VN - Ren'Py - Radiant [v0.6.3] [RK Studios]

After watching the first chapter, why do I have the feeling that everyone is a little stuttering? Is it because they almost never start a sentence without stumbling (B-But... S-Sorry...) or is it because there are more dot, dot, dot than words? It is not necessary that all sentences are separated with dot, dot, dot, there is something called a comma.

Fantastic graphics, a beautiful story and a nice plot, but it stays at three stars because of those poor dialogues, I'm sorry...

Once seen the second episode I can't raise my rating, the appearance of an envious cop doesn't make much sense to me, between that and the Russian girl, the game has the danger to end up becoming a Soap Opera. I hope that doesn't happen.

After 2.1 version, I take one point away from my rating for the appearance of absolutely unnecessary violence against womens.

Version Played: v0.3

Time to Complete: 3.5 hours for one run. While the game recommends playing multiple times, I just haven't found a reason to do another run.

TL;DR: An incredible demo that leaves me extremely excited to see how this game turns out in the future.

[4.5/5] Story: This game is simply too short to make any calls on the story. The premise is promising and of the characters I paid attention to, they're all unique and interesting, but there just hasn't been enough general story or character development to be able to make any calls.

[4.5/5] Renders: This game has some top tier renders. Both the scenes and characters are incredible, with the girls being absolutely adorable. I especially like the scenes where the absolutely gorgeous skyboxes are put on display. The only issue with the renders I've seen is that some scenes have an obvious cut where the scene ends and the skybox starts.

[+5/5 Music]: This game has some of the best music of any VN I've played yet. I'm actually in the process of listening through the music and adding it to my personal playlist as I write this.

[*] Updates: This game is extremely slow to update - some may even find it infuriatingly slow. Since I am not a supporter of the developers, I have no right to be angry about the rate of updates, however if you are considering supporting this game, I personally suggest you consider any smaller developers you may also like. These developers already have a lot of support and you will likely make a larger impact supporting a smaller developer.

This review is for version 0.2, so hopefully I’ll be editing this soon with a better score.

Radiant has a lot of good going for it so far. There’s a touching prologue that introduces you to the mother of the three main love interests, as well as getting you acquainted with a little of who the protagonist is. The visuals are beautiful. Even the mentor character is charming. Most importantly, based on the few sex scenes in the game so far, I believe the writers have a talent for erotic fiction and will produce some steamy scenes.

My issues with Radiant fall entirely in the version 0.2 update. Some story elements were suddenly hamfisted into the story and derailed it from what made version 0.1 so endearing.

A villain is introduced, and although the writing does an excellent job of making the player feel powerless and threatened by the villain, the villain himself is comically over the top in his expressions of antagonism. Moreover, his motivations for opposing the protagonist are pretty much just screamed out, “I want to ruin you because I envy you!” I would’ve liked to see a more gradual development of the villain and his conflict, for the sake of subtlety and pacing.

Four (if not five) new possible love interests were crammed into this update alone, with one of them literally throwing herself onto the protagonist’s dick while she’s waiting his table during a date—a date he went on instead of spending time with his girls in their first week in his home. Other women foreshadowed a relationship with the protagonist in the future. Not only does the rate that women are throwing themselves at the protagonist feel silly and distracting within a single chapter, but this makes me worried for the future of this game from a development standpoint. I believe there is no possible way for an author to do justice to the story’s three main relationships if he/she has to write and render scenes for possible relationships with four or five other characters. Something is going to suffer for this—as it did in this update.

Overall, I would’ve liked to see more focus invested in developing the three young women as unique and vivid characters. I wanted to see the protagonist develop himself and his relationship with these characters. I think it’s a fine idea to have a couple of love options closer to the protagonist’s age, for any players who would rather playthrough having a nonsexual relationship with the three girls. I even like the villain and the ghost of the past storylines. But at the end of the day we’re all playing Radiant to see the story between the protagonist and these three girls. That’s where the majority of content and energy should go, and I don’t feel that this update delivered on that.

Updated the review for v0.3.1 and added a star to the rating.

I'm not sure if the dev listened to the criticism or if this was his plan all along, but after a disappointing second chapter the game is now heading in the right direction!

Most of the uninteresting side-characters were moved to the background and we finally get to spend some quality (corruption) time with our sweet girls. And looking at the current story flow it seems like that will continue in the next update. This is exactly what I was hoping for after the first release.

It's still a shame that the updates take so long (>6 months). The fact that every woman falls madly in love with the MC at first sight is kinda tiring and the stories of Brooke (your colleague) and the waitress girl are... unlikely, to say the least. But apart from that this game is turning out great.

tl;dr: really good art and I like the setup (of having 3 daughters), but the game is completely dragged down by the implementation of the story.

Art

• The art of the daughters and side characters is beautiful. I was amazed how nice one of the kisses on the cheek looked.
• The developers did a good job of making the different looking daughters look related to their mother.
• The animation added is great. However, the only animation added was for a side character with a unnatural setup (a waitress trying to jump you mid-date). Even for a porn game the setup was awkward, killing most of my interest in this content. It's a shame so much time was spent on this rather than maybe a kissing/hugging animation with the daughters, or maybe one of them jumping in the pool.

Story/characters

• The daughters are interesting as characters, and different not just in looks.
• Too many side characters introduced in a single update. You're out of coma, and suddenly the whole world tries to fuck you, fuck you over, or settle their differences.
• The story tries to be deep, but fails at multiple points in the second update. I think the game intended to convey a feeling of slice of life with the daughters, but it really didn't work. The MC supposedly cares so much about his newly moved in daughters, but then the MC sleeps through a complete day (after already having had rest), goes on a date with a co-worker the day after despite his daughters only having arrived a couple of days before, and then proceeds to go on a date with just the single daughter. Maybe pick a further day in the future for the date, and just help them with their problem there and then? Maybe spend some time with your daughters who are actually still crying during the day due to their new situation.
• At the same time the daughters are acting like they've lived in the MC's house for years, immediately lounging in the pool and hanging out eating snacks without even needing to interact with MC. It feels like we've gone from a dramatic introduction, to a *5 months have passed and you are now living in a sandbox where every day your daughters just do random activities in the house*.
• Most of the side characters are overexaggerated and unrealistic. This can be okay in a less serious VN, but this game tries to be very serious but then has some over the top characters that just don't fit the setting.
  • A cop that hates you so much, he performs various acts that would get him fired immediately, and not actually help him set up blackmail (a villian doesn't have to announce they're evil).
  • A waitress that wants to have sex with you so much she isn't even able to hide her most basic intentions (as if we're playing a standard corruption MC in horny town game). A subtle hint of flirt and then trying to catch you in the bathroom would have at least been passable. A confrontation at the table, acting in such a way it upsets your date, and then the game assuming that your date would not notice you have sex in the staff bathroom?
  • A model that likes you so much, she immediately wants your phone number. There isn't even any setup in the scene. The model just says he did such a good job, without the writer actually having tried to create that chemistry.
• All of these scenes could have worked. However, they were all set up too quickly, were made unbelievable and therefore removed my immersion from the game. Actually expanding this "the model and MC had a great time", etc, is part of what makes the story. And this is basically missing for any of the side character setups, and is even starting to happen with the daughters (e.g. the kissing scene).
• Too many side activities/plots. Vanessa, waitress, angry neighbour and model encounter all happen in the space of three days. It's okay to just have a day of slice of life, and create a sense of home and bonding with your daughters, without major events happening. Why do we need to have a date or confrontation on the same day we meet someone?
• The MC is a passive simp. For a game that touts a dark path and choice, you sure as hell can't make an actual impactful choice to deal with your encounters. Who in their right mind accepts to be stabbed or gives up their ID etc to a "cop" that has no right to ask for it? It's not like the MC was made to look afraid, he's just insanely submissive but at the same time really attractive to women(?).
• The different paths aren't paths. The MC's core dialogue tries to make him a good guy, but once in a while you get to have a choice at which point the MC can pretend to be a complete sociopath and suddenly perv or wreak havoc. This was handled much better in games like Our fate, that actually changes the thoughts of the MC and the further interactions with characters in the different paths.
• Story has some big inconsistencies, including Vanessa asking you for a coffee date, and then following with a scene complaining that you asked her instead. This is a big surprise given their 7 month timeline and alpha testing.

Finally, the devs. I have great respect for the amount of work they've put in the graphics, and I do believe they're hard working people. However, they do not seem to be able to deal well with criticism. From criticism-shaming in the Discord, to the defensiveness in their posts on F95zone not taking onboard any of the actual content of helpful posts. It made me finally unsubscribe as a patron, as I don't believe they'll actually listen to comments of people, let alone patrons.

I wasn't expecting much but goddamn is this an emotional game, I am blown away by the quality not only of the animations of the characters, but the writing too, I genuinely teared up at a pivotal plotpoint I won't get into here but whoever wrote the script for this is a hell of a talent, yes there is sex in the game but there is also a hell of a lot of heart put into the characters as well, I hope to God this game doesn't get abandoned I am going to donate to the patreon for sure, this is one game I can't wait for the next update for.

Pros
-Top tier character animations
-Some of the best writing I have ever seen in one of these games. If not the best
-You feel genuine emotion for the characters
-An honest to God likable Protagonist (that is even rarer than the great writing lol)

Cons
-We have to wait for the next update

Good Points
+ Prologue was well-written and emotional, especially MC's accident, and how it's connected to his job was pretty interesting.
+ Characters in this game have unique personalities, backstories, and developments, and that's a pretty good point, even some characters you might think bad about can have very deep and sad backstories in this game, which makes things immersive and good.
+ The story about how MC and Bernie met was touching and funny.
+ Your choices matter, you can kind of have your own character with the choices (Pure, Lust & Dark choices affect your personality), and not just that, you can choose to have a relationship with girls/women or not, you can choice what kind of relationship you want, you can even choice the action you gonna have with them like you can refuse to get BJ, etc, and be ''pure'' and having choice over your actions as a player/MC is always very good point, something a lot of games out there lacks.
+ The art style looks good and the girls/women are kind of good-looking, but this game is nearly 4 years old so at this point visual parts are looking kind of bad.

Bad Points
- MC not giving girls any pocket money, not paying the money they spend on the groceries, etc, makes no sense at all, in episode 4 we even saw a scene where Maddison had no money at all, and couldn't buy anything, and because of that lady in the shop make her peanut butter sandwich just for feeling bad for... Like seriously?
-General quality needs improvement, especially the bodies of girls/women look kind of low quality, considering the game is nearly 4 years old we are really in need of graphical improvements for sure. And same goes for sex scenes, 4 years ago sex scenes were good, and sex scene animations were decent, but now they are not good enough, they need some improvements as well for sure.
- MC's relationship with Maddison was too rough, sure with episode 4 things kind of calmed down at least a little bit, and the kiss & hug in episode 5 was cute, but still it doesn't change that things were too rough with her from the start for no reason at all.
- The game is nearly 4 years old, but it doesn't have enough content for that, I mean this game should have finished after all those years, should have enough content for having an ending, yet we didn't even progress more than weeks, the content level gives the impression of a game out for less than a year. The game's sexual and story content balance is not good at all either, aside from the sex scene in the prologue with Gracie (She is not even a love interest, since she is dead), the sex scene with the waiter girl, and Jade we have no sex scene at all, yes that means we have no real sex scene at all with ''the girls'' as well, 4 years and still no real content with ''the girls'' that's almost like a big bad joke...They are supposed to be the main focus of the game, they are our three main love interests, yet they have less content (especially for sexual progress) than even some random girls, which is a very bad point, at this rate, I'm not even sure we are going to see this game getting finished...
- Most girls/women look unattractive, some have problems with their bodies, some with faces, and some with both. Olivia's face doesn't look bad aside from some certain scenes, still can use some changes, but the actual thing really needs to change is her body, it would be great if she got some changes for sure, and for Jade, she have a cute face for sure, but her body needs improvements for sure, especially her tits (Nipples most likely) looks pretty bad, low quality even. Alita looks fully bad, her design is not good at all. And Rachel could have filled the role of milf quite easily, but her design is not fitting for that, if she was a little better looking than she currently is and hot it would be great, her content and how she looks is another wasted opportunity for sure.
-Glen's existence is nonsense, not needed for this game or story at all, and pretty annoying to have, he shouldn't existed at all, we already had a lot of problems at our table, can't see any reason for adding more.
- Olivia's jealous act was quite annoying, I guess making one sister (Maddison) annoying wasn't enough writers wanted another thing to bother players/MC? Beats me...


For The End
Honestly, this game started pretty great, but considering it's 4 years old, despite everything is doing good for the game financially, etc, still having content like some 1 years games is not acceptable at all, this game deserved better, but it seems it's never going to reach that full potential, I'm going to give the game 3 stars, but keep in mind if characters weren't that unique and story wasn't enjoyable I wouldn't give this game more than 2 stars at all...

Many many things are wrong with this game. Basically, it seems written by a 13 years old schoolboy, just like 90% of games here, but worst because apparently game had some potential at start, just before story could look a train wreck.
Most disgusting things imo are:

Just an example of how childish plot is, but there is a bunch of situations like that: "Natalie" woman, appearing from nowhere, looking for some kind of retribution or so. Useless character and absolutely unnatural. Just a couple of (stupid) smacks and MC goes to sleep a full day (with a house crowded by your 3 daughters you met just hours ago, that has no reaction at all and wake you up with a silly game).

Game was supposed to be focused with the 3 girls. Instead of that, a bunch of nasty or empty characters appear, probably because developers have no idea about how to treat the main plot and how to develop a proper relation between mc and the girls and they need to put some filler into the story. That explains why they needed too much months updating this.

The "points system" are not gonna work. Really, developers around the world, remove it once and for all. No way somebody playing this could feel related to Mc following a "lust" or "dark" route if inner thoughts are so poor, full of guilty, repetitive, bland and unrelated with the path we are trying to follow. Also, developers should know that trying to branch a plot with multiple paths always leads to a failure: plot holes, inconsistencies, unfinished paths and routes (and updates) and characters doing absurd things.

Finally, sex scenes are vulgar, uninspired, bland...just reused situations and positions everybody has seen in a ton of games before. Zero imagination and no novelty at all.

One to watch for sure. The Dev does a fantastic job with renders and there's no doubt that the quality will continue. I see this one taking a while to get some meat on it's bones as far as H content goes.

I'm going to wait a fair few updates before I try it out again but it is definitely one I'll be returning to.

Updated review. Feb 25, 2024

Still an average VN as of v0.5.2
Inner monologue is such an over kill. Do we really care about the constant back and forth with feelings? A little bit is ok, but consecutive never ending monologue is to much. IMO

At this point it's way to late into development to actually say that the pure, lust, and dark choices are garbage. Not to mention choices don't really seem to make a difference with them. I guess the actual relationship choices are important, maybe?

RENDERS are ok
LIs are ok
Story is actually good.

I made it to the swimming day at the lake and just couldn't go further. It made my brain hurt. Wishy-washy, back and forth with the horn dog MC kills my brain cells.
The story is actually interesting, but tossing in the "hormonal teenager" 30 yr old MC chasing every skirt kills it. Oh, I'm spending the day with my "wards" at the lake, let me just go over here and try to pick up that cashier I met for like 30 seconds. LOL

Look, don't let my opinion ruin it. If you're interested then try it out. It might be good for you. For me, I'm going to go back to not paying attention to this VN.

The Good
Goddamn, this game man. Everything feels good. Characters are well made, the scenes are great. The animations are top notch. The story just makes sense, and is so beautifully crafted, and combined with your music choice it really does make me feel emotional. There are alot of games out there, but this is one of those who just does that little extra you know.

The "Bad"
The only thing that i feel like is a problem here is that the patches have so much time in between ( This is ok because of the quality of the production of course) that i do not remember fully where i left off and what has happened previously, i would really like to see some sort of flashback or something along those lines after each chapter so the returning players dont have to restart the game to remember their previous choices/crucial story parts. I believe "Being a DIK" does this really well and could be a inspiration.

Thank you for creating this masterpiece though! Would definitely recommend everyone to try it, and ill look forward to the upcoming chapters!

A very long wait for chapter two, but well worth it. Superb quality all around; probably the best-looking girls in any game. Between the three main girls and the four(?) side girls there's so much room for future content. Not liking the dickhead neighbor stuff so far so I hope that's not too heavily involved in the future.

Very happy to see this back. Even if the update is short, I still like it. It's a great game that I have a feeling will put story first. I would say it's up there with Halfway House in terms of quality. And I fucking love that game. This has beautiful visuals and an emotional attachment.

This game is pretty heavily overrated. While the CGs are top notch, the writing isn't very good, the story is pretty uninspired as well, and the characters don't seem all that fantastic, and the dev team seems to be almost uniquely ineffecient at game development. All of this on top of what is quite possibly the creepiest situation I've ever seen in a game leads me to say this is not a game you should bother spending your time on.

Version 0.1.2
Overall, I enjoyed the game - there's lots of potential and the devs seem quite ambitious, the renders are really nice, although so far quite generic (no surprise given the mum + three triplets angle).
Game progression is slow and steady; there are a couple of H scenes straight off the bat but it feels like there's an invest and reward style of play ahead.
A lot of the dialogue is interesting and well-written (no engrish), but I really struggled with the girls calling the MC 'Daddy' within the first 5 seconds of meeting him, then it's tears and hugs all round. Everyone is just far too accepting of the whole situation. I was expecting some conflict to spice up the interactions, but maybe I'm being too picky.
Time will tell on how the points system will work as the story progresses, but so far I can guess where the story is going.
I'm gonna keep an eye on this one.

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MC is a sissy.
The lines inside are often "Am I dreaming?" "In my dream..."...What the hell is this? He has been awake for several years...Do ordinary people react like this?
The tone of MC's words to others and the thoughts in his head always show that he is a weak and unconfident person. Can't his personality be more confident?
Although he was in a coma for 10 years, he woke up for almost 10 years, but he still thinks like a teenager? He can only think of women in his dreams? What kind of loser is this?

In addition, what the hell is the narrator? Can't the author directly use italics or boldface? There are too many narrations, which is very annoying.

Nickname...Everyone has to take a nickname...
On the first day a group of girls moved in, can you just call them by their nicknames?
I don't know why the author is so attached to this meaningless title...

Many details of this game really need to be improved.

I have mixed feelings about this one.

PROS

- I do like the quality of the renders. I appreciate even small head/lip movement when talking which is what even a lot of new VNs seem to ignore.

- The Audio was pretty decent too. Nothing was really out of place and there are sound effects for different situations which is something I do like in VNs.

- I like that the plot has a more serious feel in the beginning and not just a flailing penis all the time.


Mixed Feelings PROS + CONS? .... PRONS? ..

- While I don't hate the plot , It does feel like a fast forward (personal opinion). There's not much of a buildup. I like getting invested in a story and knowing the characters before drastic changes happen.

- The writing is not bad in my opinion. But again in some cases it does feel 'pushed' for comedic effect.

- I'm not a huge fan of the usual MC getting random boners or thinking about his dick every time someone's half naked in front of him so I do wish there was less of that. While I do understand that's the games way of telling the player 'you are attracted to these girls', it just felt too rushed for me. I barely played for an hour or even less and i'm already getting turned on by these three young girls that show up in my life
This would be understandable but the story is pretty serious and just takes a porno turn too fast for my liking.

CONS

- Nothing too bad to mention here except maybe it wasn't much of content to make me get a good feel of the game.

- While the story was 'interesting' so far, I was far from invested.
I understand for some people these are just Click N Fuck games but I personally enjoy good plots that keep me hooked.


CONCLUSION

While I did enjoy my time playing this game, it was too short for a verdict.
In its current state its probably a 3-4 out of 5. Not in a bad way but just in a "there's not much to go on" way.

It's definitely worth a download but only more content will help bring the games quality out.
For now it lowkey feels like a rushed introduction.

Good luck to the devs

v0.1.2 Overall ++quality Game:

It has a good and intriguing storyline.
It provides us with high quality renders and animations.
The length of the updates are decent.

One point less for their update policy, needing over 6 months and delaying the release is annoying.

Story: 10
Design. 10
Characters: 10

i love this game so far, it reminds me a lot of another game and i loved that game. definitely something to keep an eye out for. The story sucked me in and made me feel emotions i thought i killed years ago. The characters are unique and it's an amazing thing how the developers made the daughters look like their mother, but with differences between them.