Based on the (as yet) unfinished v0.4
My usual disclaimers when writing reviews on here are that A. I am here for the "plot" not the plot and B. I am very picky with visual novels and think broadly they can be very subpar. So, take both of those into consideration for my review when thinking about this game.
Pros
- H-scenes designed to suck my soul out through my dick – Not much more to say about this. I love my sexy content in H-games and Ripples fucking NAILS it, dude. Not just in terms of having really hot sexual scenes as well, but it caters to a lot of my favourite kinks (and also as time goes on begins leaning harder into rougher territory, which I’m a fan of). Plus, there’s plenty of teasing content happening around the actual H-scenes to remind you what sort of mood you should be in. Jestur actually also isn’t afraid of adding in a dash of humanity to the porn, it’s not all just perfect camera angles and blowjobs, but sometimes characters stumble, there’s awkwardness and nervousness, but not so much that it kills the scene, and it just works.
- Writing and premise – Absolutely rock-solid writing. There’s some overarching mystery which we are still in the early phases of learning about but not only the broader plot scenes but even individual character moments are all pretty well written and believable, with dialogue that flows. Don’t get me wrong it gets “porn-y” with occasional scenes of bumping into a girl and her almost instantly wanting to jump your bones, but I can forgive that in a game like this. Honestly, I would put Ripples on the same calibre of writing as Once in a Lifetime by Caribdis, which ought to say a lot about my judgement of its quality.
- Fun and hot girls – The game plays around with some of the standard tropes from H-games, like the yoga scene with the step-mum, but then it isn’t afraid to also have you verbally sparring with your childhood friend, who actually doesn’t have tits the same size as her head. All the girls are basically pretty believable individually.
- Kinks my guy – Just had to reiterate that I very much enjoy that the game allows you to be fucking KINKY
Mehs
- VERY porn-y – As much as I personally don’t mind this, and have already said as much in this review, I am aware that others might not think so. And even I will admit that sometimes it can be a bit outrageous how some of the individual H-scenes basically start like something out of a porno (stuff like the classic yoga scenes, girls admiring the protagonist’s cock, the best friend “practicing” kissing with the protagonist, etc etc). Again, I personally enjoy all of this, but I just wanted to acknowledge that it’s not like it’s the most realistic of situations.
- Setting shift – At the beginning of the 2nd chapter there is a huge shift in setting and introduction of a whole “new” swathe of characters. This not only interrupts the standard high-school drama from the 1st chapter, but then it actually forces a second round of being lurched around as we spend a bit of time with the new cast but then go back to the original cast. In a game where just ONE of the two settings has about a dozen different females to keep you occupied, the prospect of having to alternate back and forth between two different settings (with only limited interaction between the two) suggests that it could take ages for the game to actually go anywhere. It hasn’t quite consumed itself yet, but I’d be somewhat worried about the scope of it.
Cons
- Time travel – I was trying to find a better way to say this without spoilers, but as it happens early on (at least as far as the overall story is concerned, even thought it happens at 1/4 of the way through the current existing content) it isn’t a huge one I guess. Essentially, you travel back in time in the course of solving another central mystery of the game, and this becomes one of the major plot points. Already I am somewhat nervous about this because I feel like time travel can be a very finnicky thing to play around with. I’m basically somewhat concerned that maintaining continuity with multiple timelines will quickly become a bit of a challenge. But we have to wait and see of course. The other problem with this is that it means there are now two whole sets of female characters who are TOTALLY separate from one another. So if you happen to particularly like one of the girls and then we get a chapter set in the other time period, you’ll be shit out of luck good buddy.
So, I said in the pros that I think
Ripples almost has writing of the same calibre as
Once in a Lifetime and I am aware that’s a pretty outrageous claim given that
OiaL is one of the highest-rated games on F95. However, I don’t think it’s untrue. In fact I actually feel like Jestur has been taking a lot of inspiration from Caribdis because not just the writing but the style of
Ripples seems to mimic
OiaL.
To clarify, they both have a broader overarching story which at its heart is fairly simplistic. The overarching story is also a bit slow burn with gradual increments in each chapter. We’re introduced to the key plot driver pretty early but even as of chapter 4 we don’t really know an awful lot about what exactly is going on and the mystery of the death of the protagonist’s father, the mystery surrounding the nuclear station and even the time-travel itself is all still in the early days of being revealed. This feels exactly like the early chapters of
OiaL. Likewise as well, despite the semi-serious nature of many of the plot elements, Jestur is using the plot as a framework for lots of super sexy porn. It doesn’t matter that there’s some shady mystery going on that concerns you and your family, you can still go and bang a few babes senseless in the meantime. It makes time for some serious stuff but for the most part it’s light-hearted and simply enjoyable fun.
I do think that Jestur’s writing ability isn’t QUITE on the same level as Caribdis’, which I might put down to experience. It’s tough to put my finger on exactly what the problem is, but I feel like the dialogue suffers occasionally from “book writer’s curse”. There isn't much on the level of "normal" and "boring" dialogue. Instead, there seems to be something of a compunction to use more flowery vocabulary which always feels a little out of place in actual conversation. Stuff like saying “Oh, the weather is exceptional.”
I realise it feels like a ridiculous complaint, but I think this is a somewhat minor thing that is actually moderately common amongst less experienced writers (I mean, I know for sure I probably couldn’t write natural sounding dialogue to save my life). The
slight overuse of more elaborate vocabulary makes dialogue just feel that tiny bit more unnatural. However, this is a genuinely very minor nit-pick and I only pick up on it because the rest of the game is so high quality.
As stated already, the sex itself is fucking BANGING dude, but Jestur also has pulled out all the stops to make the game feel more cinematic and interesting to play by adding small cutscenes and animations all over the place. A lot of which are often just very high quality. In fact a lot of the visual design in general, particularly where the girls are involved, is super high quality and shows a great level of care.
I think my single biggest complaint about
Ripples is something I actually touched on in my “mehs”. I actually wrote that prior to playing v0.4 and I feel absolutely vindicated in writing it now. Jestur seems to be struggling a little bit to stick with a group of girls. Every single episode so far has introduced new women that the protagonist can fuck… That might not sound exactly problematic, but it somewhat is when you realise that this is at the expense of not improving the existing relationships.
We now have: the childhood friend, the slutty friend of the childhood friend, the EVEN sluttier friend of the friend of the friend, the step-sister, the friend of the step-sister, the step-mum, the cougar friend of the step-mum, the grandma of the childhood friend, the hot lingerie store owner cucking her husband, the absolute batshit crazy ex-colleague of your dad (my personal favourite) and all of these characters are JUST in the modern time setting. Because there is then at least another 4 or 5 in the past as well…
If this were a time-slot game like
Harem Hotel, this would already be a pretty excessive number of girls to deal with and getting to know each one of them would be a long exercise of patience as we wait for the game update that lets us play with our favourites.
And it’s NOT a time slot game. It’s a linear, decision-making VN. I mean I haven’t even touched on all the characters. There’s also the super-rich, ice-queen bitch that you will (most likely) show the error of her ways and knock her up too and then the super-shy, weeaboo girl who you go on a random date with to watch anime (and then promptly forget about for the entire rest of the time).
I’m saying all this to make the point that the fact that Jestur is
STILL adding in new girls as of the most recent update (one you can bang, and then a handful where you lay some groundwork) is just a tiny bit concerning. There’s just
so bloody many girls at this point and we’ve barely gotten to know most of them and now that they’re in the game it’ll be a bit shite if we don’t see them again… Especially if you took a particular shine to one. But like I said, spreading the development time between all of them will just take foreeeevveeeer.
This level of ambition in character number also has another issue that has yet to rear its head properly. Basically, you’re going around fucking loads of girls, some of whom are starting to fall for you (in traditional VN style, despite the fact that so far we’ve played for 3 days in-game). However, the realism lent to the characters by the writing means that it doesn’t feel like it is going to be a harem game and rather one where you’ll be forced to choose… And honestly at this point that would just be massively unacceptable given the style of the porn so far.
Maybe this isn’t a problem, maybe Jestur has a long-term plan in place here that will allow equal attention to be spent with all the major girls. So, for the time being I’d say we can just leave it by saying that it’s nothing if not ambitious. I just hope those ambitions pay off. And I also hope we get to keep all the girls…
