VN - Ren'Py - Completed - SandStorm (EraStorm Saga #1) [v2.02] [GleenX Studio]

It was a nice game, and I enjoyed it. Rion is the main gal, and it shows in how many endings she got. The story was okay, the character models were good, the LIs were all different, and their models were great. And then there's the performance by Nora, so yeah, its nice.

Disclaimer: I'd give it a 3.5/5, but it doesn't deserve a 4 in my opinion

SandStorm starts out quite interesting, and has a nice story. The LIs are each gorgeous in her own way. I like how all characters are different from one another, and how their personality directly influences the story and outcomes.

Most of the time, the story is interesting, even intriguing. However, at some point it just... Stops? Things get going, you start figuring out the Mystery, getting to know the characters, the LIs on a deeper level, and all of a sudden that's it - you're stuck with this and this ending, goodbye, go play SnowStorm.

For me, the abrupt ending (Rion & Nora) and its fan-service additional scene really spoiled the quality of the overall story, so I loaded a previous save to see what happens if I make some other choices. And even though it does give some additional answers to the Mystery, it's still underwhelming.

Hopefully SnowStorm will be better in this regard.

PS: I loved the music in this one, really nice

Lawrence of Arabia if not Suez and white dream propaganda but holes + fuck with reality, fuck works but still abiding correctness of Indiana Jones . The same but these are ancient dirt when this game is 2020. A large mess, 3 because Rion shower sex scene right before ending T; Also because non-bad endings have many scenes.
Its 1 weird simp game since you need use the stone to unlock stuffs
Bad endings are bland, since hardcore scenes are before, well there is 1 scene in bad ending that need really high stone scores which you use to somehow beat the dog, but compared that scene with other normal endings, its not as decent. 2/5 if you dont care about history butcher, 1/5 otherwise. Should be pure fantasy since these sub elements not mesh well. 2 or 3.5/5 if you care to read the characters; but will turn to 1/5 anyway due to weird directions dictates the overall experiences. And many endings, and the non-bad endings each have nice and long scene, but the plot all the same. Char ratings (not route rankings): Protag is 3.5/5, Maddie is 0/5, Rion is 3.5/5, Nora is 3/5.

Expectation met, though not much animated lewds, still expectation well met.
Graphics okay
Character designs has variation and okay
Story initially slow paced but still very good
Now comes the best part, depending on your LI the characters behave really really different, and that felt really good, and choices impact ending heavily.
And great music choice, bummer there is not a list so had to use RPA extractor on the music file to get the musics.

I enjoyed it and looking forward to other Storm games.

Interesting game, I like the historical thing that the dev put into this game.

Character model is all out-of-date, its not aging good due to modern daz aesthetic which is understandable because the game is made in 2020.

LI's: Maddie is the most I liked, she is fierce, strong, intelligent and sarcastic so that's the reason why I like her the most, other LI's seems flat especially Rion, its like a normal bestfriend type of thing, other one that interesting is Nora because she know something in the story. Other than that it depends on the player of who he/she wants to pursue.

The environment is normal, the dev captured the desert good but it still feels like there is something missing.

Story: The story would be so good to you if you want history in the game, but if you are just curious that just try this game you might find the story boring and lot of dialogue.

I want to rate this game as 3.5 but I make it 4/5 just because the dev did good to finish this game instead of stalling for some more content that don't needed in the story.

All in all, I think this game is good it just the renders is not top quality but it still playable and story will make you curious on what will happen to the characters in the story.

I like this game because it has a lot of choices which do variate the outcome. There are 12 Endings (and sometimes early death ;-) on every corner). The game is somewhat older but the story is good as the graphics are. Variation in the outcomes is good.

I was torn between giving this game 3 or 4 stars. I would like to give it a 3.5 if i could.

Overall I liked the story. It's short but has some interesting twists (some things are very predictable, though).
The LIs are 50/50 for me - I love Rion, she's absolutely adorable. Nora is good, too, but Maddie and the Priestess aren't my cup of tea.
The static renders are looking fairly good, sadly the animated scenes aren't great at all.

Generally I prefer long VNs with a lot of content but I do appreciate short ones with multiple paths/endings aswell, aslong as they're done well. Unfortunately there's some inconsistencies in this game, for example Rion and MC talking about their time having sex during the 2nd night, even if you decided to spend the night with Nora instead (and thus the sex they talk about never actually happened).


So because of the inconsistencies in the writing and the bad animations I went with 3 stars. All in all I think it's worth checking out, though.

Good.
Honestly, the story is a bit confusing at first, and it doesn't seem to go anywhere in the beginning. Mainly because the game is quite verbose. If you replay a few scenes before finishing the game, you'll realize that it makes more sense, because each route has an extra detail that builds the whole. I ended up doing routes M, T, and B. There's a lot of replayability, and luckily there's a mod that lets you display each answer for the routes and it's much easier to follow the desired ending.
Anyway, the girls are all so-so, not particularly interesting or spicy, but are quite different from each other. The scenes are good, yet, in a single route, there aren't actually that many. It turns out that the game only really gets good when you explore more than one route.
The theme of inflation is 'consciously' used, save for one scene or another.

I would have liked to see more spicy characters and less 'useless' text, but the end result is pleasant.
4/5

Really liked the gameplay. This VN is highly underrated. The best thing about this game is the plot of the story with an exciting ancient adventure. Musical tracks are extremely melodious. Renders are also good.

Really underrated gem. Nora is the hottest girl I've seen in a VN, maybe hands down. And her character is well-written and likable. However, the game is a little shorter than most completed VNs, so the plot feels even more compressed than usual. Character development with Nora at least is good, but rather rushed. Rion's character, I haven't explored much with yet. But she seems a little less well-written. Overall a great start to what seems like a great saga.

"Indiana Jones at home"

Excluding awfully convenient plot devices, story is alright, albeit pretty short. Don't want pay much attention to it, my biggest complaint would be sex scenes. You see, you can progress basically two major paths: evil with the priestess, and normal with a girl of your choice. And in addition to utterly abominable dev-made animations, if you're not into elephant-sized dicks and extreme aerostat-like belly inflation, then evil path will be a rather unsavory experience.
UI features relationships menu to check everyone's affinity...... which you can't close unless you proceed or rollback. Hopefully I don't have to explain why it's so dumb.
VN features monogamous relationships (with 1 exception) with 4 girls and all of them are heavily flawed if not straight up boring. I really don't like when presented with multiple LI and forcefully funneled to choose only one. If that's the case, those women better be fucking excellent, which this just ain't it homie.

Literary content is mediocre, adult content is awful.

2/5 below average

-2
Way to much "humor" Way to much attempt to make story weird and big, especially with the way too much humor.

Not enough early on character development and very very little unless you make the choice with too many being to ensure route not choosing them.

Not a fan of MC especially since you can't choose his personality any just who you talk to

Way Too long especially with all the above

-1
nothing special in anything

nora looks like a barbiedoll

the catlady could have been a actually catlady goddess like Bastet instead of just masked

no animation other then couple stills which often make it worse where it does thing like just inserted and now character cumming like dang?

no voice or the like

maddy + Rion basic looking


the positives -
many endings and works perfectly fine, there is also some effort.

I enjoyed this alot at the start...

But things started getting weird with the arrival of Nora and this is mainly where ALL My gripes come from, gonna link here on out with a spoiler, as I'll get into more details...


LI's were good, Maddie has her ups and downs which are pretty in sync with her character. Rion has her ups and MAJOR downs which are horribly out of sync with her character. (more in the spoiler above which annoys me with Rion). Nora was a beautiful model for an LI with a hint of badassery, but didn't care for her at all outside her route. The priestess route was as to be expected lol also a very attractive model and quite the crazy whirlwind.

Animations are hit or miss, not beautiful, some of the better ones sadly didn't get multiple angles to do them justice, but I'll never judge a review score off this because animating is super hard and I respect what people can do regardless.

All in all story had a good pace up until Nora showed up, woulda gave it an easy 4/5, but it drops an entire point lower for me at that point honestly. Just hated majority of interactions with Nora, she's a good LI but shes terrible if you're not on her route and most things just dont really make sense or add up correctly.

One thing that bothered me was how a character you're speaking to has the same render image despite going through different emotions. I'm sure it was done to save time, but it just feel unnatural and doesn't allow you to build a connection with whoever you're interacting with.

But even if you soldier on through that to get to the naughty scenes, the payback is disappointing because the animations have a low frame-rate. They're just not enjoyable bc of this, in fact I'd call them bad.

Since regular scenes aren't good enough and naughty scenes aren't good either, a 2-star rating is pretty generous. The game was simply a waste of my time.

TLDR: having nice renders does not automatically mean you have a good game.

I'm not sure why this is a 4 star rated game.

Maybe because the renders are pretty good? But honestly, the "animations" are pretty bad. The story is so-so. I'm sorry to say it's just not entertaining.

Edit: This game is completed!? That's surprising given how short this game is.

In short, the game doesn't catch any stars from the sky, but can provide a decent, enjoyable, even if routine, experience. There's not that much content for each route, but if you'll decide to play through every ending - it'll take you from two to three days, give or take.

The graphical part isn't impressive at all, just the same you can see in hundreds upon hundreds of other game in the genre. But the music is good, especially Rion's, and some of the songs are worth saving to my personal playlist. Mechanically speaking, the game has only the most basic system of affection and choices, nothing beyond that.

Now, to describe the characters... they aren't special. There are four of them:

1. 2. 3. 4.
In conclusion, I can say that the game is... average. Yeah, just average. Worth playing, if you want to play something but don't have any options left, but has nothing to offer that wasn't realized many, many times before in many other games. Didn't play the sequel yet, as it's not yet completed, so, hopefully, it will be more interesting and unique than this game.

You just joined some friends on what was supposed to be a fun trip to Egypt. However, things turned sour and you got thrown into an epic adventure full of ancient mysteries.

Mechanics: ⭐⭐⭐
Content: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Graphics: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Script: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Characters: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Enjoyment:⭐⭐⭐⭐

Total: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
SandStorm is a very good start to the EraStorm saga. With some well-written characters and a story that, although initially it is very slow starting, ends up being very attractive. The animations are pretty crappy and with few frames, but graphically it gives the note and has a lot of content.
We'll see how it goes with SnowStorm.

The music choice alone deserves 5 stars. Very distinctive and stands out compared to most AVNs.

The theme is interesting and plot progresses very well.

Highly recommended and I'm definitely going to try SnowStorm when I finish this.

i just played the game and i liked a lot
the Characters where very good, the story great too and refreshing from the other common stories in VN (it was nostalgic refference to the mummy 1999 for me), visuals where good too (not the best but good enough for me).
overall was very enjoyable VN and i have to comment about the soundtrack which i found it very good and the songs where very and the Rion special song i found it of the best i heard in VN and the scene at the campfire with the song was very wholesome and of the best romantic moments i have ever scene in any VN. (awesome job there)...
I choose Rion LI (one of my favorites LI ever) and i was very happy with the Ending (L, Rion Special Ending) it was very wholesome and good ending for the MC and Rion. Though i also played the R ending too ... yea true love ending for sure but i prefer ofcourse the L ending.
(i didnt try the T ending it doesnt click for me) normaly i prefer single paths for LI and on a very few VN i choose throuple choice for my ending and almost never harem especialy if there is good romance in the VN with a single LI.

So the almost forced throuple situation annoyed me in this VN with R+N and especially the timing after one of the best romantic scenes in any VN with Rion and MC (Rion song)

Nonetheless i found it one of the best VN i have played, and i highly recommend it.

I played this one because im more interested in the sequel to this game Snowstorm. It was totally worth playing tho it was a real treat. Rion carried this AVN for me though without her wouldn't have been as enjoyable.

• It's completed
• Animations range from meh - to pretty good especially the non lewd scenes
• lewd scenes most of the time feel a bit to quick tho because of the animation but some feel real good
• Renders start meh in the first chapter then improve drastically
• I wouldn't say the story is amazing or anything but it isn't bad. My only issue with the story is it felt like it could of had 1-2 more chapters the ending kind of come on pretty quick and felt too convenient I thought.
• Small number of LI which is a good thing
• Only 1 LI is really interesting to me. The other is boring and the third while not boring when I was starting to get into her character for plot reasons ends going away for a short amount of time and the ending comes on quick.
• 12 endings

Overall I say this AVN is worth it I originally didn't think I would like it cause of the previews or whatever but boy was I wrong. I could see myself replaying this from time to time because of Rion