VN - Ren'Py - Powers That Be [Ch. 24 - Styling] [Burst Out Games]

v0.3.8

I love the game. Unique story (as can be in those kind of games, reminds me of the show Heroes), unique writing style with good humor (though it seems it puts some people off) and unique characters models (not your typical top models, so not for everyone's taste).

The humor tag is there for a reason, the general tone is quite light even though it tackles heavy subjects. I don't mind the slang, I like the meme references even though I don't get them all, and the banters.

The renders quality is very good, the environment assets are rather rare, didn't see them a lot in other games.

All in all it's a very unique game that don't appeal to everyone, but it's quality work.

Okay, so I had to take a different approach when playing this game. If you approach this as an average adult game, you're going to want to take a power drill to your eye sockets because of the dialogue. If you look at this game as a cringe comedy, it's not that bad. It might even be a masterpiece. Several times this game feels like it has a lot of heart..... then your niece or your daughter starts talking. With that being said, I don't really see myself continuing with this game.

Story 3 out of 5

Animation 1 out of 5

Models 3 out of 5

Writing 1 out of 5 or 5 out of 5 (depending on how you look at it).

This is a very strange game... It kinda feels like there was a meeting at Burst Out Games HQ where the 40-year-old director pitched the idea for the story, a decent but inexperienced developer created the renders and two 13-year-old girls wrote the dialogue.

I played the game before, right after it was first released, but stopped after 5 minutes because the dialogue was unreadable. I assumed that it would get fixed after a few updates but the conversations are still terrible, even with the Dialogue Mod installed.

That's a damn shame because I honestly like the premise of the story. The renders are alright and the animated sex scene was actually pretty good. The character models look a bit strange but they at least have a certain uniqueness.

With some decent writing and slightly better looking models this could definitely be an enjoyable game. But right now it just feels like all the characters are children in grown-up costumes.

Version Reviewed: v0.3.4

Overview: A recently divorced man's niece comes over to stay, and she's more than a little special.

Story: You are a successful businessman who's ex-wife cheated on him so now he has joint custody of his smoking hot daughter. Also, his niece with emotion control superpowers is staying over while her parents are out of the country. This is a bit dubious because there was already an incident between the niece and her uncle in the past, so her parents are pretty irresponsible leaving her alone with him.

Gameplay: It's a VN. You get regular choices that other characters can approve or disapprove of, but your choices don't seem to have any effect on the story. I tried a total-rejection playthrough and still couldn't keep my dick out of my emotionally troubled niece.

Art: The backgrounds and renders are bright and clear. There's a fair bit of work done into the models and everything else, but somewhat unfortunately the dev tried to do big expressions with Daz and that's a quick road to horrorface.

Sex Content: Pretty minimal in this version. Beyond one sex scene with animations there's just minimal amount of voyeurism, some kissing, and a little light groping. Much of that is optional as well, although surprisingly the sex scene is not. You don't even get pervy upskirt shots when your daughter is knocked over. I expect considerably more content to be added in future updates with the way the story is progressing, but it isn't there yet and it doesn't seem like it's all that close at this point.

Writing: I feel like I need to mention something here. I used the Dialog Fix patch so maybe it's much improved, but there are still quite a lot of pop culture references and memes. They didn't pull me out of the story like some other reviewers, but if you're sensitive to this it is a consideration. It feels at times like the dialog is being written by a zoomer version of Joss Wheadon with people saying stuff that really isn't in character, but it's not going to slow me down from downloading the next update.

Conclusion: This VN has an interesting story, doesn't bore you with endless exposition or wheel spinning go-nowhere inner monologe and I never felt the need to just start clicking through to get to the next scene. There's not that much sex content in the current version (unless the game systems are much more subtle and I missed something), but it's interesting enough to keep me engaged.

From start to end this game has an interesting modern concept. From modern-day lingo to insults. I have no doubt this VN will be great if it continues the path it is on. I love the Asian culture that is in the game as well as the females are not some unrealistic looking Barbies

First of all, i don't get it why people are so mad at the writting, of course, it's legit weird but it's nothing outrageous that makes you mad and wants to murder your eyes.

I like the looks of the characters, it makes them real, like, irl you don't always meet gorgeous girls, and every female friend of your daughter is a fucking supermodel, this game stay true to life, you have a gorgeous girl that is your boss, a not soo good looking woman like your wife, etc.

The story is promising, it ain't awesome but it's alright, defenitly not bad, one advice to the dev though, try putting more renders and explaining things first before they happen, or if mc is going to a restaurant show us that the mc went to a restaurant, because otherwise you get a feeling that something is missing, one exemple is when the mc go take a shower and right after you are already in a cinema, you don't see the mc talking to his niece like "hey, how about we go to cinema, i think it's going to be really cool" etc.

The sex scenes, well, those were a disapointment. First, the dick of the mc, it's big, like, unproportionally big, and the sex scene it self is really bad, first it's doesn't have animations, what is fine to me, i don't really care, but if you are going to make a sex scene with just images, than you have to put more images, describe the sex better, show every step, and this ain't the case here, the first one, it has only 7 renders that i counted, it's litteraly the mc putting her dick in the girl pussy, two moans from the girl and that's it.

So, this game is legit good, with some things that could be improved. and if those things were improved, than this game has it all to be a sucess.

(just legit, stop legit using legit in every legit phrase)

Average is all I can give this one. I'm torn between bleaching my eyes, or just removing them with a spoon. The story is ok. The writing however is horrible.
I understand that some people talk like this, but it does not translate for good reading.
The female lead looks like her face is sliding off. Some of the other ladies are really done well. I just wonder what happened? I understand that lots of time and energy go into making these VNs, but take the time to make everything enjoyable.
If the writing was better this VN would be pretty good. This is just my opinion. Give it a try.

I really don’t like to give less than 3 stars cause I know making these takes time and patience. That being said it has great potential but the main model is just horrid looking. I played up until you got with her and I just couldn’t do it. I found myself skipping all the scenes and came to the decision that it just wasn’t worth my time. If the main girl gets changed I’d totally play it

V 0.3.2 I must say that a promise of a side character being in possesion of power seems refreshing. Shame that many characters seem to look not attractive. Main girl seem almost ugly. Sporty one is nice. Ex looks like shit and boss nice. Generally a nice concept to follow up on in later builds.

I've rarely cringed so hard reading the outrage in some of the reviews below. What a sad life must one must have to get so upset at excess slang in a porn game. Needless to say, it's not as bad as some contend. More on that later.

To the game itself, Powers that Be is a heart warming and entertaining tale of a man in his early forties who whilst successful in business has been less so in marriage. Divorced, both he and his ex still feel the pain of the separation. His teenage stepdaughter harbors feelings for him and to his consternation flirts heavily with him. But, that relationship is perhaps not the core of the game. He is Godfather of a young girl who also has feelings for him. And here the dev employs an interesting mechanic to spice up the narrative. Without giving away too much, the girl has a special gift the effects of which are at times intense, amusing and disturbing. It gives the story a lot of potential.

The rendering is competent and the sound landscape consists of mostly soothing music and in certain circumstances light female grunts. The dev has a predeliction for strong girls. Athletic or thicc. That describes the bodies of both love interests. Their faces while not classic beauties are imo on the pretty to beautiful end of the spectrum. Tastes differ. But remarks like "looks like an alien" are rude and off the mark. There are really weird faces in some adult VNs. This isn't one of them.

Now on the topic of dialogue, alot of youth slang is inserted. It's hit and miss. The dev should perhaps tone it down just a bit. IRL slang like this is used. when teens speak to each other. Less so when a teen talks to an adult 20-25 years her senior. Some terms work. Some don't. It's a trivial detail that hardly detracts from an otherwise entertaining game.

So, give it a go if you're interested in a father daughter(ish) incest tale with a twist. I found it both hot and charming. If you like it too, consider supporting this beginner dev. Beginners are often very uncertain of their game's reception especially if they're trying something different. This game is a little different, but it's good.

I enjoyed the game itself, but had to skip a lot of the dialogue because the constant efforts to sound cool and hip were "legit high-key cringe". Rather than getting invested in the girls' characters, I just wanted to drown them so they would shut up.

The dialogue is bad, like a boomer went hello fellow kids bad. Did someone run this through some kind of cringe translator? I am legit blind af now, after just a few minutes of this cringe af dialogue. The MCs pornstache and the random autismo faces characters have when they deliver these lines doesn't help at all either. Like the idea seems alright, you have some reject girl from Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, but she talks like she's retarded. Can you blame Charles Xavier for rejected this youth if every time she opens her mouth everyone gets stupider? It's not just her though, every character talks like they have never left the internet.

I get trying to make stuff sound more real and authentic, but unless you are hoping your audience all has autism, adhd, or are chavs, this ain't it bruh. An easy way to fix this would be to verbalize your dialogue, it's a basic speech writing technique. If it sounds off when you speak it, it'll help avoiding a trainwreck like this in the future.

This game is a stellar example of ruining dialogue with 'realism.'

In real life, people use a number of repeated words or sounds in speech, such as 'like', or 'um', or 'ah', and your brain filters them out, because communicating is the important part of speech. You listen to grasp a concept, not to literally hear every word. Additionally, when speaking to each other people often make pop culture references. This is usually because those references are from shared experiences, and the person making them knows that they will resonate with the listener.

But; both of these aspects of speech, although perfectly normal in everyday conversation, RUIN A WRITTEN STORY.

Every single character in this game, including the 40 year old adults, speak with some form of slang or pop culture reference interjected into almost every sentence. It could not be more distracting or grating. 40 year old men do not call each other 'bruh'. 20 year old girls may use the word 'legit' with frequency, but when you have to read it every single fucking sentence, the realism of it's use fades and it becomes nothing more than an annoyance.

Do you know why almost everything written avoids slang? It's because it ages any piece of writing almost instantly. Some of the slang present here is already old; given the length of development an adult game typically has, I expected literally every word to be cringingly dated by the time this is finished.

In case you're curious, I've compiled all the slang below:

legit. salty. flex. bougie. bruh. yaaass. fleek. woke, used absurdly. yeet. big oof. lowkey. highkey.

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These words are almost all used continually, and inappropriately. During the PC's first time having sex with a woman she says "yaaass", which would be fine if it was a comedic moment, but it was deadly serious, bordering on attempted romantic. It completely deflated any feeling in the scene.

The pop culture references are used just as ham-fistedly and inappropriately. No one, not one person on earth, would quote either Batman Begins or Star Wars to someone when speaking seriously about their recovery post-coma and the social castigation they experience afterwards. For. Fuck's. Sake.

And yes, all the references are ones a 30+ year old man would know, not a 19 year old girl. But hey! That's justified by a single line where the girl thanks the man for "introducing [her] to 9gag and reddit and all those old movies." Cringe. Cringe for days.

But enough about the terrible writing. The models are terrible too!

The renders in a general sense are decent enough, and the only body we've seen naked looks alright, but the faces are monstrous. The main love interest is supposed to be half white and half Korean, but she looks nothing like it. Forget European or Asian features, she barely looks human. And her orgasm face was actively horrifying.

Oh, and the PC has incredibly sparse hair all over him. I understand not wanting a 40 year old man to look as smooth as a Ken doll, but instead he looks like a cactus; single black spines stick up from his body at odd intervals.

All told, this game reeks of modest effort mixed with very poor execution. The entirety of the script needs a rewrite, and all the models need an overhaul. The plot as it stands is just the unjustified lust between a 40 year old man and a 19 year old girl. That's literally all that's here, and it's not enough.

Where to start? Well it has an incest patch that makes the game 100% incest. None of that "has an incest tag but it's like non playable characters who are cousins doing it like once".

So there's that. You into incest? It has that. You not into incest? Well I hope you're into 40-50 year old dating a 19 year old.

Me? I'm into incest so the game got me early on. I wish the niece's face were more attractive. Outside of that the models look well enough.

The writing is not stellar, actually it's cringe at bits. But it's in English, real English. So that's nice.

I don't know what to say. It's not great, but not bad. It's 0.3 but there are much better 0.3s out there right now.

The game is promising, if you ask me. This is mainly because even in 0.3 it has fucking. None of that "quick fuck in 0.1, then no more fucking till past 0.11 - even in 0.11 only some rub & tug".

So incest, some fucking, meh writing. It's okay. I'll be honest, the fourth star is simply because incest with no NTR and early penetration.

Is it worth your time? Only if you really wanna try a new incest game, imho there's no other scenario where I would play this so early.

its legit good but the dialogue could legit use some legit work.

feels more like reading a chat logs than conversations. other than that i liked it

also i think there are around 400 uses of the word Legit so far in the game, maybe like legit cut it back a bit?

Pros: good story, renders, and is overall pretty hot

Cons: The humor is annoying to me. It's just pop culture references and it's not done in a witty or particularly fun way. It just kinda distracting to me.

Edit: The farther I get in the more I hate the humor. It's just SOOOO bad. It's just old memes inserted in at random points and really breaks any flow the dialogue has.

This is actual dialogue from a scene that's supposed to be her confronting him and could be a sexy/emotional scene.

niece "Uncle [mc_name], look… I know you haven’t had sex in literally a super long time."
mc "Big oof."
niece "Shit, I’m sorry. What I’m trying to say is..."

Click to expand...

This is the quality of every single reference. It's like they had a game ready then decided they needed some humor, so they replaced some decent dialogue with crappy memes.

Then there's the word "legit". had the game decompiled, so I removed every "legit" from the game. It's so grating and forced.

I really enjoyed this game, it's witty dialog and sweet characters.

Plus

• Very nice renders (yes, some faces seems slightly distorted in some picture, but that's minor)
• Funny and witty dialog that I read without being tempted to skip
• Very touching characters, even the ex is a decent person.
• Models that are not generic fact/bodies re-used in so many other games.
• Adult MC, no bimbos… only smart ladies!
• Corruption meet romance, I like that.

Minus

• The sex scene feel rushed. I don't care for animations, but it was way too fast for such a crucial development in the story.

There is already 30 minutes of gameplay, and one sex scene. There are already quite a lot of feminine protagonists (it's probable the story won't be able to progress fast because of that).

I became a 'legit' Patron after completing this first public release!

These adult visual novels are always tricky, most are never completed, most fall short of their intended purpose, and most mean nothing to me.

However, there are those small few that end up capturing a special place in my heart. Like this one, for example, it's a slow-burn, yet a powerfully romantic story.

Burst Out Games, if you bother reading these reviews I just wanted to say thank you for this awesome first release, and hope you continue to deliver quality writing and quality content.

I agree with Pyrofox what's the point on giving us choices when the MC is still going to do what he is told by a jealous girl I mean don't get me wrong this game is good, but it would even be better if the MC sticks with the choices we make.

Quickly becoming one of my favorite games. I definitely recommend it.

Pros:

• Beautiful renders
• Lots of gorgeous girl and each with a distinct look
• I found the premise of the story to be very interesting, different from the usual stuff you get these days.
• The writing is quite good.
• I felt emotionally connected to both the MC and niece
• Some of my favorite lewd content of any game being made.

Cons:

• The animation was on the average side, it could use a bit of improvement

The mind control aspect (since it's not the MC with the power) may not be to everyone's taste, but I think the majority of people will really enjoy this game. I’m looking forward to future updates. Keep up the great work dev