VN - Ren'Py - Powers That Be [Ch. 25 - Training Part 1] [Burst Out Games]

Review based on experience up to chapter 15
Warning this review contains spoilers

All in all this is actually a pretty decent novel, however there are some points that really drag it down. For the most part I will try to be as objective as possible.
Lets start with some positives
1. The story is pretty original and the initial chapters sets up a good foundation for a novel that could be really good.
2. The renders are good quality and in high enough quantity that even though there is no animations it's not really a problem. Also character models are good and varied, and most of them are not the same cookie cutter models you see in most other lazy projects. LI's have natural proportions and each have a distinct and for the most part attractive look that fits their character.
3. Dialogue and narrative is well written and generally have decent pacing. Even with the excessive overuse of pop culture references it is still entertaining and for the most part feels natural.

Now for some negatives
1. While the story starts out great the further you get into it the worse it gets. Scenes seem to cut off short in many cases with no real explanation as to what happens inbetween. The more you get into the supernatural stuff the less it makes any sense. This leads to what i think is one of the core problems that keeps this novel from actually being good.
2. The MC is a massive paradox, man where to even start with this guy. At first he kinda seems like your typical nice guy who made some bad choices in life, his jokes are stupid but also kinda funny and he is extremely intelligent, charming and succesful. However the more you get to know about his background, power and the way he interacts with the other characters the less sense he makes. Lets break it down into a few points.
1. Interactions. He is potrayed as a determined individual with a can do attitude and a vast skillset, also seems to have eidetic memory. However he lets people just walk all over him, does not tackle problems like at all. So many of the weird things happening with Tilly he just lets be. He projects none of the qualities that Tilly and Valerie loves so much about him, like how/why do they feel safe with him or think he solves all their problems when backs down from every single confrontation and don't address the problems they have. Like when they have a huge arguement, he can say "you both need to calm down", they tell him to shut up and so he does. Wtf kind of authority figure and protector is that when he can just be bullied by two teenage girls.
2. His power, he has kinda known about this since he was a teenager but never really thought about it. How does a supposedly very intelligent man with the ability to regenerate not realize this. He has never been sick, most of his injuries heal overnight and some almost instantly, he thinks he has insomnia cause he can't sleep much but is never really tired, and he never at age 40 gave it any real thought, like this is some next level stupidity and not at all fitting with the character. Also adding to it the 6 months ago he found out Tilly has somekind of powers and he just be like nah she made me kiss her lets just stay away and not think about any kind of connection here. To this i will also add this the illogical ways his power works, because of the way muscles work with rebuilding themselves stronger when broken down and him used to training and doing various forms of mma. Then add to it the power super regeneration, he should be super buff and shredded and have near superhuman levels of strength simply due to muscle density. Then there is also mention of him not getting tired and might not even need to sleep at all, but he still get winded from running a bit like during the fotball match and this also relates to the next point with his ex-wife.
3. Stacey, the ex-wife. Her being a cheater, not once but twice and the second time being after he found out about the first. This being the reason for the marriage ending is on surface level very reasonable. However then her excuses about it not being about sex, obviously since they appearantly had a great sex life. Then why the hell did she have sex with other men if it was not about sex. The not giving her enough attention is just the worst and most shitty excuse ever for cheating, like not only that fact that she did not end the marriage before doing it make her an absolutely shit person, but the reason of him working to much and being tired when he got home just makes no sense either when taking his regenerative powers into account. Then the interactions with her, like there really needed to be 3 options like with Tilly almost every time to have the so to speak neutral option. Only being able to chose between completely forgiving her for everything and pretend she is not a massive bitch or to be a complete asshole towards her just doesn't cut it. She is a cheater and ruined their family, why the hell should we feel bad about rejecting her, and if not rejecting her have the option to take some sort of middle ground saying like we can fuck but you will seriously have to prove yourself before I ever trust you again.

Now I want bring up some specific points in the novel that really bothered me. This will be very subjective and littered with heavy spoilers.
1. The hair styles of Valerie and Tilly are really ugly and looks like they cut it themselves. Makes them look shabby, trailer trash style. Valerie could be fixed by a simple sporty pony tail, it's not cool to have one of the main LI and the only redhead have such a trashy tomboy look simply cause of bad hair. Tilly would benefit from a more complete make over, there is something weird going on with her face and her hair is awful. Giving her more of a cute nerdy look would also fit the character better.
2. Lance, why does MC tolerate his behaviour. The supposedly best friend behaves like a shady asshole. Then the part where mc have sex with Gloria and Lance comes in and just stands there all pissy saying you failed the test, and this is after same asshole did his outmost to persuade mc to do exactly this, MC just runs off like an embarressed teenager instead of standing up for himself. Then he brings Tilly and Valerie to the bastard's bar later on wtf, without btw even talking about Valerie lifting and throwing a man through the room with one hand, just oh let leave this club and continue drinking. Then Tilly's ex-boyfriend shows up says he now works for Lance and is clearly trying something with Tilly(whom mc is now dating and also knows that Lance was the one who told him to break up with Tilly while she was in a coma) mc just goes oh this is none of my buisness and fucks off to get drinks only to take more shady bs from Lance. While the girls take mdma as soon as his back is turned, like seriously some protector mc is and some loyalty from the girls that supposedly love him more than anything. Lance feeds him some more bs, then mc and the girls have somekind of drug induced romantic moment before Tilly has a meltdown and mc finds out that the guy who works for Lance gave the girls drugs. At this time he also knows another dude who works for Lance have been spying on them and appearantly Lance have been sharing information about their private life with seemly everyone. Lance and Elsa shows off their power or whatever. Still scene ends and we go camping because Lance advised us to, like why the hell are we even still talking to this guy.
Next we get kidnapped by russians cause surprise Nika also turned out to be a traitorous cunt. And we skip from having a bj to being imprisoned cause why would we want to see how it actually happened. Not to mention mc's explanation is basicly oh they shot me with a bunch of tranqs and when that didnt work they put a bag over my head....... yeah that makes sense
So we are in a shabby looking room that looks like some worn down kitchen or whatever but it's appearantly reinforced with steel everywhere to keep superhumans in. Big ass russian boss dude(who's model we have only already seen in like 10 or more other avns) interrupts lewd scene and then proceeds to slap mc's daughter across the room and mc does.... nothing and just have a conversation with him.
At this point i'm so fed up with all this nonsense that I can't continue. MC is just such a spineless stupid wanker that it's pissing me off. He would fit perfectly as the cuck in some ntr focused story, but here the LI's appearantly just love how friggin incompetent he is and keeps praising him for qualities he obviously do not have.

So to end this massive rant/review
All in all this has the foundation to be really good and I honestly think dev has some serious skill, it just feel half-assed like as if author just came up with some really good ideas and excellent writing, but couldn't be bothered with putting it together in a a way that actually holds up for any reader with more than 2 brain cells.
Sure there are the stereotypical faults here that you see in plenty other avn, like ofc it's the sporty tomboy LI that gets super strength and lack of sensible choices to make as MC. And just like in many other avn one of the main problems is with the MC. When you see a story from the main character's point of view the whole story is basicly only as good as the main character. If the reader cannot relate to the character and the choices the character makes or they get to make for him, then the reader cannot relate to the novel as a whole. So the main weakness of this novel is quite simply the main character cause he does not make sense at all to the point that his inconsistencies break the entire story and immersion of said story.

great game. I've burst out laughing a few times at the references and easter eggs. Either the developer is really over 40 or he did the homework very well and did a lot of research because I am 42 and I understand all or almost all the phrases and references he makes to music, cinema, literature and others. It's a shame he doesn't put in some anal scenes. I just hope that with so much creampie they come out with a pregnancy scene or the beginning of pregnancy

Dont play this one if youre after adult scenes.

It's between a 2 and a 3 star really. The female models are excellent the renders are good, the writing is mostly good quality but lots of problems:

Firstly the dev clearly has excellent ui skills but they made some inexplicable choices like disabling the characters per second / text speedso you have to deal with the ridiculously slow typewriter effect (hint: its preferences.text_cps in the console)

Theres also infuriatingly long chapter transitions and you see them over and over and over becasue chapters arent long.

Also a lot of text is intentionalyl in russian for no apparant reason.

There's awful long sequences that are quizzes and others that are like tourism adverts for different countries that have zero place and add nothing. Also a crappy fight minigame because nobody likes those.

Despite all the nice li's, you cant ditch your obese ex even if you pick the negative option over and over and over and for the others they have to make every single move becasue the mc is a complete sadsack cowards. This has the effect of making everything on rails and having no mind control or corruption which were the tags that suggested this game

Lastly theres no intimacy or privacy it all seems to be about repeated public sex dotted between long turn-off redundant sections

I'm just confused by this game. I acknowledge and appreciate the time and effort. They've been updating this game for 4 years. But also in that time, has split their time and attention to 3 other games.

This looks, reads, and feels like a freshman effort. I have not tried any of the other games for comparison. This reminds me of when the "Ready Player One" book came out and was a massive hit. And then EVERYONE started making Pop Culture references in everything they did. So when the sequel to Ready Player One came out, Pop Culture references were so overused and every by that time, that the sequel was a flop. This game has loads of pop culture references but also mixes in characters and dialog that sound like it was written by AI that was trained on TikTok chat.

It just strikes the wrong chords with me. As another review mentioned, these traits and humor are entirely subjective and I readily admit I'm annoyed by "Just a prank, bro!" humor and "HIGHKEY" being used every 4 sentences by the Valerie character.

This game has a similar randomness, chaotic feel to it as shotgun-style development. Experimentation, trial and error, building off of what seemed to work till you hit that one-in-a-million moment does work. Like asking out every woman you come across and find attractive, sooner or later (just based on odds) at lease ONE of them will say "Yes."

Scott Cawthon (the developer of the Five Nights at Freddy's (FNAF) games) made 71 games that almost nobody has ever heard of between 2002 and 2014(when FNAF came out). FNAF was a massive hit, and they've worked almost exclusively on that IP since then. I just advise players be aware, when starting this VN, they may be, figuratively, starting "Bad Waiter Tip Calculator", which Scott Cawthon made and released the year before he made and released "Five Nights at Freddy's". They can't all be multi-million dollar IPs.

Good Points
+ Honestly, there is nothing good to say about this game...

Bad Points
- The story is not well-written, interesting or enjoyable to read.
- MC is not the really likable guy to play.
- Love interests are not interesting, well-written, or likable.
- Nearly every girl/woman in the game looks either straight-up ugly or kind of unattractive and there is nothing appealing about them.
- Sex scenes are not good, most sex scenes don't even have animations with good FPS values, and are mostly static, and the ones with good FPS values do not really have good physics and look funky & weird along with lacking a variety of positions/angles.
- Visual/Render quality looks old and bad.

For The End
Nothing to say, straight-up bad game, not worth playing.

I think this is a good game.
It is quite large already content wise.
It has good renders, mostly good animations, action, drama, and maybe debatable humor.
It uses a lot of "humor" and while that is really subjective and not everybodies cup of tea perhaps, I liked it.
It makes this a game which does not take itself seriously.
For me it was entertaining and fun to play with some hot scenes between MC and the girls.
And that is why I play these games....to just get some entertainment and that is just what this game gives you.
With all kinds of games out there I cannot imagine why this should be less than a 4 star game....I can definately see some ppl rating it a 5 star too.
I would say just give it a shot....it's a fine relaxing entertaining game for a rainy sunday afternoon.

I can't think of anything good to say about this... so one star it is. It would have been two stars if the option to reject the "love interests" wasn't ignored or delayed so often.

If you're looking for bad writing combined with a simp MC who's involved in some superpowered nonsense while fucking his "niece" and "daughter" in various countries then maybe it's for you.

Now i'll go and drink myself half to death in order to kill whatever brain cells contain information about this "game". Go play something else.. or watch grass grow. Literally anything has got to be better than whatever the fuck this was.

(Review of Ch. 24 Styling)

For starters, I'll admit I'm not a fan of anything that makes a story surrealistic. I can dig horror or paranormal stuff, but mind control easily ruins a story and superpowers have also that ability; unfortunately, here the product is already flawed before even getting into that.

First and foremost there's the jarring writing. Really, some expressions completely ruin the immersion by the way the MC speaks like he's a character taken from some Hanna Barbera cartoon. If this is an attempt at humour, please don't bother. In the same vein, we don't need an endless, pseudointellectual and absolutely OTT conversation in a cafeteria just to justify a quick sex scene in a restroom, either.

Then there's the creepy looking Tilly and the way she calls her uncle "babe" since the moment he accepts to bang her, or the fact that Nika looks like a robot. I can accept a cheap political joke making a Russian girl appear robotic keeping the same facial expression at times, but this is overdoing it. If you aren't giving a character some personality, maybe it's better to omit it altogether.

Lastly, for a guy that's supposedly as smart, mature and wholesome as the MC is supposed to be, he sure manages to behave like a complete moron when pressured by some horny girls. The only time he's in character is when he deals with his ex because it's the only time he actually behaves like an adult, while the rest seems like the typical classic Disney production where adults behave like children and viceversa. Are you targetting children with an adult game...?

I won't comment on animations and other stuff because quite frankly they're totally irrelevant when the basics are this poor.

the sex animation downgraded with each chapter.

the first sex scene is with Tilly, the animation is not good but at least decent with some dynamic animation but after that it went downhill, the sex animations became static, it's literally just back and forth render with no animations at all.

I left the story for a year only to find its quality became very very bad when I return.
It has completely derailed from the original plot. I don't know what to say, just feel very disappointed.
Oh, and the new cover is clickbait.

I have a vague recollection of playing this a good long while ago, I enjoyed it then and I enjoy it now. But I gotta say it's somewhat disheartening to see how little the story has progressed since my last run through.

I did notice additional references being added and the dialogue generally being punched up a bit since last I played, which I do appreciate, but I'm invested enough in the overarching narrative that I can't help but wish there were more of it.

Anyway - in addition to boasting some quality writing the renders are pretty good, though the animations are a bit meh - but fortunately few in number.

Music ain't bad, as compared to the usually abysmal offerings in these games it is at least tolerable. There are some sfx but they're unfortunately scarce, though used to decent effect when they do show up.

All told I like this game a great deal and I give it my recommendation, albeit with the caveat that I have some concerns about the pacing.

With each new update, the story, models, sex scenes, and backgrounds become progressively more nonsensical and terrible, despite the promising start it had. I don't know what the fuck is even going on anymore

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.