VN - Ren'Py - Completed - One More Chance [Ch. 3 Final] [The Lonely Joker]

I'm not sure how deep I got because the whole thing was pretty unsatisfying. Not much sex, or even that much sexiness. The story is boring most of the time, odd and confusing some of the time, and only occasionally amusing. The whole thing is also on rails to the point that around when I stopped playing, I made a choice for the first time in a while and both options appeared to have the completely identical outcome that MC saves the lives of a father and son and then all parties leave with all the casualness of picking up someone's dropped pen before moving on down the road.

The Story is very refreshing and right from the start feels fresh. Very good work by the dev on the story. Very solid.
The characters are honey select so no problems on that front.
The animations could have been a bit better but it's okay. I don't really see it as a flaw. Just waiting for this baby to get completed. Fingers crossed.

This review is based on version 0.2
PLOT: 3/5
The root concept of the story is good and not overused. Basically you die and God revives you in your past in your 16 yr old body. This opens up a realm of possibilites... which unfortunately the story fails to exploit. The scenes progression is too fast and most of the story revolves around dipping your (huge) wick in as many girls as you can. I feel that much more could be done with the initial concept, but in itself the story is not too bud, just rushed.

VISUALS: 3/5
Backgrounds are somewhat differend than the usual HS fare, though to be honest not memorable. The characters are at times crisp and at times like toons, with a lot of clipping, tearing and overlapping. Nothing extremely bad, but they do detract from the game.

INTERFACE: 3/5

At the moment the game is full VN. you have no inventory, items, or stats. you progress through selection of different choices and you dont have any visual clue (besides the other character reaction sometimes) about their effect.

All in all, the game deserves at best a 3 out of five, but I decided to give it a 4 because the base concept is not as widely used and is still fresh. I believe that with a bit of care from the developer this game might become quite good. I will be watching this for the time being.

The following review is based off my personal experience with playing this Game/Visual Novel... I try to be as brutally honest and detailed as I can, and these are my own opinions and thoughts, from one or more play throughs...

(03/14/2018 - Original Review - Chapter 1)

The story concept in this visual novel/game is interesting, but the story moves very rapidly...

The visuals of the characters look like they were maybe made in Honey Select, but they also look a lot sharper in quality then what I've seen in other Honey Select based character visuals, so I'm not sure... In any case, they look a bit hentai inspired... The backdrops are a mix of unique ones and ones I've seen before in other Honey Select based VN/Games... The panning view near the beginning was a nice touch... But the BJ animation near the end looked like it had muscle clipping on the protagonists arm, as well as other issues...

The script is ok, but has a mix of broken English through out it, as well as the occasional spelling/grammar error... It wasn't super hard to read, but you do have to re-read some parts now and then... The plot revolves around a male protagonist who dies at the age of 85 as a lonely and rich man... But he is sent back down to earth in his past to relive 3 years of his former life, before God determines what to do with him... And gives him 2 abilities... That part of the story kind of felt weird, and requires some suspension of disbelief... But in any case, he is sent back to his 16 year old self while still attending high school... Here is where I have another issue with this VN/Game... Even in Japan, each prefecture has the minimum age for having sex at 18 years of age, as do a lot of the western countries... So, by actually proclaiming the age of the protagonist in an adult/erotic VN/Game is under the legal age of 18, that makes this game now considered as Child Pornography in a lot of different countries because the author states the age of the character is 16 in the story... Regardless of how the character looks...

The story itself moves very quickly now and then, even though it has an interesting story... It really needs to slow down a bit, to allow for better character development and story flow...

Overall, even though the characters look decent, the story just moves too quick, and feels like something is missing because of how quickly it jumps from one scene to another... Choices do seem to matter, but you don't get a whole bunch before the current content abruptly ends... I do recommend the developers reconsider the proclaimed age of the protagonist and other characters, due to the different laws concerning fictional characters below the age of 18 in pornographic visual stories/games... Will I revisit this one? Only if it makes some changes, fixes the text, and slows down the story telling...

(04/10/2018 - Review Update - Chapter 1 v0.2)

Well, the pacing of the game has not changed at all, as it still moves very rapidly... It's a very odd VN/Game, because it feels like the story/plot jumps ahead a lot... You'll read some story and see some scenes, then it jumps forward a bit to new story and scenes that feel a bit disconnected... It's almost like the author has all this story he wants to tell, gives you a small glimpse, then jumps forward to the next idea, does the same thing, then jumps ahead again... It even gets to a point where the story actually jumps ahead 6 months...

You can't tell if choices really matter beyond the immediate set of scenes, if future content is really effected by those same choices or not... There is just small bits of information thrown at you, then it jumps ahead to an unrelated event with scenes... Which makes the story just feel artificially fast paced and unsure where it really plans to go...

I really like the premise of the whole story, but because it jumps ahead so often and the story is told so fast, it leaves you feeling like "Huh!!?? Which way did he go?"... Also, with some characters he's very loving and mature, and with others he's lustful and erotic, and then with others he is just sort of there causing women to be attracted to him and yet nothing ever happens with them, then you're off to the next series of story events...

It also seems to have added some features I'm not a real fan of, but thank goodness they never last long... Some sex scenes involve a phantom tongue and some penetration scenes have X-Ray visuals...

In any case, this VN/Game is still in the so-so category... It's not your typical Hentai style VN/Game, but I think it needs to slow down a bit and let us all smell the coffee... Will I revisit it again? Maybe, but it will not be a priority...