VN - Ren'Py - Pale Carnations [Ch.4 Up.6 Public] [Mutt & Jeff]

This game has all the features to entertain from the storyline, quality images, smooth animations and a system to find opportunities to change the storyline. This game deserves a higher rating than I believe. I hope the game will grow and be well received or other projects of similar scale

Overall by VN standards its really quite good. I think the writing can be a bit needlessly verbose but the pacing and sexual situations here are surprisingly really really good. The characters as well are very enjoyable if a bit one note here and there, still its clear there's depth being added to them and its very well written overall.

With the sex, graphics, and characters being pretty top tier, why am I giving this 4 stars? Honestly I think the author is falling into a bad H-game trap of acknowledging the quiet part out loud and questioning the morality of the porn aspect of the game. Inherently this isn't always bad but I've never really seen the concept done in a way that allows the player to still engage with the sex without ruining their experience. In this game if you choose you can be the most ineffectual guy ever and not take advantage of anyone and you'll get some scenes but most of the content will be out of reach early on and it doesn't feel worth it. This combined with the fact the choices in the game are very mystifying, not really giving you a clear way to figure out how others will always react just means that you feel the need to play things really safe when there's no benefit. I played through blind and it was very very all over the place wondering what each of the choices did but when I played again with a guide it was weird how many choices didn't actually impact anything stat wise and which ones did. It just feels a bit arbitrary sometimes.

Anyway, I know its a bit of a nitpick but I just don't particularly enjoy the vagueness of choice here and the "man I'm doing such a horrible thing" storyline when its a porn game that doesn't seem to really be going all in on that vibe. Idk maybe once the game is further along it'll silence me with really good payoff and stuff but as of right now its just a bit too in the clouds for me. Still its easily one of the best VNs here, I'd recommend anyone taking a look and supporting the dev.

One of my top 10 loved games

This game is a master piece, the whole story, narrative and the edge of the seat surprises makes this one brilliant game, BUT definitely not for the faint of the heart(lol)

Pros:
Fantastic story
Brilliant narrative
Lovely waifus
Great characters

Cons:
Takes long time to update(but feels worth it, every update)

God-tier VN.

Where it really shines is the writing. Whoever cooked the script must have a background in some sort of writing already, because almost every scene has a line that amazes me in its quality.

Animations are fire, the models are fantastic, and the story gripping (albeit slow at times if all you're looking for is to bust real quick).

Cannot see myself ever rating this less than 5 stars, unless it has an Attack on Titan tier ending.

Pale Carnations - Chapter 4 - Update 5

Story: You play as a nerdy med student who ends up working at a brothel where desperate women are degraded for the enjoyment of rich, fat old men.

Characters: The only thing i really liked about this game (apart from the kink), a lot of the characters i found fell a bit flat,
but the ones i liked i found myself really enjoying (especially outside the club) like Mina and Hana.
The only Character i found myself hating however is the MC, who just comes across as whiney, annoying and often pathetic.

Renders/Animations: I've never liked Honey Select or the "Weeb" look in AVN's but the animations are pretty good.

Sound: Didn't really like a lot of the music and found it to be a distraction.

If you're not into BDSM, Humiliation or Voyeurism this probably isn't for you.

The story is strong with this one, even if it's not necessarily my bag. In terms of kinks and that kind of content, you'd only find more in a cheap garden hose.

A non-spoiler attempt to describe the quality of the story is this: your world, with the focus on you (the MC), is built around a new job. Everyone of note is bound up in this world, and they all have their own stories. In each playthrough, you have to pick a route, based on how you want to play. This leads to a fairly rich story, which is really well done.

However, the branching mechanic of the game is sometimes a little opaque, resulting in lockouts and a need to roleplay as a certain type of character fairly hard, with exposure to the game not necessarily being enough to work out what that needs to be. This may be something some people enjoy, but the current setup makes it feel like a guide is necessary (or a lot of effort being put into specific branching choices). The feeling of this being bad may clear up a bit as more content comes out, but the cliffhangers at the end of the updates mean that multiple replays can feel more tedious than rewarding. Hopefully this gets addressed by future updates, and clarification in later story arcs.

This is good. The number of adult games with decent writing is extremely limited but this absolutely nails it. The story brings sex in regularly without it seeming forced or cross purpose with player agency but it's also got genuinely interesting stories behind it. This is definitely amongst the elite, and you absolutely should give it a go.

Really phenomenal. The writing and animations shone in a way that made it easy to get hooked. I wish there had been more room for decisions throughout, but there are decisions to be made, just not as many as I'd like. But compared to some games where are 100% linear, this is just like...80%, probably?

Might be the toughest game to review on this site.
Why because expectation vs reality is a huge deal. I have heard how great this game is, did it live up to the hype for me? not really but it's hard to grade a adult vn on expectation.
Listen I want to give this vn it's due praise.
4/5 Story
The Story is actually very unique in the vn community, your not running a brothel your working in one and you have to choice in how you treat the girls who work there. Some of the stories failings in my opinion I will point out in another section.
5/5 Dialogue
The writing in this game alone could carry it to a 5 out 5 rating. The writing of characters and dialogues feels so realistic it is shocking there's not 1 million gags thrown in. it just feels like what actual people would say in these scenarios.
5/5 Animations and Girl Designs
Yeah that ones easy, fantastic adult material as well as unique and hot looking girls.

This is where i differ, listen i understand that this is my opinion and not everyone agrees but i think it should be brought up.

2/5 Kinks
There are a lot of kinks covered in this game with the most prevalent being humiliation, BDSM and voyeurism. none of these kinks are shit that are for me. So that makes me groan and dislike certain parts of this game that if you were into those kinks you might not understand. I think the forced non skippable content really hurts this game, no I don't want to see Victoria ingest disgusting shit while tied up. Yes I absolutely loathed the scene where a gigantic spider is put on Victoria, like damn that's fucked up.
2/5 Player Agency
See I think this is an important part of grading adult VN's. When I compare this VN to the other top VNs on the site this one comes up short. You do not run the brothel so how the women are treated by guests will not change no matter how you treat them. I personally don't get off to watching old men abuse and degrade women, so at least for me it sucks we can't change that. I also don't care if my mom was in a porn video or not but to have 50 flashbacks to it is kinda weird like I told you already I dont need to see it, stop showing me more than asking again.

I wish the ratings could give a half of star because I would Love to give this a 3.5. But since I can't Ill stick with a 3. I defiantly understand why someone would give this a 5. If these are your kinks you will love this game, if not than I think you should still give it a play because some of the girls in question don't partake in that kinks. At least not yet.

Art and music aside - these are great.

Writing is on another level, truly a masterpiece. Dialogue is thoughtful, linguistically rich and meaningful. Everything has its setup and payoff, no deus-ex-machina bullshit. There's also wisdom there, yet without in-your-face one-liners.
This is a game for mature people who understand how the world works and yet don't forget how stupid they acted when they were 20.

Read. Don't mindlessly skip even if the scene doesn't seem important or the dialogue seems trivial. Sex scenes are great, but there's more to characters than pump-action animations. If you can't take your time, don't waste your time. Just wait for when you're done with downloading everything and playing nothing - or nothing of significance.

There are many mediocre or even good games around here with a pretence of greatness. This is not one of these. This one is unpretentiously magnificent.

I do not leave a review often, in fact it's the only one i'll probably ever do on f95. But this game my man, this game is the GOAT, the KING of all AVNs.

That game it's gorgeous. The quality, the art and animations are outstanding.

The writing is beyond fantastic whether it is the story, the dialogues, the characters or the sexy times, everything is up to the max. A true master class of adult gaming, of all gaming in fact.

And it's flawless. Not a single mistake so far, i have absolutely nothing negative to say about the game, even if i try to be extremely nitpicky.

Anyway must play, must support, no question asked.

the game is one of the best masterpiece in HS avn, i really want to see how the story unfold further and especially the endings. BUT with the current update cycle (oncer per year or less), i think i will just forget about this game and play it again when it already complete (maybe 4 years later, hopefully not that long).

[Review of Ch.4 Up.5 Public - First playthrough]

What a game, I don’t know where to start, I don’t feel 5/5 is enough.

The first thing at impressed me the most is how well optimized the game is. I’m playing on a 10 yrs old Mac and most other game start to lag very fast, but not this one. Not a single lag, not a single bug, pure perfection.

I’m mostly a very vanilla snowflake so I was initially reluctant to try to immerge myself in a story with such heavy topics but because the writing is so good and nuanced I had a blast.

Visually Pale Carnations is top tier as well and the sound design & music of the game is also a masterclass.

To concluded, this game does everything perfectly and it’s definitely a most play.

Playtime : ~40/50hrs (with a lot of save/load to see others paths)

This is the best AVN today without a doubt.
Original story, content for all tastes, different routes, customizable MC, fun characters. .. If I had to summarize this game in a few words it would be "Pervertedly beautiful"
I only have one wish and I hope the Dev reads it, please let the NTR continue to be avoidable... The way the story goes it seems that it will be inevitable the NTR with the Carnations, that's why I just hope that at least the Dev will let us choose who to save... Although being honest I would be happy with just a good ending with Mina, more Mina content!!!!

Probably the best this genre have to offer it effortlessely balance between dark and through it it shines the firece light that continues to shine in that total blackness. I have surely never seen a story like this, and I will surely not forget it anytime soon.

I was blown away by this novel. The plot is cool, the characters are interesting, you form your own attitude towards each one. The h-scenes are gorgeously done, there is animation. It definitely deserves its 5 stars.

Я был потрясен этим романом. Сюжет классный, персонажи интересные, к каждому из них формируешь свое отношение. H-сцены сделаны великолепно, есть анимация. Он определенно заслуживает своих 5 звезд.

I'm not usually super into games with this graphical style, but the characters and plotlines have won me over enough to still give it a 5 star rating. There's a lot of interesting moving parts here, and while not every single plotline is to my liking there are so many different things (albeit, MOST of them in the realm of maledom which is fine with me) that almost anyone can find something enjoyable I think.

The main character is a whingebag. I selected "prioritizes money" at the beginning of the game, and yet he keeps banging on about how unfair life is and how much he dislikes money lol. It's very silly that this guy is having women paying him to be an escort and is having multiple relationships with supermodels (which at least the game accepts in its dialogue but doesn't justify). He's a scrawny annoying dweeb sort of a guy, and the player's decisions don't alter him in any real way. The most that you can change him is on the evil path where he becomes a snitchy sort of teachers pet which is just a different flavour of an annoying dweeb.

Much of the writing is very on the nose. Little is left to the reader's interpretation. This isn't solid writing; It's more like opining on a subject at great length with very little life experience, which is of course a turn off, but then at the end of said opine a supermodel bends over a table and says "do me" as if she's so turned on by this geeky looking kid and his logic of an angsty 13 year old. It's just sort of silly, but the game is taking it dead serious.

Great game, with an excelent script. All heroes feels real, have their own motivation. What i really like is how complex topics are discussed there and make you think about them. As for the sex, game has a lot of content, for any taste. Also all girls are different, so you can find someone for you. One of the best AVN out there without any doubts.

Very thought out game, for those that enjoy hard love its a must play.
I just hope there will be a way to end up with 2 GFs at the end.
Hana has a very cool character design, def my favorite for this game.