VN - Ren'Py - Completed - Rebirth [Ep.1-5 All in One] [LikesBlondes]

Great premise, and the first few episodes are great but I've gotta tell you the premise is starting to wear thin. Talking with a bunch of annoying women in your mansion all the time about pointless vampire crap. Sheeeshus somebody shoot me.

You get vampired, and you morb all over the place. Classic fish out of water isekai vampire thing. It is great, you have sexy vampire mentor that doesnt care much for you at first but then you prove yourself and you become the mentor to her. Great stuff. Then you meet a bunch of useless low iq women and you turn them into your thralls. Great wholesome stuff loving it. One of them is sub 50iq redhead too BRILLIANT. She needs far more content. Faaar more

Problem is now that you have your thralls and vampire padawan also ex-mentor all you do now is talk about vampire stuff and how you are helping so much and how glad your slaves girlfriends(?) are that you exist. I just am not seeing the progression here it is becoming dragged out.

You saved your mother figure, but there is no sexy stuff with her. There is barely any sexy stuff with your slave thralls either. Why do you introduce all these slaves if you cant abuse your power position over them??? Imagine being Harvey Weinstein but you aren't allowed to nail jennifer lawrence for some reason. Like what even is the point.

Needs more vampire slave abuse. "oh my goodness master you cant be doing this what if mistress comes home?" And then you pick sexy time or coward time. But no instead you feed them blood. Why am I playing babysitter simulator over here??? It is more like a kinetic novel than a visual novel, which would be fine if not for the fact that the story itself is pretty boring I have no clue wth is going on and I can't even use my vampire powers ever. You have stats for sneak charm and prowess but I dont think theyve ever even been checked.

The game is treading water, I say end it and take the premise and start a new thing with new characters and updated new models as this is becoming stale. But this time, more slave thrall abuse and using your vampire powers for evil. AND MORE SEX SCENES jesus christ. Although it has to be said the sex scenes themselves are lackluster too, they just look lifeless no animation nothing.

A Visual novel from the well known developers: LikesBlondes (previously known as LifeWithMary) and PTOLEMY.

The main issue with this game is the story progression, extremely slow with small updates releasing each month.
Getting to the models, they look like something from 2019, not to mention animations and scene are very dry. (but at least somewhat the setting of them are interesting.)
Meaningless choices throughout the game. (Because budget limit and not enough work horses.)
For me, this game is the meaning of "average."

TL;DR:
Pros:
Good character development.
One of The first "Ren'py/Daz3d" vampire inspired novels.
Talented Developers
Cons:
Used models are drier than a week left on the shelf taco.
Story progression is slower than a snail.
tiny updates.

And as usual, do not forget to support your favorite developers, they depend on us.

Review up to Episode 4 Version 2
The Story of this game is very captivationg. It is linear with few choices and only small differences between them, however I still enjoyed the story being told and it was well worth the time to play.
The images were all well made and the characters not only visually distinct but with interesting personalities. The game worked great, no crashes also I don't recall seeing any typos or spelling error. The text was well written and easy to read.
Through all episodes available right now I guess there is about 12 hours of story. There are very few sex scenes but much nudity.

Twilight as it should've been. Fewer obnoxious boyband vamps, more MILFs, and some mean ass hickeys. Would rate this game 10/10, but alas, the scale only goes to five. This is a must play, nuff said. Excellent character models, "riveting" story. I'm done; play it.

Without a doubt one of the better story games on this site. Writing is great for both dialogue and characters. And the dev is also extremely fast with updates. The amount of content this game gets in a couple months, other games of simiar quality dont get in a year.

TL;DR: Highly reccommended, without reservations.

Game starts nice enough with decent plot potential, however once you get through the game, its starts to get irritating (i'm in episode 4)
I may be a horndog but i was expecting an adult game, the game has barely any sex scenes, it has plenty of nudity and around 3 sex scenes, you don't get to even have sex with your lovers, a lot of teasing and nothing rewarding for the reader of the VN.
Also every vampire except the protagonist has mind control powers, you ger a power that you can whisper and read thoughts of a person and you get to use it twice in the whole game.
Even what's supposed to be your servants, whom they love you and want to have sex with you, you don't do anything with them, also every other vampire in the game gets obedient servants excepts yours that are annoying.
Choices in the game are a f*cking joke, they are VERY ambigious and deciding between 2 choices can be hard, and not often you get choices during the gameplay, and your choices alter very secondary not the ACTUAL chances you'd want in the plot or with the characters. And don't let me start on the stats that depends on randomness for sole reason.
And don't get me started on the "Episodes" why wouldn't you as a dev have a single game that you constantly update, why we have to wait for updates on each episode, and an episode ends and you need to moves your saves to the newer version and omg its such a mess and trust me you will get atleast few errors doing so.
Idk why i got my hopes up for this so don't make the same mistake as me.

Been with this game since it started. Loved it, followed it, right up until now.

Honestly i am sad at how they developed the MC. Tbh he is just a huge annoying narcessist prick. Recently (chapter 3+) he's just doing whatever he wants without any regard to his partner/lover even though SHE is the Archon and hes a newborn nobody. The rest of the characters have dissapointing development (or sometimes none at all) as well. Poor Laurie, doomed to be side vamp for eternity, and Carmen to being his side meat...

An excellent game, and one that should definitely be played for the storyline

Those looking for a quick fap should look away, for this is definitely a slow-burn, although what the game lacks in h-scenes, it more than makes up for with a gripping story full of interesting characters, a budding romance between our MC and the vampire he's working with and his relationships with those around him as he enters a world he didn't know existed

It would't be inaccurate to state that there are very, VERY few sex scenes in this VN, but by that same token, it wouldn't be inaccurate to state that you wouldn't play this game for those scenes; this is one that caters to players who are in it for the long haul, and boy, does it deliver on that front! Five stars!

Okay, the ending to episode 4 was kinda funny with Marcius. This is a good VN and reminds me of 'The Bite: Revenant'. This game, however, is a little more practical with its characterization (the vampires take humans knowing about them a bit more seriously in this game I feel). Both of these games also handle tension well (when Sharon looks at you with eyes pleading for you to be silent so as not to offend stronger vampires). If you only care about porn, you may not like this game since the sex scenes that they do have to seem softcore compared to other games on this site (which isn't a bad thing to people like me who value writing above all else).

It's a good game, better than 90% of VN (spy your landlady under a shower thing) but it has its flaws (I'm writing it after playing Chapter 4).

The story is not original and heavily inspired by Vampire The Masquerade lore but it's allright and well written although a bit slow sometimes.

The graphics are mostly good. I disliked small things like almost everybody having "pretty boy/girl face" (it's a common problem in VN) and passsing the same shop again and again while riding a car.

I would like more choices to be made in the game as most time you just click and skip dialogues. And when you actually make a choice you don't know how it may influence the story. People say here it may have impact several hours later, I have to believe I guess

Oh, and the sex scenes are very, very rare. There is a lot of nudity (pretty looking, I have to admit) but nothing comes out of it. And when you at last have sex, it's some totally unimportant random side character. So play it if you are more after the story and not erotic scenes.

I'm giving it 4 stars a bit in advance but the author made a lot of work and despite the flaws it's on the good side. Especially if you like vampire stories.

EDIT: Now the game is finished and has really a lot of content. I wanted to give an extra star for it as it doesn't happen that often and a lot of games get abandoned. But I can't.

Unfortunately towards the end the story gets worse. There is a lot of unnecessary talking and the ending is bland. The earlier chapters were better.
There are some sex scenes in the game but too few for a porn game and too much for an ordinary game. They would look okay 5 years ago but now are a bit outdated with old body models and no animation.
There are stats and skills but they are mostly "fake". The game is actually quite linear and no matter if you use some skill or not the final result will be the same, just a few in-between pictures will be different.

Still it's better than many other similar games. Maybe it just means that many games are simply poor?

I like it.

The story is *very* good. It's not perfect (there are some obvious plot holes), but it's written in an engaging way that had me up reading/ viewing later into the night than I should have been.

I got through all 4 chapters in around 3 days.

If you like V:TM campaigns with methuselah rules, you're golden. It reads very much like that.

That said, I pulled off one star for the gameplay or the lack thereof. It's not that there are no choices, and it's not that the choices don't affect the story - they do (or they seem to). But you can't tell how, and you can't tell whether, for example some of your newly acquired abilities are being used to your advantage - or at all - with the exception of the physical ones you can see or upon first use. You also can't tell whether or not previous decisions have impacted the story, because there's no omniscient hints that doing something differently would have let you see different scenes, or a gallery that shows locked scenes so you really have no clue what if anything you're missing.

Still though, love the story and am looking forward to more updates.

Pros:
-Engaging Story
-Interesting plot and world building
-Interesting characters (until the end of ep. 02)

Cons:
-MC is an Idiot and infuriating (from the beginning till the end) so r the side characters after EP.03
-Female leads get annoying or character development is done poorly or none at all in Laurie's case
-Side characters stray too much away from their initial self without any particular explanation/reason
-Flaccid penis plot and no sex scenes at all with MCs love interests and the little sex senes we get happens at the worst times and it doesn't make sense and it doesn't feel rewarding (Ex:First sex scene ever happens shortly after carmen is heartbroken by Gregor hitting her and it's the worst possible time to have hot steaming sex just after being traumatised/ second time u r scared by ur vamp mom and out of the blue u have the gut to take the lead with her and without little to none emotional build up and all powerful she just let it happen/ 3rd time laurie's dying in the other room and u got a ancient vamp trying to get up and out of the blue sharon wants to have sex after ALL THIS BUILD UP she wants to have sex for no reason and it's the worst time)
-Wasting characters with great potential without properly using them at all, so they become unnecessary (ex: Greggor, Elois, nightclub lady {see, can't even remember her name that's how useless those characters r for the plot progression], etc.)
-MCs powers r useless no matter how much he unlocks Cuz, he doesn't use them at all or some r not used at potential moments
-Some choices r useless cuz they don't make any difference

A pretty interesting vampire game held back by an "erectile dysfunction" joke that goes on for wayyyyyyyyy too long.

EP2 also loses something that made EP1 enjoyable.. the main LI becomes less likeable and for some reason you completely ignore that your thrall can't listen to your instructions worth a damn..

I start to play it waiting for an average adult porn game, but i have to say this game really give me a nice surprise, the history is really good, it's a a good amount of play time an also great characters, I really enjoy it every second that I play it. If you want a good history, some mistery and love vamps sci fi, you will love this game.

This is the kind of VN that I am realizing I prefer, I love reading so reading through the dialogues and story is nothing new for me and it's rather exciting. And though I enjoy the lewd parts they aren't absolutely necessary for me. I love Life with Mary and recently played it again. Obviously, this is a newer game so renders are better quality now there is music as well though not animated anywhere but that would come up with time. Now I am waiting for further updates and hopefully, we get the completed story soon so that the mysteries can be resolved.

Excellent story with a setting similar to VtM, including the drama and vampiric political intrigue all of that entails.

It has a story that grabbed my attention and didn't let go until the end of the content.

Characters are enjoyable with growth, and the story takes precedence over the erotic, which is what I look for in a good AVN.

Decisions carry through the various episodes via save game importing so it feels like your decisions really matter.

Good use of sound and music.

Highly enjoyable.
Can't wait for more.

Rebirth is a successful approach to vampire story building, but in parts it takes itself too seriously to be convincing as a visual novel in the wider sense.

Like an Asperger's, Rebirth has a very peculiar understanding of emotions and personal relationships. They don't feel as rich and varied as you would expect. Human behaviour is flawed and often silly, but Rebirth's developers sometimes come across as just looking down on the silly human squabbles, not even acknowledging them in other cases or treating them like a foreign concept that needs no explanation whatsoever.

The vampire myth in particular though revolves around beings that are immortal. Dealing with their emotions and their coping mechanisms is an elementary part of the myth, at least in the more modern vampire adaptations. What does it mean to live forever? How do I define my relationships and feelings towards other mortal and immortal beings? What do I find meaning and purpose in? Is there a meaning at all?

When the MC and Calisto meet for the first time, it is implied that these thoughts have relevance to Calisto. But in the course of the game you feel little of this. Rebirth is much more like a political chamber play. The exploration of vampiric family trees and ancient mysteries in Rebirth is clearly above the exploration of emotional bonds.

In my opinion, as a vampire VN, it would be more convincing if the personal relationships took on greater importance over the political-religious intrigues. So if the characters were not primarily defined by their abilities and needs as vampires, but what used to make them human. Most of the main characters in Rebirth have not been vampires for long, but all their thinking seems as if the reality of vampires is the only one they know or want to know. The human world, with its human needs, is almost non-existent in Rebirth. It seems post-apocalyptic in this regard. As if the human world had perished and all that still exists are the old gods, the laws of the vampire societies and the power struggles that emanate from them.

This game is really frustrating, because the potential is very clearly there. The story is very good compared to other VNs; the writing is good, the worldbuilding is good, the characters are good, and the visuals are pretty good. All of this is held back by the fact that there's barely any sex or even lewd scenes. And there's no animations.

This isn't a sex game.

Good story for a vampire novel, but 3 sex scenes for 8 go of story ? Meh, the girls are nude all the time but the MC is impotent... Why? Not enough blood, so why didn't he enslave more blood dolls ? No reason.
The MC is not smart nor cunning, he don't even have any sense of self-preservation. HE live for the plot.
Greeeat vampire game...

All in all it's boring. If your kink is to see an eunuch perving on nude girls, then yeah, maybe ?
Or if you're here to read an average story of bloodsuckers, with a mediocre intrigue and worst political stratagems then good reading.

If not, pass this game you will just get bored.

My overall review is very much mixed for this game.

Pros: I actually enjoyed the characters, and at least some of the story beats.

Cons: Almost everything else.
-There simply is too little sex in this game. I know lots of people in the comments on this game are saying that games don't have to have constant sex scenes and I agree, but there has to be something. Right now, in what has to be close to ten hours of text, there are three possible sex scenes. One is non-consensual, one is interrupted by a psychedelic trip and the other is OK, none with any character I think any player will feel any emotional connection with. This for a game that's been in development for three years. It would make far more sense to just dump the sex scenes altogether and make this a non-pornographic release.

To make an analogy as to why this level of content just doesn't work, imagine if, in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, there was an explicit scene of Aragorn having sex with a random barmaid for two minutes towards the end of the second movie. No sex before or after, the scene is short and we barely see the barmaid before it and she's not that important after. That would be weird, right? You'd recommend just cutting that out. That's what the sex scenes in this game feel like given how enormous the buffers around them are.

-Imported save system breaks around half the time. What this means is that when you finish one "episode" and make a save to import it to the next "episode," you frequently get errors. Now, you can fix most of these with patches and console commands but it is very annoying.

-Outcomes are actually dependent on stats and a lot of early stat growth is dependent on random chance. What this means is that you might get bad outcomes in episode 4 because you didn't get a stat boost, at random, from training in episode 1, around 8 hours beforehand.

-The overarching plot is not really interesting or unique. This game is basically just unlicensed Vampire: the Masquerade, to the point that if you know old V:tM rules and lore, you can guess about all the rules and social organization of vampires that you learn about in this game. And a trope in games set in V:tM is the protagonist being sired by an unknown, powerful elder for unclear purposes, getting adopted by a powerful political outsider vampire, forming a connection with that vampire and ultimately discovering that something important involving an ancient buried vampire is happening. That's...pretty much the plot of at least three V:tM branded and unlicensed games, and Rebirth as well.

Conclusion: I guess I would recommend this game if you like Vampire: the Masquerade and you use a walkthrough/mod so you don't get screwed and you know there's no sex to speak of and you are willing to wrestle with the save import system. Otherwise, I'd recommend skipping it. I mostly regret having picked it up.