VN - Ren'Py - Powers That Be [Ch. 21 - Growing] [Burst Out Games]

It has some excellent writing overall with the use of song lyrics, philosophical snippets, dad jokes, and a lot of funny stuff, and its not finished yet, I hope.
But it does have some non sequitur moments that are a bit hard to follow but may yet be resolved. And the somewhat sparse and predictable sexual adventures are a bit under-animated in the earlier chapters with steady improvement in later chapters, but this remains more a story than a pure porn endeavour.
I don't expect particularly deep dialogues or sophisticated humor in this genre, but a lot of such material here had me laughing out loud .
The story line seems to get disjoint after the Ivan battle but does serve to bring in two side characters that add some fun but left the story hanging.
I'm looking forward to the story moving along, with the inferences about the fate of the mother, what the role of the family is in the grand scheme of things, and where their powers may be evolving to. I really think this is a superior effort in this genre and want to see more!

A fun ride which takes some different direction from the usual "family fun" norms and yet does not take itself seriously never the less.

As a basic premise there is an emphasis on superpowers at core in the story but its done in a way which not only adds the usual antics and fun scenarios that can come from said unrealistic premise but it also enables the story to pick up the slack when it needs to in the good stuff whilst the dev does try and build his characters and story.

On the whole it makes for a fun ride and thus allows you access to a bevy of decent if unspectacular looking ladies to have fun with. The core characters are the MC of course who is likeable yet flawed, a niece who because of seclusion really desires human love and affection and given her powers if projection of emotions means you sorta dare i say organically progress with her rapidly in a sexual and romantic sense and the daughter who is rebellious, outgoing and spunky. The humour in the game is on point and full of meme esc references and throwaway gags which i enjoyed as it kept the adventure light in face of its dark undertone.

If I should be honest, this feels like this is just a side hustle on the side from the developer, throwing everything he thinks might be good at the wall and see how it is, especially the last 5 chapters. You would probably think that with 20 chaps there is a ton of stuff to see ? Nope, everything can be done in 1 ½ h max. Every chap is like 10-15 min.

I will be upfront with you. I only downloaded it because of the bad reviews. I really needed to check it for myself to see if it's true or not. Yeah I'm a bad madafaker ask you mom.

And yeah the bad reviews speak for themself as I experienced them myself, with only two small differences:

• The annoying meme references seemed to dim down in the last 3 chaps.
• Annoying, childlike speech seemed to dim down in the last 3 chaps.

However, for the majority of this “humour” it outright shot itselfs in the foot multiple times it deserves multiple facepalms.

I would have also mentioned that the constant talking about every girl having sex with other guys in the past got dimmed down in the last 3 chaps, but since the chapters are so short it feels like they just said that 10 mins ago so that's that.

Overall it's not for me despite having the option to flip off the cheating hoe ex-wife.
But the models aren't to my liking, the lack of sex scenes, the lack of story and the absurd concept of the powers and characters is a temptring challenge to start drinking while playing it.

Don't see how this is a harem since 60% of the focus is Tilly, 25% Valeri, 10% blond and MC boss, 5% MC hoe ex-wife. Can't blame since the ex-wife looks ugly and she is a hoe. I played both paths where you forgive her, ups I mean be a complete spineless simp and even let himself gaslight accusing himself of being at fault for it as also it was ‘never about the sex’ imo get the fuck out of there. Or outright ignore her but sadly it's so bad it's not satisfying since there is this common ground where MC still is around her and she still tries to explain it but since there is no redemption arc for her it's bad.

It only gets worse with ch.18/19 when something happens with her… and I guess this is why it doesn't even deserve a 2.

I was really split on this game and want to give it alot better review since i did enjoy the story but its just lacking in to many things.

The story about a dad with 2 kids and a ex wife was really nice doing the first half or so of the game, then it does a 180 and turn into a full out marvel superpower game, which i dident mind i still thought it was good fun.

But this is supposed to be an animated game but yet sex scenes are picture to picture and thats just not good enough for a so called animated game, first scene with Tilly has one small animation, and Vals first sex scene was all picture to picture, and if i remember right the Tilly one is the only one in the hole game.

Music is pretty decent nice and relaxing but not mood setting in any way.

Alot of choices dosent really matter, you will be forced to be with Tilly but you can avoid being with Val well mostly anyway, and some choices just the same outcome no matter what you pick.

A few choices does change how Tilly acts, if your the forgiving type she wont kill the big guy, but if your not forgiving she will destory him so keep that in mind personaly i liked it when she showed no mercy since shes way to forgiving with the russian girl that bagstabbed them.

Also not really sure why both Tilly and Valerie has both been fucking other dudes since they wanted to be with MC since they where kids and through out high school and growing up and so on, just makes it even more weird none of them are virgins, really a missed opportunity and a poor choice in the story.

Story 4/5
I enjoyed the start with the girls and i found it fun when it took the 180 into a pure superhuman story, the political texts are a bit to much and isent needed in this game, i hope it will be turned waaay down in upcoming updates.

Girls 2/5
I dident find any of the girls hot, and its a bit disapointing that none of them is a virgin, and game reminds you of this as well telling you how many guys the girls has fucked, thats one information i just dont want to listen to.
Also a bit disapointed that there are 0 virgins, even Tilly has been fucking around and she was in a coma for some time to.....

Animations 0/5
Cant call a game animated with just a single animation, and that one wasent even good in any way.

Music 3/5
Its decent but not mood setting and ive heard better in alot of other games but its still better then a silent game.

Updates 2/5
Each chaper is very short and the dev is working on 4 games where one is on hold, i am not a fan of this type of milking since it means it will take 4 times longer to finish just one game, i say concentrate on one at the time if people like the games they will follow and support on next games as well, doing it like it is now has a much higher chance of people not wanting to support.

There is little negative to say about this on my end.

It starts out a little samey for a VN about a man and his close young girls and their every day edging closer together.
But it changes as it goes, eventually evolving into a larger plot that is genuinely interesting.

Really what I dislike is it feels like it is meant to be a very long story, which makes it likely to be done poorly or abandoned.
Currently this is not the case (Ep 19).

Art: 4/5
Models: 4/5
Characters: 4/5
Story: 4/5
Plot (tropes etc): 3/5
Sex: 3/5 (very vanilla)
Lewd frequency: 2/5 (not enough imo)

Enjoyment: 5/5

I recommend it.

This one started off fine but lost it's way.

Visually it's not the best but that can be overcome to some extant with good storytelling. That's where this particularly falls short.

The dad character is pretentious at best, he really needs to not try and throw in speaking in other languages every chance he gets. It's off putting and hurts the flow of the story. The daughter is annoying, even worse is the daughters Russian friend. She is the embodiment of annoying. The lack of characters who are likeable or relatable hurts.

The over use of slang also hurts, it feel forced in and disrupts the natural flow of dialog. It comes off as a middle aged person trying to act like a teen and failing hard.

If it had stayed a story of Tilly who has an ability and romantic feelings for her uncle this might have had a chance but it simply goes off the rails and becomes too ambitious for it's own good. A good start that ends up failing.

Would say this is likely in my top 5 VN's played.
Normally I am not a fan of games that have short chapters but the dev did them right, I wasn't left feeling confused how the chapter fit into the rest and like it was unfinished.
The dev most certainly put time and effort into polishing the many different aspects that go into making a VN entertaining.
While there are areas of the game I would prefer to be different all those come down to just personal preference and none game breaking for me.
The dev is really able to give the characters individual personalities with just tiny bits of similarity, but they capture the similarity we would likely see in real world situations where people close to each other for years have a language register that is personalized to their group.
Love the use of the in game language translation.

This game is a blast. The animations are a bit dated and I have seen games with better graphics. However the story is fun and hilarious.

I like the pull from pop-culture and other areas to make the story fun, despite having some serious parts to the story. Do wish it had a bit more sexual fun as well, but that is about it.

I am always happy when a new release comes out.

No idea why this only has three stars. The renders are great, as are all the 3dCG characters. The story is a decent length at this point. It's absolutely hilarious at times, which is pretty great. I've burst out laughing a number of times, so yeah... I'd recommend this to anyone.

It's clear to say, the dev of this game has officially given up. What the fuck is this game even supposed to be anymore?? Can someone enlighten me??
You look at the banner, you read the synopsis, and you think to yourself. This looks like a fun little incest game with really crappy meme content, I'll give it a try, NOPE YOU FOOL. This game for reasons that baffle me, has gone full bullshit, it's now about politics/Superpowers and wannabe Marvel garbage, why is that the direction you thought would engage readers??
Lets talk characters a little shall we. The Father characters, AKA the main character. Do you like playing as a pathetic, weak willed punching bag that has no spine and zero testicles? well now you can, because this MC is fucking stupid. The other character that I'll talk about is the Daughter, AKA the one most people wanna bang/fuck. She may be the contender for worst written incest char on all time. She's a hypocrite, stupid, slutty and has the charisma and attitude of a 50 year old drunk sailor with aids. Yay, I really need to get her on my dick....Nope stay away monster..... This game sucks.

Every single female character in this game either is currently a slut and ONLY talks about sex and previous sex friends, or was a slut in the past. This basically ruined the girls for me, since the game reminds you at every turn that they are not good long term partners, and can't really be trusted...

Story: 2/5: interesting story about super powers, ruined by constant talk about the girls previous affairs or sex stories.

Characters: 1/5: MC is WAY too forgiving of a person considering that he has been cheated on multiple times, and had to deal with a lying cheating wife, and a druggy whore daughter.

Renders: 4/5 renders are fine, not amazing, but not terrible

Models: 2/5 the female models range from really good looking, (The ex wife's model in her 20s) to not good looking (Tilly)

Overall 2.5/5: rounded down, because every scene the author talks about how many times the girls have had sex before you, or comparing you to previous partners... Its not NTR, but I don't want to be reminded that you were the town bicycle every 30 seconds.

[v0.5.4] (Not sure why recent ratings tend to be rather negative)

I like it. Writing is good, MC and LIs are relatable and attractive, lewd scenes are nice, story is actually moderately good.
The aspect of the story I found annoying: Why does MC not more forcefully confront / demand explanations from people he knows are involved in this?
Models and visuals are good.

I did not mind the very little "political" contents people her complained about.

This game was slightly above average at start but started going downhill with each update, and it gives the feeling of 0 fucks given. Some chars started acting like cunts no matter the choices, not to mention the mc who became a tadpole. Avoid this or risk getting angry because of wasted time.

I loved this game but since the last 2 updates
it's a disaster pity
Fortunately others will replace it
Bizarre that subscribers accept his drastic changes to the story.
In any case your work is remarkable but the plot is totally unclear now

Version: 0.5.2

Didn't get all the way to the latest chapter because I dropped playing due to the growing disinterest in the way the game was progressing (sometimes with too heavy virtuous dialogue).

Visuals

• renders are average, improvements from Chap. 6 and possibly Chap. 9
• only 1 animation, i encountered, but good rhythm though sex scenes are short
• modest female models; no exaggerated proportions
• all attractive in their own way based on your pref
• the ex-wife rendering is poorer than the other women - her lighting and texture looks lower grade

Writing & characters

• amateur storytelling so the huge amounts of reading isn't enjoyable
  • but maybe it improved and i didn't care to read anymore to notice (as I began skipping for intimate scenes)
• different personalities for each; in short, the two main girls = timid/quiet vs aggressive/lively
• mc comes off as a flustered man child - he has an immature and naïve way about himself during dialogue, i.e. virtuous white knight simp "why do I have these perverted thoughts?" characteristics which commonly is intolerable in a main character and secondly, he is a grown working man
  • dialogue between "ex stepdaughter" and father didn't match as her "teen lingo" and forwardness wasn't accommodated by the dad's very formal tone - you'd expect both to sound relaxed if they love each other and are close to each other

Content

• short chapters but a lo t of chapters with a lot of dialogue
• time skip poorly used in Chapter 4 - the part I was mostly looking forward to; the new living arrangements with MC and the Asian girl, Tilly - all the erotic shenanigans that could come from living in a small apartment was passed by to assume development between the two
• plays more like a dating sim than an adult game due to the amount of conversations between MC and the girls
  • so it would appear the Dev is more focused on character and story development
• hence, very little sexual content given how many chapters are present
  • what does exist isn't too bad but feels rushed in a way

Not spicy enough for me nor is the writing interesting enough to carry the playthrough. It could be better if both sides balanced out.

+ :

• Great models. Didn't see them anywhere. So the graphic material is the best.
• Nice beginning of the storyline.
• Relaxing music.
• Some plot twists.

- :

• Author has added a lot of politics in chapter 16. This is total turn off.
• A lot of russian words that is hard to understand.
  If author wants to add russian translation ok than but he's using a transliteration SO many times that my eyes are starting to bleed.
  Even if he wants to spice up the story with russian words he's using transliteration WAY to much.
• For some reason there's less and less action.
  It has started from 12 chapter. No action at all.
  In 13 chapter action is only for those who like NTR. To be precise it's action is for those who can forgive NTR.
  In 14 chapter it has become worse. The girl had a drug but...she is just giving a kiss and fainted out.
  In 15 chapter we have a good hint of threesome...nope just a blowjob and they have faited out again.
  In 16 chapter we have nice hint that it will begin after all that suffering...nope only tits.
• Quantity of text and CG are not the same. There's so much text on one CG. It has started from the meeting in cafe.
• Murdering one of the important charcters.
  This plot twist can work if the game is about feelings that are showing clearly by CG. But the feelings mostly here are just superpowers. Not the main.

So the game has a nice start. But now it has changed to worse.

CGs are still good so i'll unpack them when the new update will come out. That's why i have added 1 star. The game still has something but this is more like reading a book with shitty plot for now. I hope the dev will calm down with all this politics and focus on more sex scenes.
[Version 0.5.2]

Review for v0.5.2
Man I used to love this game when it first came out and in initial few updates when story was decent with some superpower stuff and was about a main character who works in a day to day job and doesn't know much about his own power and his family . Now in the last few updates writing and story takes a big fall and there is nothing but unnecessary drama with full of supernatural stuff and now everyone in this game seems to have superpowers and MC discovering his own power and suddenly seems to develop some eight sense and now a superpower expert and betrayal by others and tragedy and conspiracies and so on . And last update is the final nail , Game moved from average to worst .

Imagine making a nice quality game, so that later in one update it will be trashed. Bravo, real talent. It seems that the developer, trying to keep up with modern POLITICAL trends, forgot that he is making a PORN game. Yes, of course, we all know that all Russians, without exception, are fiends on earth, but maybe you should keep all your political views to yourself, and if you have something to say, then go to Moscow, I'm sure they will be happy to listen there.

Started off strong...but has gone off in weird directions. Biggest complaints though are the size and frequency of the updates. Each update inches the story along, and seems to be released about once every three months. Erotic scenes were super hot at first, and now just seemed to be thrown in on top of the weird story plot points as an after-thought because the Dev suddenly remembered this is an erotic game, not a adventure spy game. I usually wait 3 or so updates after I find a game before I commit to supporting them on Patreon or Subscribestar. But this now goes on my "check it out after a year or so" list and we'll see where it's at. Not as hopeful about it's future as I was in the beginning though.

(I'll make a more detailed review later)

Just some quick highlights...

The models (minus Niece at first) were pretty dang good. I love the wife's model, she look unique and daughter looks incredible and unique.

The wife cheated on you multiple times throughout the MC life prior to the game's place in the story. She's NOT in the right. The MC made some mistakes here and there, but she is clearly in the wrong. HOWEVER, the beauty of the writing is that if you decide to be nice to her, you can see that she's truly a pitiable person. She's fucked up, realllllllllly badly. She suffers for her mistakes (deservingly so) and MC can just be empathetic. Like a true adult. MC can choose to not let the bitterness overtake him and I respect this take so much EVEN if she doesn't deserve it. We all know how hard forgiving someone is at times, let alone someone that violated you as much as this character did to MC, but yeah, it was pretty interesting reading it. I'm glad the daughter does NOT forgive her. She deserves it, BUT again, MC is a bigger person than I'll ever be in this universe. It's clear to me that one of the devs has maybe had some experience with this cause it's written so realitically. The dialogue and atmosphere is so palpable that it has to be based on real life.


The biggest negative thing I can say at the moment about this game is just... the memes... It's exhausting sometimes! It's like someone ran an AI machine at a zoomer convention and it turned into this. Almost every line has some reference or meme injected. The ironic part of this whole thing is that in SOME ways it works to the games stregnths (I'm gritting my teeth right now). Do not be fooled by my critique of the memes, this game is pretty well written. It has a LOT of heart and it's charming when memes aren't coming from every orifice. But yeah, the game works really well because it doesn't pretend to be realisitic, but has enough of personality and depth to the dumb characters that it feels realistic.

My MC and his relationship with his daughter and niece is very touching. A bit hamhanded in the first few releases, but it got better when they locked into the feelings these characters carried. I guess the one weird thing this game did that I find a bit questionable is not make the 2 main girls virgins. NOW I know what many are going to say "OH! All girls have to be virgins for you!?!? Why can't a girl have a life... blah blah blah." Look, I get it, but that's not my intention on this subject. The daughter has probably the best excuse to NOT be a virgin, but at the same time the BEST reason TO stay a virgin. She talks about how her whole life she knew she wanted to be with her dad and that no guy was good enough for him, but yet she still dated around. Whatever, doesn't matter on this front.

However, the niece 100% should have been one. She has almost no sociable skills and has loved her uncle just as long as daughter. The boyfriend was a dumb passive guy with little backbone, so it is plausable as well, but yeah, besides that, I dont' have much of a gripe.

I'll give a more detailed run on content and story in the next update