VN - Ren'Py - Completed - Retrieving The Past [S3 E.6 & Epilogue] [MrKnobb]

I thought I had already reviewed this one, but apparently, I forgot.
To sum up, game gets a star because of the pretty great lewd scenes at the end, but it is a pretty rough journey to get there, and the great majority of the game has no proper sex scenes at all.
Needs a proper soundtrack, only has music in a few places.
Way too many hot ladies MC can't bang, leads to Mucho frustration for the player, especially since the entirety of part 2 has no real sex scenes for the MC.
Can't change MC name, personal pet peeve.
While I very much appreciate sound effects in the lewd scenes, they need to be a bit more varied and sort of match the scene to be effective.
Render quality is all over the place. Sometimes the quality of images is starkly different in the same render, which is quite strange.
Needed a solo ending where MC can be free to keep banging all the side babes he missed in the regular game.
Some incest would have made this a 4- or 5-star game easily, as family members are some of the hottest ladies in the story. Would have also been a good way to break up the drought of sexy time in the middle of the game.
Overall worth a play to bang Stella, I mean Victoria, if you have lots of patience for an overlong story with not much going on.

The game is really long which means a lot of content inside. Unfortunately also a lot of unwanted content. There is so much of useless story about biggest conspiracy in the world or somthing like that. It really ruins the flow of the game. The rest is not bad.

Retrieving The Past [S3 E.6 & Epilogue]

Of positive this game has the beauty of most of its models, with a steady improvement from the first chapters until the conclusion.
the story, although simple and unoriginal, is carried throughout the game and takes a lot of space, if it also had the courage to present some unexpected, some twist would have deserved the fourth star.

the distribution of sex scenes is really strange, many at the beginning, when it seems that the game will be a continuous orgy, very few in the middle and again many in the epilogue

negative has that practically the first 2 seasons are a kinetic novel without important choices, which makes it very boring to play again.

Nickola, who was the weakest character, is the only LI whose epilogue is enriched with several variations that make it more interesting.

The game has a really bad story. The plot makes no sense, with many things seeming at first interesting, but being, in the long run, not at all.

Animations are really bad and the sex is random. At some point, the dev has to add sex between characters other than the MC, without him being present, to justify the fact that the game is a "adult" game.

The story feels like someone has read a super novel, and thinks he can write one too. The "super soldier" plot makes no sense, and feels out of place.

Finally the 4th wall is broken heavily but never at a good place or for a good result.

good game if is after good story (with some silliness) or just sexscenes (just solo with a girl or 3some) since this gives both, most girls and women are hot and game has different paths.

not top notch graphics like on some other games but still good enuf and animations are well done.

Wonderful game. The story is well rounded. The characters' back stories are enthralling.
The only gripe I have is that so many games have the Ya-Kuza in them. It doesn't seem to be any actual imagination in that. Maybe make up a fictitious group form Japan instead of using the real criminal organization for once.
Other than that, hope to see something new from this Dev in the near future.

Ok, well I have some very mixed feelings about this one. As usual with my reviews, the models/renders mean very little (unless they are insanely horrible).

Im going to start by saying that I hope someone punched the dev in the face a few times for their decision to make this NOT A HAREM. I cannot see a reason for it not being a harem except to spite the player. The route I chose, the ending was 99.99% a fucking harem. It feels like the dev tried to get as close to being a harem as they could and purposely make it not a harem. I cant really explain it any other way. The entire story develops the perfect atmosphere for harem. The daughter and mother are fine sharing him for the test-run. Neither are jealous, they both say they hope the other wins him. Same with the third girl pretty much. And eveyr other girl. They are all fine sharing him. But NOPE! NOT A HAREM. - Im just a little bitter.

Then there is the incest. Almost same story. Im not one of those who feels it needs incest to be good, but Its like the dev tried as hard as he could to inch up to the incest line, but not cross it.

Story was pretty crazy as far as details/length/etc. This feels more like a scifi TV series with some adult content than a VN., If It werent for the feeling that the dev was being a dick on purpose with the harem and incest thing I would prob have given it 4-5 stars.

I started dreading Season3 because it specifically tells you that you have to choose a girl.

And last thing. If you are one of those that thinks that a girl you fucked ending up with someone else (even if you dont see it) is considered NTR, skip this. There is an asian girl that (I think) you can fuck (I skipped her scenes) that ends up with a diff guy in the end. You dont see it (cept maybe them hugging?) and they dont mention her fucking him (actually they say he is fine with her having a threesome with the MC) but I know some people have very broad description of NTR that is basically "any other dick or any unwanted content"

If you want a scifi-is game with lots of adult content and dont give a shit about harems or incest or having to choose. then this is a decent game. If you would get annoyed by what I described.... skip it.

DEV: I hope you feel bad about your decisions here. You should.

Okay, lets make this review number 70 no need 69

For those harem lovers, this is not the game to play. As a fan of harem, I was disappointed but not put-off to give it 4* or 3* for the developers effort!

RTP is great and well driven; a mix of fantasy and realism makes the story unique in its own way.

Also, there are many characters and the ladies in here are especially hot so some might be really disappointed that there are no harem endings though.

In all, if you like a story that has some elements of fantasy, a tinge of realism and plenty of animated action; this is one of those completed games you should give it a go.

Just remember to watch the tags first and decide if its a game you will play.


Animations - 5*
There is action with many different angles to see from.

Story - 5*
The characters are plenty and detailed while the storyline was choreographed quite well. Just that the ending fight was quite melancholy as MC too OP.

Gameplay - 5*
Well, besides major choices, you just click to weave through this VN.

Total - 5*

If you did not read the genres, this does not have a harem route or wincest. Which is very disappointing since the setup and buildup for the characters suggests there will be (aka false advertising). Would have been better if story and characters had been written differently to suit the single love interest angle better.

I really wanted a harem route with(at the very least) Amber, Andrea and Eve.

There are way too many female characters, 12+ females (excluding background characters, waiters etc) who you can't have lewd scenes with. Maybe having one or two females who you can't have sex with is okay. But having too many just diverts the player's focus from where it should be. It also creates disappointment when desirable females are unattainable for the player.

For me, the best looking females in the game are not even possible lewd partners. There is like 6+ of them who are better looking(faces) than the characters who get lewd scenes.

I enjoyed S1 and S2 a lot. I did not particularly like S3. You had to lock down your love interest early in S3.

I have only played 20 or so story based sex games and Retrieving the Past has the most satiesfying end (eve route). While there is an "Epilogue" I definitly felt like the "ending" started long before the epilogue. This is good, because the ending was long enough to wrap things up and give a sense of closure.

S1 had a lot of bad art for facial expressions. This improved for S2 and S3.

This is much more visual novel than game, the decisions rarely felt important. Generally it was a choice of who you wanted to see a scene with.

Story/dialog: 3/5
Story length: 4/5
Pornography rating: 1/5
Sex renders: 2/5
Sex animations: 1/5

I recommend this game to players who like story driven games, where things happen between the sex scenes.

I cant decide what is the bigger problem with this game, the characters or the story.

The main character is all over the place, the thing he hates more than anything is women being taken advantage but he does this himself quite often even when a woman thinks she might have just been raped the first thing he does is come on to her, while the MC hates on other men treating women badly he will have sex with just about anyone while also trying to date the 3 main women the game has this is either very very poor writing or just a very hypocritical MC.

As for the women, who the hell would date any of them, they are just horrible people, they lie to him, hate on him, treat others like rubbish, cheat on partners, are quite sexist, try to fuck up relationships because they are jealous, force other women into sex they don't want, the list goes on and on.

Now on to the story problems, examples: with very very specific orders to the opposite a professional bodyguard and trained military man is not going to fall for the whole can we come back to your place and try your hot tub, oh look we are now half naked routine, there is the i have the I've been spying on you for years scene which for some reason MC dosent care about(is he immune to anger?), why would the bad guy take people hostage to get back at a person but then kill the person before the person has a chance to know they are even kidnapped?, , straight up betrayal risking everyone's lives(and again no anger from the MC), characters just showing up and getting complete trust seriously no one ever questions anyone's motives , a small business taking on internation criminals, doctors injecting patients with stuff without checking what it is, basically every single scene dosent make much sense.

As for the sex, there is nothing arousing about the sex scenes in this game, there is zero build up to them they spring up out of nowhere it is literally just bamn random sex, all the sex in the first part of the game with the MC is like watching a guy date rape a woman while believing she really wants to have sex with him, it would be fine if he was just having sex knowing what he was doing was wrong or on the flip side rejecting the women because he cant be sure if they want it but having her drugged and still believing she wants it is just the worst combination, the art of the sex scenes is good as stand alone images but everything else about them is awful, the pace, angles, build up, length, "animations" if you can call it that(really if you cant do animations properly then still images are better).

Story 0/5 (a huge mess)
Sex 1/5 (some stand alone images are ok)
Characters 0/5 (contradicting and not people you would want to date)
Art 2/5 (ok at best)
Choices 1/5 (none that matter)
Kinks 0/5 (none)

Rating only the graphics I'd rate this between a 3 and 4 out of 5 but everything else about it sucks. I really don't know why there is so much focus on 'story-driven' porn on this site.

The PC in the story is a scifi-endowed sex god. Fine, let's see some porno action! Well no, actually, because scifi-endowed sex gods need to have hours of clicking -worth of origin stories. Otherwise they aren't very believable as characters. The fact these types of characters exist purely to justify having sex with a lot of women in an adult VN (which is, you know, said VN's purpose) shouldn't distract us from treating a short novel based on their supra-sexual adventures as a serious narrative.

Anyway, to sum up, sex scenes and animations range from 3 to 4 stars in quality by my appraisal; story is infantile, incoherent and very long, hence sucks all life out of the sparse (for the dl size) porn content; lack of gallery mods for 2 out of the 3 episodes means my rating has to focus more on the latter than the former.

NB - I only replayed parts 2 and 3 just now after playing this dev's newest production, which looks far more promising than this one despite apparently sharing the same 'universe'.

They really turned the rapey vibe up to 11 for this one... Every woman was under constant threat of being raped, was actually raped, or was talking about how she was previously raped. All in the most ridiculous circumstances too... Like who decides in the middle of a university outside the deans office "Hey, there are 2 hot girls, lets rape them because there is no way that could ever end badly for us..."

The storyline was lacking as well. There were good parts to it, but so much of it did not make narrative sense. It is clear the Dev wanted to tell his story more than anything else in the game which leaves the entire thing feeling empty.

The sex for the MC is seriously lacking. It is extreme to the point that the dev had to throw in several lesbian scenes that done nothing to further the story and was only really there because you cannot really have a porn game without any sex in it.

Then there are the 4th wall breaks. The dev clearly tried to add some humour into it, but they were pointless, unfunny and done nothing to drive the story forward. This is not deadpool, it is a pooly written adult VN and they were so out of place it just caused annoyance any time I had to deal with them.

The positives however were the graphics. The VN does look really nice. The models are all really well done. The girls are attractive and the sex scenes that actually involved the MC (Which were sadly severely lacking.) all looked really good.

Overall was very disappointed with this as it had a lot of potential that was just poorly executed.

Edit: Actually removing another star from this review due to the incredibly insensitive and offensive, not to mention incorrect description of the "Autistic like" character in the VN.

First play all chapters. The game is definitely well done, the animated scenes are very nice and well done, the audio is ok. The highlight is definitely the well made and well developed storyline, it is more of a true graphic novel with some hot scenes. Maybe the game could be a bit shorter and in the second chapter the hot scenes are very few. In any case very good game, nice graphics with 3 different endings all in the last chapter. Good developer, really good taste in women, the protagonists are well cared for and different in detail with particular beauties.

Omg.

Oh wow.
How come we passed through this one for sooooo long.
No clue.

We only started chapter 1 and it sounds really full of promises.
Good animations and renders look fine as well.

Can't wait to push further in the game.

Thx for sharing and keep the good work.

One of the best VN I played, great and different story, the Renders and animations are top notch, the characters are credible and deep and well developed, the endings for each girls are very nice. Rating 5 stars. Sad when it endend.

QUALITY RATING SCALE

1. Terrible (Critical flaws that are usually bad enough to ruin the game).
2. Poor (Major room for improvement, ruins major scenes/moments).
3. Acceptable (Not "average", "average" is unacceptable).
4. Great (Highly commendable,
5. Excellent (Little to no mistakes, unique and dare I say potentially industry leading).

The sum of the scores will not be reflective of my overall impression of the game, as not every category has equal weight.


RENDERS/SCENES - OVERALL VISUAL PRESENTATION
4/5
High quality, immersive scenes and convincingly attractive models. Synergizes well with the storytelling (such as subtle but realistically noticeable ). Improvement towards certain coloring, lighting and attention to props/details in backgrounds should be considered.


STORY WRITING/CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
5/5
Finally, a game who has a developer that appreciates intriguing and interesting characters as much as I do. Character development that occurs throughout the game is INDUSTRY LEADING. Anyone who appreciates characters who grow, learn and develop in a way that is situationally appropriate, emotionally convincing and resonant to real individuals NEEDS to play this game.

Realism is stretched just far enough to offer an exciting adventure and intriguing fantasy but elegantly preserves the "life" in every single character. This is a MUST for anyone who enjoys "believable" sci-fi that is interwoven with "real life", lived through the soul of a character that many will find interesting.

However, I think there are some minor discontinuities that should've been covered up. They were quickly forgotten about but certainly impacted my immersion slightly. Eg.
GRAMMAR/BUGS/MINOR SLIP UPS
4/5
This is great, there were no noticeable grammatical/spelling errors that ruined scene immersion. No bugs as far as I'm aware. Small slip ups and inconsistencies with some characters seemingly getting different eye colors in different scenes for some reason but nothing major at all. Sometimes the writing/delivery would be a little clunky (especially at the beginning) but once immersion and emotional commitment to the characters was established those things were not noticeable at all.

Obviously for those very minor reasons, this category can't be considered "excellent and industry leading", but nonetheless should have little to no impact on the player's overall experience and ability to enjoy this game.

OVERALL CLOSING STATEMENTS
I am very excited for this developer but also very confused as to why he's not more popular since I believe the skeleton and foundation of this game certainly has one of the best stories out there. Even compared to some of the very best.

I think all the hate/discomfort towards the antagonists and what has happened to the characters in the story makes the ending/conclusion all the more satisfying.

I can understand that this may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I honestly think it's incredibly short-sighted to say that the story is a cluster fuck. It was extremely interesting to follow multiple stories and watch the characters develop in their own ways.
Such as:

It's a picture story (click to see next slide or line of text), linear picture story with no gameplay (a.k.a. powerpoint presentation). And a poorly written one, full of cliches, clunky stereotypes and ridiculous tropes. Characters are bland, boring and unrealistic. Every girl here is about to get raped until MC comes in a shining armor to save her with some flying karate side-kicks. It's really cheap, completely childish and very tiring. You can't identify yourself with MC, can't even choose his name. You just watch things he does or thinks but also watch others characters thoughts and actions. It's not interractive nor immersive, it doesn't even make any sense.

Great renders. Amazing backgrounds and scenery. No grind. Pretty linear so no need to cheat or use a walkthrough. Good variety of female characters.

Only criticisms, animation is not great, and lack of harem option means last chapters are not nearly so sexy as most games. Lots of eye candy to drool over, thats it.

Attractive women. Relatively likable main character. With only 3 love interest possibilities from the bevy of beauties, it is hard to not pick the expected one, as she is clearly the age appropriate and best looking.

Negatives-Not really much in the way of choices. Fairly linear structure. That said, the story is good, until the last season. During the last season, it appears that sections are out of order, and the main climax (not of the women, but the story) is entirely missing. Numerous misspellings and improper word usage. This could use a thorough proof reading and edit, which would improve the story. The missing portions, and out of sequence events made the last chapter confusing. Not impossible to follow, just confusing.
Continuity mistakes exist- reference to a certain serum had entirely screwed up name between chapter 2 and 3. ( X-340 vs X230). All of these indicate that the quality control folks fell down on the job.

Occasionally the dialogue was very stilted, and again, a good editor or proof reader could have prevented this issue.

Positives- Very attractive women. Very likable main character, and very easy to despise villain. Renders were good. Basic story was good. Much of the dialogue was acceptable, but as mentioned above, occasionally suffered. Main story seemed to be a very interesting tale, until the continuity and editing errors overcame this. Clearly the author has a sense of humor as well, as he occasionally breaks the 4th wall to talk directly to the player and or have the characters react to his butting in. I definitely enjoyed that.

It is worth a go. The animations are good. Renders are good. Characters are basically pretty well thought out. Side girl action is had, but with a very limited choice in the matter. overall it is an above average experience, that with a little work could have been excellent! Small shameless plug here, I could have edited this to be much better if anyone is interested in me doing so, please contact me.

Renders are really nice but this game is basically 95% narrative and 5% porn. Story in my opinion wasn't very good or interesting. So it basically boiled down to a space bar spamming simulator at least for me. Didn't enjoy the fact that the game constantly throws hot women at you, that you do absolutely nothing with. There was a lot of characters who were hot but were literally just created for plot devices and nothing more which kind of irked me. If you like confusing and convoluted stories about super soldiers and criminal organizations give it a shot. But its not really much of a porn game.