VN - Ren'Py - Price of Power [Ch.25] [Pandaman Games]

Ch. 17 review

PROS

• Interesting, wholesome, well-paced story with clever humor.
• Likeable characters

CONS

• Sometimes too much unnecessary text and dialogue
• Sex scenes are generic and uninspired. Basic animations with some rather cringy text over it.
  I think it'd be more tasteful if the dev did close ups of parts of the scene, for instance sweat on her body, lip movements, eyes, curling fingers, etc... That would fit this story more than seeing these generic Daz movements.

MISC REMARKS

• Not much choices (one or two per chapter). Some not important, but some really important. No problem with that.
• I'm a bit fearful of the planned harem route. A throuple with Maria and Emilia seems already like a stretch, but could be pulled off with good writing.
  With a full harem however I'm afraid the story will become completely unbelievable. And that'd be a real shame, because the story is just what makes this game so good.
  To sacrifice the story just to implement harem seems like a bad decision to me.

Final thoughts:
I personally like it a lot, but it's not for everyone (because of slow pacing and lots of text).

An excellent game. If you're just looking for an MC who's a slut who fucks everything on two legs, this isn't the game for you. (It looks like there'll be a maximum of only 4 girls in his harem.) If you want story and plot and character development and sex scenes within a serious relationship with an interesting girl, this game is excellent, and very rewarding.

The game doesn't feature a gallery (yet?), so make sure to save before each sex scene, as you will want to replay them

Instead of playing this game, I found myself looking through the reviews to see if I'm the only one who feels that this has turned into a borefest.

I liked the story a lot when it started out, but it no longer holds my interest. There just isn't anything interesting going on anymore. The 2 AI's are kinda annoying, the MC is a bit of a simp, and the 2 girls are just OK. Don't care too much about either of them anymore.

The whole thing is now somewhat disappointing, so I'm dropping it.

Pretty good game.

Strong on the plot,
kinda weak on the sex,
decent renders in general.

Note 1: It's more of a "slow burn" game.
Sex isn't going to be the first thing you see. Largely plot for maybe 1-4 hours.
This game can take maybe 1-2 hours if you use Skip (Especially with instant text), but if you don't, then by my extremely rough estimation, the game should maybe last for 4-8 hours(? Dev would know better than me, my sense of time is... not good).
I expect sex will show up more as the game continues further.

Note 2: Some of the renders could use a bit of cleaning up. Just in the "cloth physics" part though. Some outfits seemed to have some issues with phasing into things. That's it for me though.

12/12/23 Edit: Slight corrections to wording.

Definitely and most rightfully ranking among the best stuff around here.
Both in content (story, dialogue, lewd stuff) and presentation (graphics, language, mood), this is worth a look. Decent rate of updates, too.

v.Chapter 16

now THIS is why i come here. A VN that is indeed a VN.

Visually, this is great. not the best out there, as we all have differing tastes, but not far off at all. it is as much a feast for the eyes as it is on the imagination.

the N. yes the all important N that soooooo many developers lack any understanding of, is here and while it is not the busiest of plots and story-telling, it has been thought out and is excellent in it's delivery.
at no point when playing through this am i bored or feel like getting out and giving it a push to get things going.

if i could rate this as a 4.5 i would as this seems a fitting rating, but giving it a full 5 would require me to be emotionally invested, like leap of faith did for me, but this one, enjoyable as it is, just fails to hit that last link for me.

shaping up to be an easy top 10, just not a top 5 for me.

Finally gave this one a try and honestly this one is pretty good and can be considered one of the best vanilla games here. Graphics are excellent, top level storytelling, characters are good looking and romance doesn't feel cringe, annoying but wholesome and natural. I recommend this to everyone who loves vanilla and wholesome games. If you of course enjoyed then do try to support the developers if you have the means

Price of Power [Ch. 15]

Price of Power encapsulates the term Visual Novel perfectly: It had me completely captivated. From the moment I started playing, I was drawn into a world filled with intricate characters, a richly character-driven plot, and a hint of mystery that subtly drips throughout the first chapters leaving you wanting more.

H-scenes
So far the animations and statics are simple, but beautifully done. All add to the superb writing.

The "worst" complaint you will find is I personally found the "narrator" off-putting with its somewhat preachy, ham-fisted message of "humans bad" during the intro... But it is not without reason; which you will discover further in

Exclusively vanilla in terms of kink variety so far; though there's a few future tags that will add a touch of spice to this wholesome romance adventure

In conclusion: Price of Power is an absolute must-play if you enjoy a slow-burn story. Its beautiful writing, well-developed characters, and engaging plot/mystery make it a true masterpiece of storytelling that I can't wait for the next update on.

Positives:

• The story this dev is telling is absolutely amazing, it's like he has already written the book and is just visualizing the pages. Plot twists, up and downs, complex world. It's all there.
• The Characters are so well written, you connect with them more in each new episode.
• The main LI (I guess there is just one, maybe one more in the future?) is perfectly written and the relationship develops every episode.
• The visuals (renders and animations) are on the top end, there is room for improvement but they are very good.
• Have I mentioned the story? It's just so good!

Negatives:

• It's not really a negative, more a small wish. Since the story is so good, I think more visuals would honestly turn this VN into a 6/5 stars. Some scenes would immensely benefit from a bit more detailed visualization. Especially the sexual encounters would be so much more passionate if there would be an equal amount of attention to details in the renders as in the writing.

I would rate this game with 5 stars even if it wouldn't have the sexual aspect, since it's obvious that this is not the focus of the dev. I hope he does not feel pressured into delivering an H-scene each update just because of the target audience. I think that the people interested in this game are mostly here for this awesome story, so if I can be so bold to give advice: Don't try to deliver an H-Scene every update and instead focus on fleshing them out more, so they can live up to this wonderful story you are telling.


This does sound a bit "rambly" now (if you've read the spoiler), but I hands down think this dev is capable of writing a best-seller book. If the visuals would 100% reflect what's written, It would be the best VN on this site. Just voicing my opinion here.

I never bothered with writing a review, mostly because of the insane 200 character minimum. Just let me say that the game is great and worth to play and be done with it... But I digress:

This is one of the best games on this whole site. The quality of the writing and story telling is only matched by very few other games I have found. In fact, I could easily see this story being fleshed out into a great book series. Can't wait for the next update and see where the story goes.

+Well told and interesting story with a fun and endearing cast.
+Beautifull renders
+Hard not to get invested in

-animations are very basic, especially the straight up sex animations feel pretty robotic

(Note: This review was made after the completion of Chapter 14)

I'm very happy I stumbled across this gem! This is truly an incredible story that is masterfully written. I fear that many uninterested in romance might turn away from this visual novel too early, as it can be rather dull at times before the group travel to the Southlands. If you are reading this before you have begun to play, then I am happy to have caught you! This may seem like a simple love story at first, and well, it certainly is a love story, but the story is much bigger than it seems. If you like really well written stories, you will be thanking yourself for having stuck with this when the story ramps up in the Southlands. I want to run through some details that you might be wondering about before deciding to play this VN:

• There are choices that impact the story. Not very many however, and nothing too large or possibly detrimental from what I could surmise. This story doesn't really need them though; It's extraordinarily well-written, and at no point have I had an instance of the MC doing something stupid that I wish I could have avoided, or an instance where I wish I could have made a choice when there wasn't one.
• There's no free-roam as of Chapter 14, and I don't expect there to be.
• There are stats for your character that you will be prompted about a couple of times, but you don't need to worry about them or increase them. They seem to be there only to influence the scene you receive. There are no "bad" choices according to the developers, and you will not miss any content. I'm not entirely sure as to what capacity the stats alter the scene. I don't know if it's only the on-screen text that changes, or if there is a different scene for the stat but that the outcome is the same. I suppose that depends on the developer's specific definition for "content". I would think a different scene would constitute some "content" that you would not see without making different stat choices, but if anything, it is just minor difference.
• The women are beautiful, and the renders are superb. There is animation for the sex scenes, they are fluid and well made, but they are fairly average in comparison to the majority of visual novels that I have played. They do not stand out, but are well-written. The developers used the method of slow buildup into the first sex scene very effectively. If it's the descriptions that make you the most tingly, you might rate these higher than I have.
• From what I could infer, there is a possibility of a harem/poly-relationship as well as monogamy. By the end of Chapter 14, there is no clear path to the former, but there were 1 or 2 subtle hints... and my best guess as well!

This is more of a classical visual novel and less of a game, as the number of choices you make is quite low (if not minimal). But anyway, I liked the story (both medival and sci-fi stuff), even though it is rather slow. I also liked the renders, the characters are lovable in all senses, the humor is light, and most of all it is refreshing to see a game without any disgusting or dark themes.

Review for Ch. 14

I played through a bit more than half of the current chapters and ultimately just got so bored that I stopped. The game comes at a disadvantage for me, since I don't really care for medieval fantasy meets sci-fi. Unfortunately that's not my only issue.

Price of Power is a rather vanilla slow burn romance story. These are all things I can enjoy, but the game almost plays too much into it. I felt like 50% of all the dialogue I read was the MC and main love interest talking about how much they like each other. It gets super repetitive, to the point where it felt like I was reading the same lines swapped with some different vocabulary.

The other big issue for me is the narrator character. At first I thought it was just a weird quirk of the game that I could ignore. As it got increasingly more annoying and immersion breaking, that's exactly what I did. Well, it turns out this narrator is actually an A.I. that's now integrated itself into your body and is a part of you. Also he's an asshole. Great.

Minus all the sci-fi stuff I actually didn't mind the plot up until that point. The renders and models certainly look good enough and it's got some alright animations from the few I seen. It's lacking on sound design though, which is another pretty big minus for immersion.

I think if you're a fan of more cheesy romance you'll probably enjoy this more than I did. I will probably return to push through it a bit and see if it gets better at the least, but I'm not a huge fan so far.

Wow, this game has a better plot than most of the recent triple-A games out there. It has an amazing story, well-crafted characters, and awesome animation. I'm surprised it hasn't blown up like other top-of-the-line VN like Deluca Family or Being a Dik yet. 10/10, definitely Patreon worthy!

(CH14 review) Started out good a slow burn but that was fine liked the setting the narrator is annoying but it is in character and not past the extent of hampering it because he still manages to be useful, at least in the beginning as time goes on he gets worse the MC seems less capable of independent thought and becomes quite cowardly and generally takes a back seat to the main girl and the other members, loved this game when it first came out but as it goes on it becomes less and less interesting hopefully that will change and since I would have given it 5/5 only 3 updates ago but I am now sitting at a 2 (side note the american hate could have been done much more tastefully and despite what legacy says the natives cause massive damage to the mega-fauna of north america and burned down many forests and parries to hunt animals and many times far too many were killed than they could eat)

Damn, I really like the story so far. It has great characters, so I am going to play it till the end. The character designs are good. I like the scenes so far. It's great that all of the characters have different emotions. Every character has a unique story to tell. Humor and story is very good in it

Review of Ch.1-13 (Spoilers)

Love the premise of the game, something different for sure and the "time period" peaks my interest too.

It looks great and the music I would rate 4/5. The music isn't amazing and doesn't really deserve 4/5 BUT, we are dealing with a game in a different time period and vocals wouldn't fit the aesthetics. It's a shame as music can be a game changer (LoF) but Dev has done well with what's available and should be commended (too many games with lack of soundtrack).

My issues with the game are pacing and a new LI choice later on (although we will have to see this in future updates)

I like the main LI, her characterization is really good, just as deep as the MC's but I failed to form a deep connection with the LI. The dialogue is decent too so I can't blame that. I think it's just how the story unfolds, I ideally wanted more time alone with main LI to build more of a bond. It would require story shuffling, but the perfect time is when you get back to her "house". I would have liked a few days of doing fun and random stuff to really solidify things. (Could just be me though).

SPOILERS (CH.13)

So as I explained earlier, I have been trying to form an attachment to the man LI for hours now (It's a decently long game). You have a companion who goes with you and your main LI who you used to try and court but it never went anywhere. After you and main LI have sex at night when she's meant to be sleeping, you talk about it the next day because she overheard you and there's a devnote saying this is the throuple relationship line (because i chose to have sex with my main LI instead of busting in her mouth) ....what... So this solo love story of which I have been trying to delve into gets derailed just like that? It was an INSTANT buzzkill for me.

Now that's not too say you have to do this in the future, It ends there so who knows what options we will have? It was just such a horrible feeling to end it like that.

In conclusion: A decent game/novel that the dev clearly cares about and hopefully can build upon.

If the game ends with 40+ chapters, disregard this review as I could see this game being a slow burner but really powerful emotions to the characters if done right later on. There just isn't the magic sauce that makes me "love" the main LI. Adding other LI's really leaves a bad taste in my mouth too seeing as the first X hours played are without it.

If you like the setting and visuals, give it a go. Maybe my jaded brain just can't connect with the characters as well as others.

Probably the best game I have found in F95zone this far. A wholesome story, no chasing after multiple girls in hope of making a harem. The female protagonist is as deep as the male protagonist and certainly a complete package. At the later stage, in the recent chapters the story takes a turn that cannot be foreseen in the first chapters. This is good and bad both. Though I liked the work, it might feel out of place to someone, there's a possibility.

Good art design, characters and background both. Pretty story, sprinkled with mystery, history and salted with romance. Only a little bit of skin game makes it more a VN than an adult game.

Thanks F95 for putting this game in the banner where I noticed it. After playing the first few chapters I purchased it on Steam as a way to show support.

There's a lot to like about the game so far. The post-apocalyptic theme is clear from the beginning, and it fits well into a long tradition going back to John Wyndham's The Chrysalids.

The way that these elements are introduced makes it clear that (a) the author is working to a plan, rather than making it up as they go along, like so many VN writers. But (b) there will be plenty of opportunities for surprises and plot twists.

The writing is literate, so far.

I have abandoned VNs with very good technical production values because frankly I didn't care what happened to the characters. This one is keeping me going, because it really has me interested in the plot.

And the "wholesome" nature of the romance (so far, anyway) is no real drawback for me. Some of us old-fashioned types really do like it when the nice people win.

Edit: I don't really get the point of the narrator, but perhaps that will become clearer in time.