Ren'Py - School of Love: Clubs! [v1.8.9] [NijuKozo]

I'm going to give this game 3 stars. It's a game with many things to do and lots of attractive girls, but it becomes repetitive and monotonous. This is based on Update 1.8.9.

The Good:
-Many attractive girls.

-There is sound, which helps with the sex scenes.

-The main story seems interesting to me.

-Some of the girls' individual storylines are well-developed.

-Finding places on the map and objects gives you something to do, and I don't mind it.

The Bad:
-It becomes repetitive at times, and even unbearable when you only have a few girls left to level up.

-It's too easy for the MC to make the girls fall for him. (I know you have to level up each girl, and that's where "the interesting part" begins), but I mean that very few of them present a real challenge for the MC.

-There are some unintuitive moments; I had to go onto the game's Discord or search this post to figure out what to do next.

-I know it's a harem game, but why don't the girls have a boyfriend or someone else besides the MC (apart from 1 or 2 girls)? That would make it a challenge (I'm not saying it needs to be NTR).

The game is very extensive and still isn't finished. I recommend playing it and taking your time to complete it.

Definitely one of the best Koikatsu sandbox games out there. Anyone who enjoys the KK style of graphics and the sandbox genre should definitely try this game out. My only complaint for this game is that it's definitely on the grindier side of things, to the point where it can get a bit annoying without using cheats, mostly for money. Other than that the story is decent enough to remain sufficiently interesting throughout the entire game, and the characters are all pretty good. The game already has a ton of content, too.

v. 1.8.8 Review

This game is a pretty primitive (in terms of story and writing) grindfest.

Most of the girls are interesting and some of them are attractive, but most of them, at the very start of the game, are basically down to bone as soon as you exist. However, you have to go through several (5-7) layers of bullshit before you're able to do so--regardless of how hungry for it they actually are. Not only is it unrealistic for so many girls to be interested in someone, it also doesn't make sense why you need like 6-8 weeks to get into their pants when they're basically falling all over you from the very beginning.

This does, for a significant section of gameplay, take place in the same default Koikatsu! school as almost every other Koikatsu! modeled game. That means there's going to be a lot of high school drama bullshit. But something that is never actually explained in any tangible way is how Protag-kun is strong enough to catch a grand piano thrown from the 2nd or 3rd floor, down to the ground, or how he's able to launch a basketball through the backboard and wall behind the backboard. It also doesn't explain why Sue has a whole band of magical(?) cronies and seems bent on taking over the school, much less why. There's a lot of dumb, inexplicable bullshittery afoot with this game.

Honestly though, The worst offender is the grind. As mentioned before, you have to grind out a girl's "affection" bar until she's ready to go to the next level. There's also a time system in place, a la many other games with unspecific timeframes--Morning, Noon, Afternoon, Evening, Night, Midnight. This means you have to seek out each girl and try to find out their exact schedule so you can maximize efficiency, and not waste time socializing with girls whose bars are already full. However, one thing I did notice is that, much like many other similar games (Sensei Overnight, A Lesson In Love, Life Changing Choices, etc....), after a while, all of the major events point at the morning and noon timeframes, usually for 1 to 2 days. This means that you are stuck choosing one or the other, and having to wait for a whole week before you can move on with the other girl's event(s). This is compounded in confoundery when the game starts throwing multi-stage level-up events to the girls at later levels--so now you did stage 1, cool. You now have to do stage 2, 3 days from now on a time and day that you had reserved for someone or something else. And stage 3 is another full week from now because it was set for the exact time frame as stage 2, but that timeframe was spent on stage 2......etcetcetc. It is infuriating enough to feel like a black hole of time and clicks.

Add to this whole grindfest shitshow, the fact you need to mine in-game crypto for your in-game wallet, using up one of the timeslots. This is because several of the level-up events later on require that you buy things. And many of these things can be quite expensive (e.[g., an ice cream maker for 500, a bottle of sperm-based skin cream for ~200, etc).

And lastly, the UI is decent, if a bit oversized, but the UIX is terrible. I say this because there's a section of UI that will tell you what you need to do for each girl, what level they're at, how far their bar is filled, etc. This is cool, but you can't check it when speaking to a girl, and it doesn't pop up when speaking to them, hovering over them with the mouse, etc. So it leads to checking that list several times each in-game day to make sure you're not missing anything. Add to this several entirely unnecessary collectathons, and the ability to purchase things before you even know what they are for, much less who.

Even the sex scenes are spiceless and dull. Just the occasional "Ahh.....................Ah...........".

This game feels like it was designed to steal as much time from the player as possible, whilst stroking their egos a bit to keep them engaged. It feels slimy and malicious, and I refuse to give it any more of my time and effort.
6/10

My goodness, the grind is so mind numbing in this game. I feel like I'm just on autopilot most of the times playing this. The gameplay loop is essentially this: With each new game day, you're just repeating the entire day looking for your favorite group of girls to hang out with until they're ready to be advanced to the next level. When you do get to view the new event at each level, the amount of writing is pretty short anyways.

If there's something that I can appreciate about the game, is that there's a bunch of characters so you'll likely find at least a few of them that you'll love.

Story 2/5
Story is somewhat ok but the sandbox and grind just ruins it for me, i dont mind a bit of a grind but i got a limit and this is way past that, having to level each girl up doing shit at a set time and day of the week 5 millions time is just not something i find even remotely fun and you can add alot of money grind on top of it all....

Next issue is that some quests are tied together meaning you can progress unless you finish some girls routes, i truely hate forced girls, forced fetishes, forced sex scenes and this game has all of that as well.

If they wanted to make a kinetic game then do that instend of hiding it behind a sandbox since that wont make it any less kinetic.
And when doing a sandbox just do questlines for each girl alone and have the main stories run alone as well so people have the freedom to pick who to fuck instend of forcing someone on the player which the player might hate.

Not all people has big tit fetish and not all people love lolis and smols, i love game that has both kinds but it has to be a choice.

Even storywise it makes no sense to force girls on the player when shes made as a true bitch Rachel comes to mind....

Girls 3/5
They look ok and there is a pretty decent diversity in builds.

Animations 3/5
Pretty average stuff that you have seen a million times.

Music 2/5
Its a little better then silent but really needs alot more diffrent tunes and better ones as well.

Choices 1/5
Cant score this high when game has forced girls and fetishes so 1 point.

3.7/5

v0.1.8
4-5 Hours Playtime

Pros:

A bunch of women - i dont see an issue with this. More variety for everyone.

Plot - pretty funny and I guess heartwarming? At least that is how it feels at certain scenes and tries get you to like the characters more.

H-scenes - Pretty hot for 'some' of the characters in the game

Cons:

Replayability - unfortunate it doesn't hit as hard as the 1st or 2nd time when going back to a heroine route or an H-scene.

Music/osts - Like one song in the game and it has to be some LOTR royalty free song? I can't remember anything other than the wind instrument playing in the background for my entire playthrough.

Grind/Progression - it is pretty hard to progress with the heroines as most of them require items to progress their route, then comes money management, then feels like a crappy grind to keep grinding to buy ANOTHER item for someone else repeating the cycle

Models - The character models are great and hot. However I have to be honest the characters with giant gaps between their eyes or droopy looking like characters from Clannad, but x5 its a turn off man.

Neutral:

Characters - Double edged sword when adding a butt ton of heroines to progress to the story a bit of variety for everyone to enjoy. However does create the issue for demand for most characters receiving their dedicated scenes. Quantity over quality tunnel visioning of what to give to everyone and not provide the build up of enjoying characters leading to feel like the bare minimum of attachment with most characters.

TL;DR:

Good game, funny/interesting? plot, character models meh, too grindy however 65% worth? the grind.

One of the most generous games you'll find here. The story is pretty basic but fortunately the characters are pretty unique and endearing (and for once, the OC isn't any sort of dick).
Definitely recommend it !

Too many scenes are ruined by forced foot fetish stuff.

Overall, it's a fun game. It has it's flaws, one being disgusting feet every time I turn around.
Not all of the LI's seem to be mandatory, but several are needed for progression.
Interesting choice to include both a professional and amateur porn star as lewdable/potential LI(s). You are invited to star in a cucking (you're doing it) porn scene, and the other you are joining in what I'm guessing is like an onlyfans type of thing.
The grind isn't too bad, but it's there. Make sure you mine coins on your laptop everyday - you'll need a lot of them to progress with the characters.

Honestly, I would love to give this 4.5 rounded up to 5, but my enjoyment keeps getting ruined by feet. I'm almost done with the current update (0.1.8) and I've encountered 4 scenes so far. One of them ruins an otherwise pleasant threesome. The only other non-vanilla thing I had found was one anal scene which was... not really anything special if you are a fan of those.

[edit] Also, Rachel is a cunt. She tries to kills us, she allows Katie to be kidnapped, and then stands in the way of us trying to save her. Increasing her relationship has been, up to this point, required to advance the story, but if that continues after all that... I can't reasonably see why the MC would even accept being friends/intimate with her after what she's done.

TLDR - Play it unless foot stuff is an automatic pass for you.

Very polished and fun game.

Large roster of girls to choose from and most already have a decent amount of content.

Each girl has a unique personality and backstory that determines their motivation and desires.

MC is a moron that probably can't add 2 + 2 yet somehow comes across as likeable and funny.

Easy to use UI , smooth navigation and ability to quickly change time of day.

Cheats available for infinite money, I suggest you use this AND craft the XP talisman right away.

In game hint system is easy to understand and actually helpful, unlike some other games in the genre.

Grind is a chore at first but once you get used to the pattern it's easy to quickly grind up any character you want to focus on via the change time and skip dialogue options.

Overarching story is a bit out there, with superpowers and alternate dimensions. I enjoy having MC being super strong and humble but I honestly ended up skipping most of the 'Other Realm' plot due to boredom. I just want a dating sim after all.

Update frequency seems to be relatively quick compared to most other games.

10\10
If you liked HS Tutor - it's mostly the same thing but in Koikatsu style.
Great incest, great school setting, a lot of potential.
Already a lot of content.
Hand-made animation (not Koikatsu ones) are notably worse, though, but I can live with that

I don't know what's your expect from a game in this types. A good story that keep you in line? Yes it does (at least for me after playing above 100 game i can say it) pretty hot characters and they can satisfy you. Maybe Their motion scenes are not great but i have been enjoyed it and it was cool for me none problem for me. Im not like a some guys that haven't played the game and just giving low rate to game because their favorite game don't have high rate( i respect your rates and let's be hunest when a game is good) It was a month ago that i played this game and i enjoyed it, and when i do i give a good rate to this game. Waiting for new update!!!

What can you expect from this game?
-Overpowered and dense Mc
-Medium grind sandbox
-Decent storyline and events
-This game is wholesome and comedic
Will you enjoy this game?
You may enjoy this game if you are not looking for quick fap but story. Some of the girls are interested in mc from the beginning but they are not slutty as some of the other games here. The renders and gameplay are improving with each updates. This is basically like comedy harem anime but lewd scenes. I am giving it 5 stars cuz i had a great time playing this.

Good game. Played version 0.1.5.
The plot is 7/10 (since it is not finished yet and it is too early to judge)
Visual component 8/10 (Almost all scenes are animated. In most of these "games" we see only a set of pictures. But the places where the developer "cheated" are striking)
Technical part 10/10, the game did not crash or freeze.

I recommend this game, I really liked it, I will wait for updates.

i like this game, very interesting story
friendly playing with old OS phone (android 7), smooth move scene

i wonder, what if i can interact with grace ( teresa's sister) and interact with stella

thats all, this game very good i like this game a lot

I found this game incredibly boring and gave up after about 2 hours of playtime. There's just no heart to it, you're dumped into the story without any real explanation, no one is introduced to you and each scene feels completely disconnected from everything else.

i can see the potential but right now the game is shit.
why is the game shit?

- repetitive scenes other games with this type of playstyle would add on more activities and scenes each time you lvl up. i can see the dev is working on this aspect(teresa house and mia moving in) but nothing gets added for the first few hours.

- messy. you just have all characters available and no idea where to start and a lot of them end at lvl 2 with no scenes.

- stacked activities and useless time periods. some characters are only available in school periods(elena, teresa(low lvl), natalie, katarina) and clubs are only available at noon. this causes the noon-afternoon at school to be stacked while all the other periods to have nothing. in my playthrought i skipped almost every single morning and everything after evening.

- shitty lvl up conditions. sometimes you have to cycle nearly a whole week to meet the conditions
- slow pace. takes a lot of time to reach a sex scene with a character the only one that was decent pace was elena.

- almost no connected storyline. each character has their own and very short story with you that doesn't affect anything with anybody else.

- money. getting money is grindy and you cannot skip the animation.

- hateful characters. in my opinion the two boys offer nothing but annoyance

why do i see potential?

- game still early in development and has a lot of opportunities to improve.

- the dev seems like he is learning how to make the game better(idk if he is i am assuming).

- has a wide variety of characters.

- some problems are easily fixable.

for now this was one of the only game that made me want to quit halfway. hopefully the dev will improve the game but for now i would give it a 1.5 out of 5

Very interesting story, excellent art and perfect grammar. This is the best game I've ever played. I'm looking forward for updates. Wish you best of luck and thank you for such a good game. You got me at Karen part, awesome detail.

Premise was interesting and the visuals are ok, I just don't know when we normalized this kind of extremely boring, grindy, and repetitive sandbox gameplay. You grind for days, then show up at the required time and place (some only one time a week) only for a 5-20 second sliver of an event, then rinse and repeat.

One particularly egregious example was picking up a form that was exactly the same as the one already on file at noon, then in the afternoon walking into a room and dropping that form off to a teacher. That was literally the entire event, took 6 hours of in-game time.

Aside from that it's also a hellish nightmare of constant hard pauses and long transitions, but mercifully there's an in-game walkthrough that tells you exactly where you need to be - which this game would be literally unplayable without - and cheat codes to constantly abuse.

Seems like a silly way to construct to make a game to me.

I'd like to give this game 4 or maybe even 5 stars because it looks great, the models, interface and backgrounds all look really nice. Unfortunately it is mind-numbingly repetitive and bottlenecks the player by making cash absurdly slow to come by compared to the price of the things you need to buy to advance your level with the girls. Additionally the tasks are always the same so grinding the exact same dialog over and over again for 5 levels gets old pretty quickly. The characters above average and the story is fine, dev just needs to make the game itself either a little less boring to grind by including some variation in the tasks/dialog or cut out some of the grind altogether.

Really solid game so far. Models are well-animated and the writing is surprisingly not terrible. Like all the girls. Has the potential to be one of the better Koikatsu games. Really looking forward to more.