Ren'Py - Reborn [v0.018 Act 1] [Woundead]

The story is satisfactory, with a suitable duration for an episode. The choices are meaningful and represent the player, although they are not exceptional. The models are beautiful, and so far there hasn't been any relationship with a principal character girl. The characters progress and develop well for a first episode. I liked it, let's see what will happen next.

v0.018

The problem with college/uni/high school themes is that its an oversaturated market. You can't be average or just above average or your game will never succeed. You get much better luck on original themes & stories.

Basically what this game is. Renders & models are really nice but everything else from the narrative & writing to the protagonist and the supporting characters are just bland, below average. Renders alone can't carry the game.

THIS REVIEW CONTAIN A LOT OF SPOILERS
this game has so many problems.

but first let's start with the good
nice visuals - I like it. it is nothing special, but that is not a bad thing.
overarching story - I like the story of a orphaned kid with a lot of trouble getting a chance to turn his life around
that's all. there is nothing else good about this game.

and here comes the bad
- MC - I have no problem with the fact that he wants to focus on school and that parties are not his thing. that is good, that he is not just focused on sex. the problem is how spineless he is. he buckles so quickly, like he is afraid of being rude or refusing anybody. he is also really awkward. painfully so.

- lack of choices - I don't even have count of the amount of times where there was a severe lack of a choice. there has been two forced sex-scenes, which could be seen as necessary for story, but really isn't and could easily be written in a different way. I think a few choices actually matters, but tey are way to few.

- illusion of choice - multiple times I thought there would be a way out of the stupid and easily avoidable situation situation he is in. but every time it is just an illusion of a choice. feels like none of the choices matter much.

- writing - a lot of plots make zero sense.
some girls blackmail him with a photo of mc fucking a girl in his own dorm. why is this a problem for the mc. why does he care. if they released that there would be slim to none negative effect him, meanwhile if he was smart he could easily turn it around on them.
Sam sucks and you are forced to spend so much time with him. he is an obnoxious perverted and braindead asshole, and he will drag the mc into a lot of trouble.
the fist forced sex scene is completely dumb. it makes zero sense and if the mc had a spine and brain the situation could easily had been avoided.
there is a lot more

it feels like this game tried to copy other similar college centered AVN, but failed extremely in doing so.
the game has potential, but is very far from reaching it.
I wouldn't recommend this game to my worst enemy.

As of v0.018 Act 1

Starting Premise is that the MC was home schooled because they couldn't afford to send him to school... supposedly taking place in the United States where public school (kindergarten through 12 grade) is free, and required.

Let us replace that with the idea that the public schools were terrible in MC's geographic location and the private schools were more than Grace and Bill could afford, so Grace home schooled the MC after her normal work day.
The MC gets into this prestigious university, but not on a full ride scholarship, but somehow Bill has saved enough to pay for his first year of school. No plan in place for his second and subsequent years. Major miss on the plot / blackmail possibilities if they'd just given him a full ride and then the asshole history teacher could have threatened his scholarship instead of the stupid "college students having consensual sex in their dorm room" blackmail plot.

The developer refuses to give the player options that actually follow the premise that the developer themselves set up.

If those choices existed, Sam would be sent on his merry way, MC would never have been pulled into the women's locker room, he'd never have gone to the party in room 69, he'd keep his head down, and study his ass off to
make the most of the year of school that Bill was paying for.

Instead you get the same outcomes no matter what choices you make.

A better premise would be the MC would loosen up after (at earliest) the middle of the first term when he had a firm grasp on college academic life and knew how much latitude he had to add a social life. That could be done pretty quickly by giving us a walk through the first day or two and then... boom midterms are done and the MC's willing to add some social life, but instead we get the whole "must keep the MC (and thus the player) off balance with things they cannot avoid or change.

Yea, we've been through this in so many other games, it's not original and it isn't done anywhere near as well as other times it's been done.

And technical side.. the navigation is horrible. Arrows that only appear when your mouse is close enough to them and (at least on my windows pc) a delay that means you can't even count on that happening.

I feel cheated, I think I wasted my time on this production.

In the description of the game I got a guarantee that I will have an impact on the game, it is exactly about this line.

Will he make friends? Love? Everything will depend only on the decisions you make.

Click to expand...

The only real control I had was whether or not I wanted to perving on boobs.

Some examples, beware of spoilers.


Story 1/10 - A fake of a certain well-known game with a similar theme with a very silly story.
Models 5/10 - Some nice some tragic and I'm not talking about subjective feeling, they look like they are from different versions of programs.
Music -/- - I didn't even pay attention xD
MC - If we had influence on his choices then I wouldn't complain, unfortunately we don't because of which in one word you can describe him as - A moron.
Relationships - Actually towards the end of the game something started to build there with one girl, but yes there is none, 70% of the game is spent with a dimwitted perverted friend.
Choices 1/10 - kinetic novel hidden behind several meaningless choices and useless free roam.

Overall - Play only if you like to play a dimwitted MC who has no control over his own life and like to read how your debilitated friend would have fun with girls.