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

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.

Imagine you are watching a halloween movie and screen time of Michael Myers is total of 2 minutes.That’s the best way to describe this game.Almost 20 hours of playtime and i have seen only 4 sex scenes.I have had sex more than 4 times in my life and this comes from a guy who plays porn games so that should speak for itself.

Now i will be honest with you i hate fuckfest games i really do.I hate it when the game starts with a sex scene or females jump on mc,i believe the concept of sex should be a supporter factor in the game.Now this game has an engaging story,nice renders,interesting characters etc.However(this is entirely my own opinion)devs don’t believe this would be enough to make this game shine so they add ‘sprinkle’ of pornografy and voila you got yourself a golden laying goose.

If devs trusted their own game they would release it on steam without any of sexual stuff because it’s clear that they want to tell a story.And i’d be totally ok with it.But instead they chose to advertize it as something it’s totally not.

Review for Ep. 4 Update 3

Rebirth is fine as a regular VN, but it kind of sucks as a lewd one. Fair warning that my review is going to contain a couple smaller spoilers.

It's weird for me, since I highly value good writing and typically enjoy slower burns. But I just found myself losing interest in most of the characters as I played.

The MC is just boring. I played through the first 3 episodes and couldn't really define his personality beyond being a bit cocky sometimes. The one interesting thing he has going is the fact that he was turned into a vampire by someone strong and mysterious. Beyond that he doesn't really have much of a background. There's just a lack of anything deep really going on I suppose.

As for the love interests, they sort of suffer from the same thing. Funnily enough I find the male characters more interesting than them. Laurie might as well not have a brain. Shannon comes across interesting enough at first, but her weird naivety for being as old as she is made me question why she has any respect among the vampires. Carmen turned from an amateur vampire hunter to a babysitter for a mind broken weirdo that we keep around for some reason and not much else.

The main plot is actually good. Getting our own territory, mysterious elder vampires, the whole Nos aspect, etc. I liked it, and I think it accomplishes the vampire vibes well. But this just feels lacking in most aspects beyond the story.

There's a lot of teasing and nude shots, but I think I ran into 4 sex scenes total? Apparently male vampires have erectile dysfunction since they don't have enough blood in them to maintain an erection (weird choice for a lewd VN I would say). There's no animations for them, and the dialogue during them wasn't enough to make up for that imo. They could have used more angles/positions. In the same vein the renders aren't bad, but certainly nothing amazing when comparing them to other AVNs.

I just feel that beyond the mysterious vampire story going on, there's not a lot here that's interesting or compelling enough for me to want to see what happens to a lot of these characters. Maybe this is just an extremely slow burn that will have more payoff later, but after three episodes it hasn't got me hooked.

A game with engaging characters, a compelling story, and a deep appreciation for world building. Rebirth is the game I look forward to the most each month, and I support the developers on Patreon. I wish there were six stars to rate the game.

This is a great VN, and thus it gets 5 stars.

The bad things:
- not a game. VN with very few choices.
- no fapping. Nearly no sex (Vampires do not get hard without some overdose of blood).

The good things:
- very good story. No need to skip stuff, because it is not too much text per image.
- Vampires. Love that.

If you've ever played Vampire: The Masquerade, and wished for something even more adult, then this is perfect for you. The first episode alone already immerses you into its world, regardless of whether you consider urban fantasy your thing or not.

I think it's fair to say that Rebirth is the best vampire AVN at the moment. The main reason for this is a strong story and lore that even after three episodes makes you feel there are endless possibilities of how the story could evolve, how the protagonists could develop in terms of their personality and the stakes involved. I enjoy that the MC is not the center of the universe and that there are forces still unknown after all this time, to keep things fresh and allow a sense of mystery and obscurity.

If you thought that being a superpowered immortal vampire was a power fantasy, you are wrong. MC is a bitch throughout the entire story, you are basically given fake options, that result in the same thing just 2 scenes down the road.

Ok i dont know what it is about this game, but somehow it got me hooked. Besides its many flaws, to which ill get later, i cant stop playing and really want to know what happens next. Maybe its the unique kind of story that just interests me, its the setting i find really inttriguing same with The DeLuca family. Its just something different and i kinda want to know how it plays out. The Game itself looks pretty nice with good graphic and the music is great.

Now to the "flaws" i mentioned, meaning the things this game does diffrent and in my opinion worse than others:
1. Already mentioned in other reviwes i think is the fact that this game has very little choices to be made, it gets better in the end of episode 3, but i dont know weather its a temporary thing or a trend the game developer is keeping to follow. The Choices impact mostly the skills your character has (Stealth, Charisma and Power) or the way you behave towards the main character. It still feels like you dont really have much say in how your relationships develop, which you do i guess, but it doesnt really feel like it. A plus tho is that the MC is atleast not a huge idiot and you have to endure that for the whole game like in some other games.

2. The actual Sex scenes are there, but pretty rare and not animated. Meaning theres quite some nudity, but i only discovered 3 actual Sex Scenes, ofc i couldve missed some, but anyways they are not animated like you know it from other games, just frame by frame, like the rest of the story. Somehow that didnt bother me too much, because in my opinion the story made up for it

3. There is not too much choice on which girl you want to have a realationship with because there arent that many girls in the game. That combined with the few choices you get to make in the game anyways, just plays more into the feeling that your relationship is predestined.

But lets come to a conclusion. The thing that bothers the most is the lack of desicions you get to made regarding the way you behave which i really hopw will change in the next episode. Nevertheless the Story with the musical ambience is still very much to enjoy. I guess you could compare it to reading a comic, but u get to make a few choices and have atleast some impact. So if you keep that in mind you can still enjoy this game very much, which is why i think it still deserves 4 Stars. Its not the best, but its good.

This vn's Story is extremely well-written, has a very adult theme and there's lots of nudity, but very few actual sex scenes.I really like the story line, the character building, the lore and the romance this VN always delivers. I can never stop reading the story and always wants for some more to come and unfold. Please keep up the good work

Game version: [Ep. 3 Update 8]

Jesus Christ, this game deserves the kinetic novel tag. It technically has choices, but they are so few and far between that you can get cramps in your skip finger before the next one finally shows up. And the choices that are there rarely have any consequences outside the current scene.

The MC is a wet blanket ("good guy") who's constantly saying and doing shit that annoys me and since there's rarely a dialogue choice for you to make you just have to take it. There are one or two occasions where you get to be "evil" or an asshole, but again, this has pretty much no consequences and just clashes with the MC's writing in the 95% of the game where you don't get to make choices for him, so if you pick those choices he just comes off as schizophrenic.

There's barely any sexual content besides some nudity and teasing and the first actual sex scene you get is hours into the game, with a random, incredibly unattractive side chick. And any time something halfway interesting is happening that bald fuck with the sunglasses shows up to cockblock you and move the lame plot forwards. Can't have you actually spending too much time alone with a girl, you might get the idea this was an adult game. Also, I never thought Sharon was "all that," but after an eternity of blue-balling and having to listen to her incessant blabbering I don't even want to fuck her anymore.

Basically this is just way too verbose Vampire: The Masquerade fan fiction with some tits thrown in. Which is great and all if you're into that kind of thing, but it's barely a visual novel, let alone a porn game.

Quite a few choices in this game, and possible it's planned for them to matter later, but currently they don't change anything.

You can take any choice in chapters 1 and 2 and there will be no differences whatsoever, making this more of a kinetic novel.

That's the only reason I'm currently giving this one 4 stars. The rest is great. Fair few characters with decent amount of characterization. Light on sex scenes, for those who are here just for that.

Re-visited after ep4up5, lowered rating to 3 stars. Forced relationships are not my thing in VNs.

PROS:
~ Game is amazing, it's not actually a game but a novel, a story and what an amazing story, just insane.
~ Renders are amazing

Reasons for Poor Rating;
~ No sex yet, the tag does says vaginal sex but I played the whole game and there's not many options, didn't encounter any sex in the games after playing it for more than 2-3 hours.

~ If I just wanted to watch a good story or read one, I'd read a book or watch a movie and may be play an actual game but the reason for playing games like this is with great story there needs to be some good sex scenes.

~ It's just a waste of time and energy, a good story that even after building up so much and having such talent no utilizing it for the main purpose.

AT LAST:
I'm glad that I played this game, no regrets as the story was entertaining, but wouldn't come back or wait or next update unless I have nothing else to do or bored out of my mind.

I usually get annoyed with VNs. Too many words, too little action, too little choice.

This is also a VN, and I should be annoyed with it, but it has good writing, an immersive story and I'm quite sure it would hold my attention if it was a regular novel, lacking any images and music. Also, the characters are interesting, and there is good character development.

There is also a lot of world building, and a lot of mystery, which makes this VN so great. A lot is implied, rather than showed, and this is very nice for people with imagination. This is also a weak part, because it could become a source of disappointment in later chapters.

There are plenty of pop culture references, to Dracula, or even Star Wars, and I'm sure I didn't catch them all.

Finally, the music is quite good and fits the overall mood of the VN.

Because of the reasons above, and because of the constant updates, I think it deserves 5*. But, for people looking for a lot of H-scenes, I'm sure this would be slight disappointment, since the story and the characters are the actual focus here.

The game has some pretty good and diverse renders, and there's clearly been a lot of work put into this project as a whole, but I just can't recommend it.

Unfortunately, I feel the game doesn't really do anything well enough to warrant playing it:

• The story is good, at least in the beginning, but slowly starts to unravel as subplots are added and the pacing fluctuates wildly.
• The dialogue is well-written, but it quickly devolves into boring exchanges as nothing truly gets said.
• There are next to no choices available, making it practically a kinetic novel.
• There is such a thing as a slow burn, but this crosses over into annoying and boring.
• The save transferring system doesn't work properly.

All in all, it's just not worth checking out, at least in my eyes.

Good what I can say about this game. I always liked my porn with a good story, but this game is different and easily entered one of my favorites precisely because it is a story with porn and not the opposite, you can see that it is a labor of love that is a world that the creator wants to bring life. I wish I could do more for the game but what I can do is give some recommendations like, expand the tags further, more screenshots, and a more descriptive title image would draw the attention of a wider audience. I loved the game, the world and the characters and I just want it to grow more.

Rebirth has wonderful music that fits the well-written scenes and character interactions it complements.
Story is extremely well-written; always kept me invested and excited to play more.
Humor is always beautifully executed and never too on-the-nose or cringe.
This game, along with MIST, is on my list of games that I look forward to - for updates - the most.
Please keep everything progressing in a similar manner; it's working!

Disclaimer: I used a cheat mod to remove the RNG surrounding the random skill points. I found that it helped my enjoyment levels a lot.