meaningless, every connection to the love interest pointless, we got no sort of conclusion for them.

The lack of effort shown and how bad the ending was done bumped this from a 3 to a 1 for me.

This might be the best game I have played from this site. Story was amazing, I even shed a tear here and there, especially towards the ending.

Story 5/5 - Mostly top notch. Almost nothing about it felt unoriginal. It felt like a new experience. Ending felt a little bit rushed with a bunch of loose ends.
Characters 5/5 - Characters felt like real people with real emotions, flaws and wants.
Writing 4/5 - Writing was really good. I reduce the grade by one because of excessive reading. Often it feels like there's just too much unnecessary text that doesn't drive the story. It could very well be condensed a bit.
Renders: 2/5 - My main gripe of the game. Girls mostly look unnatural and weird. Their faces are not believable and they also doesn't seem follow a style, they are all over the place. The bodies are very samey porn bodies except from a few outliers.
Animations: 2/5 - Sex scenes are spread far apart, very short and mostly consist of 2-3 short loops. Don't play this for a wank. Really don't!.

Overall 5/5 - Even though it has many flaws the sum is beautiful, just like it's characters. If everything i nag about was fixed I would need another star to give it.

V 1.0

Story 4/5
Characters 5/5
Writing 5/5
Graphics 2/5
Music 2/5
Gameplay 3/5


On Distant Shores is an oscillating story about a) how life sucks when you are depressed and riddled with survivor's guilt and b) rawdogging moist pusspuss.

It starts with the MC battling his inner demons and trying to get out of bed for once. Unlike the usual setup, MC is not an isekai Adonis with broccoli hair, but a 50 year old widower of limited physical and intellectual appeal. Fortunately, MC quickly acquires the power of rawdogging and becomes a man of great physical (but not intellectual) appeal. Eventually he becomes more extroverted, and starts gathering a harem of young nubile women upon whom he can test his newfound pusspuss-mashing skills. Over time the story develops and MC has to interweave demon fighting and world-saving into his busy rawdog schedule. Unfortunately MC does not understand the concept of time and gathers a massive harem, leading to a maximum of 14 minutes per week for each woman. To alleviate this, MC acquires a new woman for his harem specializing in quickies, reducing the timer per woman to 12.4 minutes.

Story
The story is great to start. The depiction of depression and guilt is quite genuine and heartfelt, leading to an interesting and dark premise. The slow decline and relapses of this background are also felt throughout the game. The development of other story elements, such as the world-saving, is gradual and initially well weighted against the constant hunting for new puss to smash. It's only in the last third of the game or so that elements start to fall apart, with too many threads and plans disappearing without reason. Perhaps that is because the harem got too big and unmanageable timewise, or perhaps it's because the dev got bored and simply rushed to finish the game. Either way, up to this point the story is magnificent, well paced, and interesting.
In particular, the idea of a depressed man barely able to speak immediately falling for a woman that can sense his innermost feelings is a beautiful topic, and would be worthy of a VN by itself. It's a shame this woman, Breanna, gets so little screen time.
The story slowly builds up towards a lumbering beast with plenty of threads to follow and multiple mysteries to unravel, most of them quite interesting to the imagination. If only MC had a lighter front-butt-moistening schedule it might have been possible to follow them all.
In the end the story falters, and the final rush towards the conclusion is sadly below expectations in many ways given how tantalizing it gets before that point.

Characters
This is the foundation of the VN, as all the characters provide a lot of story and most of the hot puss. The women are different enough that everyone will find at least one intriguing. That alas also means that several of them will not be intriguing (specifically librarian with bad haircut and tattoed balloon boobie mom). The initial set of women are the best and most interesting, and they are all broken in different ways, a setting where MC with his life experience can shine. The start of the game is great in that MC gets to explore the various women and their lives from a position of life experience; for once justified, compared to the usual 20-year old broccoli head spouting fortune cookie wisdom. It would have been wonderful to have more time with these initial women and explore their needs in further detail, but that is skipped in favor of adding more and more women to the mix.
Eventually it gets a little heavy on the harem side and picking up additional women feels more like a chore instead of a fun activity slowly building to a crescendo.
MC starts off as a great character, quite believable and exactly the kind of downer you wouldn't invite to your birthday party. It's a pleasure watching MC slowly develop into someone more and more optimistic and extroverted, even though the ingrained self-loathing rears its head from time to time. MC remains a believable and genuine character for about 2/3 of the game, whereafter he turns into the more traditional VN spout of exposition, unreasonably aware and prepared for any scenario with an unceasing torrent of over-explanatory text in the usual VN way (along with some of the top hierarchy women).

Writing
This is the best part. Writing starts out top notch, with great pacing, a tight focus on the parts that matter, and appropriately eloquent. MC is written as a 50 year old, the younger women are written as mostly younger women, the older women are written as mostly older women, and so on. This is a rare feat, and one that the dev should be congratuled on. Towards the last third of the game this does not apply of course, but until then it's great. Spelling errors of various kinds also start appearing towards the later parts, but that's a minor issue at best as the text is still easily interpreted within the context provided.

Graphics
Graphics are bad. Slightly worse than average. The models work to convey what the dev wants, but that's all. The animations are simple and show utter contempt for gravity and any other physical law that may apply. If graphics is an important factor in your enjoyment of VNs, this will be a major issue for you. The assets used for backdrops are often poorly chosen and generic. If you have read many VNs on F95, you will recognize most of them.

Music
Music can be heard, but that's it. It rarely fits well with the scene, but does convey some general sense of the atmosphere the dev was going for.

Gameplay
Gameplay/UI is limited, but works well enough. No complaints, but no accolades either. The dev did not put much effort into this part.

Summary
If you like a well written and heavy story, you will adore the first two thirds of this game. Many characters are genuinely likeable and interesting (Breanna is excellent and could have been breathtaking in the context), and you will wish you had more time with them. If, like me, you consider graphics a secondary concern you will have no trouble filling out the vistas with your imagination to truly enjoy the vivid ups and downs of poor MC. Finally, if, like me, you are more interested in the journey than the destination, you will also be able to swallow the degradation in quality that occurs towards the end of the VN and enjoy the potential that was rather than the finale we got.

All in all I recommend this game as it offers something different, something extraordinarily well written (mostly), and something intriguing.

Best of luck to the dev on his next project.

Version: 1.0 Final

I do not recommend that you play/read this VN.

I read this VN over the weekend, and I hate it. There will be spoilers in this review since I can’t explain myself without them. I am sorry about that.

The endings are important to me when it comes to porn games, especially the ones that lean into the harem group. I am always looking for the happily ever after. But this story has none.

As you play the game, you meet lots of girls, and many of them can become your lovers. The first thing I found odd is that at least two of them are exclusive, meaning in a playthrough, you can only get one of them (it’s the goth girl or the one that talks weird; at least I found no way of getting them both).

The other thing that annoyed me was that some of the choices were blind. There is a part of the story where you get off at the wrong train stop. From there, you can walk up some stairs or walk into a tunnel; both lead to an encounter that hospitalizes you, but your choice decides which girl will help you get home from the hospital. That leads into a scene with that girl.

There is no way to know which choice leads where, but you must choose.

On top of that, the story leads you into a grand buildup where you end up with 16 girls, all with special talents to help get ready for this big fight, and everything feels epic. You win the fight and are ready to take on the next big thing, and… the world starts to fall apart. No, that’s the story plot—the world starts to unravel. All your love interests and everyone in the story you connected with, and all the planning, just start to disappear.

As everything gets torn away and you waddle your way to the grand finale, you can finally make the big decisions all this leads up to. You sit down, make the choice… and bingo, end credits.

That’s it. No outro, no closure, just the end. Hope you’re not emotionally attached to anyone.

So no, I don’t like this game/VN, and I don’t recommend anyone read it.

Version: 1.0 Final

First of, I think it's worth a praise for the dev to pick such a difficult topic for his game: Depression and all the stuff that goes with it.
While he does a fairly good job at the beginning, the pace stays way too slow and makes the progression annoying. I wound up skipping through most of the text, hoping for anything entertaining that was worth my time.
Gladly, the pace and story improves a bit later on, but the writing stays weak and boring. And: Not a single lewd scene before free roaming starts, which turned the game completely down for me. I stopped playing right after I got there.

Cannot recommend this game.

Not really sure what to make of this. At first I thought it was a wish fulfillment VN with a pathetic MC who suddenly gains superpowers and a harem. The sex scenes weren't great but you got the feeling that each girl had her own path and kink and whatever, which is pretty much par for the course.

And then there's the main plot, which gradually becomes more and more front and center and ties everything together. Sure, there are still sex scenes but it becomes window dressing. It seems like things will go in the direction of having a full harem with the MC and all his girlfriends in a big apartment but this is never really fully realized, and there are just sorta random sex scenes beyond reams of exposition.

The main storyline itself is not terrible, and there's a lot going on. There are some philosophical themes but it doesn't really evolve very well - the worldbuilding is inconsistent (but maybe I skipped too much text) as the focus shifts from themes of coping with depression to like the metaphysics of the universe.

And then unfortunately, like many AVGs... it just sorta ends. A lot of the buildup is irrelevant and there is basically no payoff. It feels like the creator just got bored and wanting to wrap things up as quickly as possible, which is very disappointing after so much storytelling.

I would normally give more than 2 stars since there was a lot of effort here and the storytelling is competent, but ultimately a lot of it is just wasting the readers' time. As an AVG the sex scenes are not high quality enough to slog through the main story. As an actual story the ending is extremely frustrating. 2 stars is all I can do to caution potential players that they will probably feel unrewarded by this VN.

I just started this and I love the writing... it's rare to find something so well written and the images add well to it! Good Novel in a nutshell keep it up mr Author. I do not know if it was intentional but that thing when he is hurrying to the room and it seems like the elevator takes forever its just a proof of attention to details that makes this soooo good.

There are like a lot of girls, most of them with bad models, unattractive.
There is a ton of text, too much to handle, with each girl you going to chat, video call, message exchange, flirt whatever. It is just too choresome.
I am not sure anyone can stay invested in a game where you go at the same time with 12+ different women.

Then you have fantasy of demons and angels mixing with all the harem.
Another point deducted for terrible gaming UI and for lack of gallery.

The game is solid with fun characters, an interesting (if frustrating at times) story, and interesting concepts. The ending however, for me, left the things flat and that sours the entire game for me as it gives a few arbitrary choices and abruptly finishes...one may as well have been given the options between three colors.

Forget fapping, this is a game worth playing just for the plot alone.
It's one of the best portraits of self-despair I have ever seen, with realistic ruminating and internal monologues (like what people pretend NGE to be, except the author here isn't full of shit).

Paradoxically the least convincing thing is how every single woman that crosses your path basically starts to ask you out on the spot (even though I'll grant that the excuses that were used were as good and diverse as possible). But that's part of the positive thinking charm of the game I guess. There's always hope, and tomorrow.

one of the most engaging stories on this site. 2 thumbs up. highly recommended. If you are here for story, plot, and intrigue then this is one for you. The characters are a diverse cast

Breanna is your counselor
Sophia is your prophet
Giselle is your provider
Kayla is your engineer
Elizabeth and her coven are your protectors
Audrey is your siren who will bring you new followers
Tien is your whipping girl
Helen bears the eyes of truth
Violet is your craftsman
Zella is your nurse
Deena is your spy
Meili is your keeper of wisdom -- the one who writes your scripture
Fina is your link to the past
Misha is your alchemist
Lily is your helpmeet sent to teach you forgiveness
Nicole is your analyzer and was sent to teach you compassion
Amara is your guardian
Krista (feisty yet deluded) -- must learn her purpose on your own

(Review of v0.17) This is a very good VN, mainly because of the story. It is complex but engrossing, with some unexpected plot twists (some rather dark and unsettling). Despite the complexity it progresses well thanks to a tight and disciplined narrative, which shows some insight into the different characters. You really want to know what is going to happen next.

The graphics are OK. Some of the main characters are quite original, while some of the others seem to have come from DAZ Central Casting and just wandered in from another VN. Animations started out a bit simplistic but improved, as characters’ body parts start to show some relationship to Newton’s laws.

A lot of work appears to have gone into selection of the music.

There is much to admire in this game, and I would have given it five stars were it not for mistakes in spelling and grammar (which seem to get worse as the game progresses). It’s not as bad as some of the semi-literate horrors in other games on here, but -

Some spelling errors are homophone mistakes, eg:
to/too
carousal/carousel
here/hear
peace/piece
shew/shoo
lightening/lightning
you’re/your
it’s/its
pouring over/poring over

Others are just wrong, eg:
deceipt/deceit
psychogical/psychological
fuedal/feudal
agressions/aggressions
embarassed/embarrassed
non sequitor/non sequitur
gallavanting/gallivanting

The most common grammar errors are subject pronouns where object pronouns are required (“she ran out on Misha and I” should be “she ran out on Misha and me”, because you wouldn’t say “she ran out on I”)

I don’t want this to seem negative, but the story-telling is so good that it comes as a bit of a surprise to see simple mistakes like this. With a bit of editing this would absolutely be worth a Steam release; I would buy it. Congratulations to the dev/author.

The MC is the usual woman magnet character, except this time he's old and has a tragic backstory.
The game is weird, expect random nonsensical dreams and events

The biggest downfall of the game is that it has far too many characters. Progressing 12 relationships simultaneously in a linear VN just does not work. You can block out a few of them, not nearly enough however.
The models and renders are good, be forewarned that a few of the models are very much jailbait.
The writing is above average but the sex scenes are short and will blue balls you, we're talking about a handful of lines and a couple of animations on average.