VN - Ren'Py - Saving Paula [v0.0.32-xTz] [XTZ Adult Games]

Review for v0.0.29b :-

TLDR: You may want to skip this one, if you're more of a vanilla player.

The character models look good, and they're mostly unique. Many of the faces have been used before, but there is some minor change to not make it immediately apparent. There is more expressiveness in faces, but some of them tend to be overexpressed resulting in some goofy expressions overall.

The render quality is better than average, but they seem to lack a certain fidelity/sharpness or polish which you'd normally see in other popular VNs. Backgrounds, posing and camera angles could use more improvement though.

The VN has been in development for more than 2 years, and it took me lesser than 30 minutes to complete what is on offer. But, since I'm a fast reader, for the average player this could take around 40-50 mins, or maybe even an hour.

Speaking of content, more specifically adult content. There is none. Only thing close to it, is some minor nudity in a shower scene with college girls. And the rest of it is just bikini shots, panty peeks, and deep cleaveges. In some scenes where more nudity could be shown, it is intenionally obscured, like some TV show trying to dodge the 18+ rating.

The story is nothing new- divorced mother who needs comforting, bitchy older sis, overtly pervy MC, it's a classic setup for an Incest or NTR narrative. The writing feels amateruish at times, but it's serviceable enough if you're not looking for a deep plot. I didn't find any glaring grammar issues, but it felt like English was this dev's second language.

The story is told through multiple perspectives, so far, for all the family members. So you'll be making choices for them, to increase their stats, and see scenes from their perspectives. This leads to a very jumbled and unfocued narrative. This doesn't feel like a singular or dual protagonist game where you get to decide characters' fates through the decisions you make, it feels more like a fuck-fest game where you get to see every main character's POV and decide what route that may be on. But we're 2+ years in and there is no smut in sight, at all, and it all feels largely kinetic.

Now so far, the review I've written shouldn't warrant a 1 star rating, it would be around 2.5 stars. But the adult content (and lack thereof), the themes it seeks to represent (which ends up heavily leaning one way), and the future direction, is where I find my biggest problem.

The game is marketed to have a degree of choice, but so far, the only choices are minor stat increasing ones which may lead to future scenes and certain content. At many points where it would feel like a choice should have been given to the player (for all its protags), there is none, and the story is railroaded forward, which gives off a kitenic novel feeling (eg:- choices should have been given for- MC helping to remove Paula as Dept Head, older sister agreeing to strip in-front of teacher, Paula's conversation with the Director). These characters have pasts, and are written a certain way. They will act like it, and your choices absolutelty won't change this.

While NTR has been mentioned as "very avoidable" and "optional", this VN feels like an NTR game with "optional" vanilla content as the secondary focus. Like many of the ones on this site, trying to play both sides and serve everyone, but ultimately pleasing no one.

Spoiler: NTR content and themes

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If you're a Vanilla player and dislike NTR content and its subsets, this review is relevant to you. If you don't mind NTR or like it, then this VN is probably a 3-4 star rating. Either way, given what we've seen so far, and the promise of certain types of future content to come, it's not hard to see which side of the fence this VN will end up on.

I played through this to see why it was so highly rated, for a two year old game I expected some decent content.
The premise is great and the renders pretty decent, the issue comes down to content.

There's next to none at this point.
It took me less than hour to burn through all of it, and no actual sexual acts happen beyond a few character occasionally getitng naked, and then right at the end the main mail character rubbing sunscreen on a girl.

For two years of development time I really cant say this game is worth it.

v0.0.29b

I like how the game looks and the idea of being able to control Paula's muscle size. It's cool to see how that would work in the game. The characters look great, but I'm a bit bummed that there hasn't been much new stuff in the five updates, especially with so many female characters involved. Also, I'm not a big fan of the scenes moving automatically; I'd rather click and go through them myself, step by step. The game could also use more music and sounds to make it better.
In my opinion, this game has the potential to be awesome, especially with these tags it has, but it would be great to have updates with more new adult content. but right now it's one of those games you look forward to downloading and playing once a year in order to finally get lots of fresh stuff.

Really enjoying this game/story. The facial expressions are sometimes funny and sometimes very realistic. The storyline is believable and I was so hoping for the son to already be banging the mom and sister. Maybe in the next update. I am already excited about the next update. Good luck, dev.

very short, and there is barely any content in the game. The writing is serviceable, nothing out of the ordinary. Not really a fan of multiple player characters. The game offers some choices in conversations, but when those conversation involve two of the player characters the choices offered arent really clear who they belong to. The renders look ok, but for a porn game they seem too "censored", always obscuring in one way or another the "interesting parts". I like the main characters Paula and her mother seem to be the most interesting ones so far, but like i said, there is not much to do or see here.

I really love the way the models look ,this game has my full attention especially how we can shape beautiful Paula I really hope we "CAN SAVE Paula"!!! Hopefully we could decide the outcome of the scenes that involved Paula. I'm just not a big fan of NTR, sorry I'm just not. I really do love the way this game looks! KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK thank you.

Just discovered this game. Not much (interactive) content for the moment (no sex scene for those looking only for this type of content). The story for the moment is quite classical but I really like the effort to make the MC (I'm talking about Paula) and other characters a little bit more realistic than in most VNs.
She's a curvy mature and the model respect this apect. Her face is also really the face of a 42 yo and not just the usual face of a 25ish model with white hair which is a great plus.
Nina her mother seems to be the same age rather than probably 60 but still the author seems keen on milfs.
The renders are really nice and I'll be looking for future updates.

So far so good. Though in my humble opinion, the game to me is still in the intro stage so I was a bit peeved that it ended early when I finished the latest update at the time of writing this post.

The story, though cliche is wonderfully portrayed and it gives you a reason to eagerly wait for the updates.

Renders are first class, and so is the narration and I hope the very best to the dev. and I hope this venture of his be a roaring success.

The good: Fapworthy porn VN with dialogues, images and animation to make the fap interesting. Good looking models too with big T & A. The only VN where the facial expression matches closely to the written situation. MILFS and mom and sons with a few college girls thrown in so the cast is solid. Mom will probably have a path to seduce her producer so NTR lovers have something to munch on.
The Bad: Small updates mean that this VN is still in its infancy even though it was started in May 2021 and there is a long way to go before it even gets to the fucking.
Still I think it's 5stars material. Try.

The premise really hooked me: u are the boytoy/personal trainer of a sexbomb milf and u can influence her life and body through your advice. As of now there is nothing of that kind in the game. Lots of side characters and things going on but the game is called saving paula, maybe the devs could focus on content with paula and MC.

2/5 but renders are good so +1 star

I like the models, I like the story (so far) and the content. Seems to be pretty solid for MILF lovers.

The writing and the "flow" could be better though. For example the conversation in the beginning with "mom" is rather dumb (although I like that there're meaningful choices) and there are too many renders sprinkled in (where nothing is said, you just have to press next), which can be quite irritating. I hope the developer will avoid this in future content.

Great game! Great story. A unique story. I love mother-son incest and romance. This game give me unique experience. Please proceed quickly!!!

Models and rendering are great. We can tell that Paula is a real MILF, not a 20 year looking model who is said to be at her 40s. Very mature and the aging makes her much more attractive.

Hope no NTR part of Paula in the future, or at least the NTR should be easily avoided. I will list this game of one of my favoriate and check it frequently.

One little problem during the playing, I dont know why some dialoge use very small fonts. First I think it's what a charcater thought but not said out. But later I found it is what they said out. It is a little confusing. For this reason, I only can give this game 99 points of 100, hahaha.

Visuals

• Obvs, Paula is hot. That's why we're playing. MILF/cougar greatness from top to ample bottom.
• Pretty much all the women are hot
• LOVE that Nina - AKA "grandma" has huge tits just like Paula but she also has a little pooch in her tummy. I do think it's a mistake to make both women appear similar in age; Nina should have an older looking face, hair, and probs some stretch marks/wrinkles. I take this back; initially she appears this way when on the phone with her daughter, but then later she too appears with a flat stomach.
• The initial animation of expansion (yes, expansion!) is hot. I've never seen this in another VN, and I know I'm not alone in vocalizing a strong desire to see VNs where we see growth/expansion elements. I hope there's more to come here.
• MC has weird eyes. Like, they're so dark from the peripheral POV that he looks possessed or something. When he is angry, his facial expression reminds me of old school DOS games like Duke Nukem when they've taken too many hits to the ol' HP bank. Not sure what happened here, but it has a derpy quality that is distracting. His arms are also exceptionally hairy, with dark hair. Why? I've got nothing against a realistic depiction of men since we seem to have glossy, hair-free bodies with 16" cocks in most VNs...but still.
• MC's sister, Jessica, does not look young to me. Similar to the MC, when she's angry, her expression is uniquely weird too. Like an evil Disney character frozen at the end of a fade-out/end-scene.
• I appreciate that there are quite a few expressions overall, even if I don't particlarly think each one is perfectly-executed. It genuinely adds to the characters' personalities. Too my VNs focus on static imagery and the context of that, which probably makes it easy to forget that any movement - any motion of any kind - is observed and will make the experience more immersive.
• The shower scene is cringy; I have only seen 1 or 2 devs pull off any considerable finesse and attention to detail with "wet" looks. I don't know what it is about the nature of doing this that makes it practically insurmountable, but if you can't make it work then just don't try. The girls have an overall blue hue to them, combined with silver/blue droplets applied to their skin in a way that makes them appear to have some kind of skin disease/virus.
• Patricia is hot, but there's no way a teacher looks like her. Gotta be more subtle in the ways you make a teacher hot, fam.
• Letitia De-Batte's name is misspelled on her desk. How embarrassing.

Story

• The premise is unique. I like that. You're tasked with making choices throughout the game that will literally shape your mother. The current version of the game is still too early-on to observe any changes, though, so it makes me wonder when this will start to be seen.
• I like that MC is nonchalant about staring at his mom's body. He doesn't do what pretty much every other MC does and either freak out in an awkward way or act like it's been going on for years with no context provided.
• One gripe I have with the overall concept of the story is that we know we're tasked with deciding/shaping the future of MC's mom in terms of her physique. However, right out of the gate she looks 100x better than most women her age in the real world. I think it was a mistake and quite frankly a bit chauvinistic to depict her as being desirable but not good enough right away, with the presumption that the player should feel motivated to chisel this woman even further. A more realistic approach would be to make her physically, undeniably out of shape. Give her love handles instead of a completely flat stomach. Give her a muffin top. Make her ass large, but with no real definition. Make her thighs have cellulite. There's a million realistic things that could be done to make her look like she actually NEEDS to get in better shape, thus the motivation on all parts is believable.
• The story is barely developed in the current version, so it's impossible to really expand on any one thing; we've got multiple arcs and overlapping relationships, plus the introduction of what I assume will be the key players. Not much is yet established in the way of personalities
• The perspective is shared between MC and Paula. I would not be surprised if this gets expanded to allow the player to make choices on behalf of other characters, such as the sister.

Dialog

• Moderate grammar/syntax issues. It is distracting at times, and could use better translation or proofreading.
• Note to dev: It's "c'mon" not "common". Common is its own distinctive word, c'mon is a contraction.
• I'm not sure if I consider this more dialog or story, but it's centered around dialog so adding here: it drags on too much. There's too many one-liners, then pauses, then more one-liners, then inner monologue, etc. Not terribly poetic, creative, or imaginative. Mostly disappointing.
• Note to dev for English translations: we would say "I thought he went to college", we would say "I thought he went to school..." But, at least you didn't refer to it as "university". We literally never use that word in casual conversation. It is only used when it's in the name of specific institution, and even then we tend to abbreviate.
• We also don't say "Yew", we say "Ew".
• We also don't call it "stage arts", we'd just call it "theater" or similar.

Gameplay Mechanics & Other Notes

• Text size is too small when playing this on a 4k display, especially when characters are talking more quietly, like at the beginning of the game with MC/sister in the background.
• Overall UI within the game is a bit clunky and sophomoric to me; it could use a more consistent approach. For example: the character who is currently speaking is represented in a plain, boring font and surrounded by a box that sits above a purple/opaque gradient where actual narrative is displayed. Beneath that are the menu shortcuts. All of which have a very...old school RPG feel to them. Not very modern, and just inconsistent to my eyes.
• I appreciate that this dev auto-advances frames where there's no dialog, allowing the player to rest their "next" finger and just watch the next image and take it in. This is how all VNs should work.
• No option to change MC's name, which is a pretty standard feature. Disappointing.
• I'm not a fan of choice systems with either too many choices at once, or zero indication of what will actually be said as a result of the choice selected. Unfortunately, this has both. There is no indication of consequence, so you don't know if what you're choosing might manifest in an (objectively) undesirable way.

Overall, I'd rate this one pretty average in terms of the taboo it contains. It is 100% predictable in that respect. I will likely follow/continue as this develops, but right now my opinion of it is that it's pretty rough in some key areas and it could easily go "south" if the writing and plot don't improve. If you just want a mostly mindless montage of semi-lewd clickbait, you'll have a good time.

Definitely a solid start to what seems to be a great story. You're introduced to some interesting choices that will play a big role in future updates.
Beautiful characters with their own fleshed out stories and motivations.
I'll be looking forward to more updates!

Despite be in very early stages of content, this VN already has the things i think is really important in these i-genre, and that's why i gave 5 stars

The first thing is hot, gorgeous (and busty and thicc) MILF like Paula. She alone is already enough reason to play this game just to see that voluptuous body of her. Really one of the hottest MILFs created recently.

The second, and more important, is the sexual tension, desire and taboo fellings between Paula and MC. They have just one scene together so far, just the two talk to each other, but the choices during the scene can already build-up the atraction, desire and love of Paula for him mixed with the taboo felling, make the scene somekind erotic and leave you want for more.

Like i wrote, is still very early in development and there is not so much content yet. But what already is in the game is definitely good quality.

I just got it and played for the firs time,
I am impressed, quite good, a lot of potential, but tis seems there will be a lot of paths.

I enjoyed all the eye movement, the social dynamics, and the models

Paula not be fit seems like a lot of work, and a bit of a waste.

Really solid start to a game. Visual are very nice with some great character design and skin textures. The story telling isn't bad at all either and I think I have an idea where the story is going but not sure yet but it has that "perv" feel that I like I just hope it doesn't have NTR or if it does, it's avoidable.

Really hope the dev continues it.

Super hot mom. Game is just too short, will be impatiently awaiting updates!

Story jumps off fast and looks like the dynamic of influencing the body of the main interest will be really cool. Only hope it is not too ambitious and overwhelms the dev.

Got this one favorited. So far best game in a good while for me.

UPDATE: I've realised, following a second playthrough just now, that the content as it currently stands already provides a 5 star experience. Contrary to my previous justification for giving only 4 stars I no longer see the logic in withholding a star now pending future expectations and possibilities that may or may not ever actually end up influencing the award of that seemingly inevitable 5th star anyway.

So on with the review as it stands...

Although there is currently one searing hottie on display so far, there would appear to be a plethora of full-figured, full-bosomed (absolutely fantastic!), "mature"/semi-mature models to come (hopefully in every sense of the word ).

The style and appearance of the ladies of the banner also looks well produced, refreshingly different and exceedingly pleasing to the eye (both of mine, in fact). Speaking of which, as many in here have already stated, the leading lady is both voluptuous and gorgeous and has clearly been (and still is for her age) a real beauty in earlier times. She is certainly worth every single stretch mark we have so far been privileged to behold.

XTZ have also introduced, what is to me at least, a very innovative and highly creditable idea that I have a feeling will, if successful, be most enjoyable and exciting. This is to actually have the ability, through focusing on elements of Paula's daily training regime, to watch the lady herself benefit from our efforts in terms of getting her progressively "into shape" as her story and her comeback evolves.

As the story progresses, it'll also be (to an unknown extent at the moment) heartwarming to witness Paula growing happier with and more confident in herself and her worth as a woman. This, to me, is such a great idea and one that I really hope that, in practice, succeeds.

So thus far, "Saving Paula" is so very impressive and delightfully encouraging in terms of both current and potential enjoyment that I have already decided to pitch in and become a (modest) Patreon subscriber. So that tells you at what level of admiration and optimism I am at with XTZ at the moment.

Time, as always, will tell, but the communications and the "vibes" are suitably positive and it's a happy case of so far, so good and so promising. I'm looking forward to enjoying more (much more) in future and adding in at some point the final star.

There isn't a lot here yet, but what's there is absolutely awesome! I love the setup and the plan, and the character model for the main female lead is extremely hot. The interactions and choices that are present in what is basically one scene are also really good. Keeping a close eye on this one.