VN - Ren'Py - Secret Island [v0.10.8] [NocturnalDev]

Version 10.4 Review

Before I say anything about the game, I'd like to say up front that I liked the game. It has many flaws and I am writing this review in the hope that the developer will bear this in mind and take this review as constructive criticism only. I have no intention of insulting, ridiculing or mocking the game or its developer.

TL;DR The game is of average quality. Average graphics, basic Koikatsu animations for hentai scenes, weak sound component, fairly intriguing and interesting story.

PROS:

STORY
- I found the story in this game quite fascinating and interesting. It takes a long time to unfold, the game has a great lore (albeit inspired by D&D and other works). Not all characters will fall in love with the protagonist just because he is the protagonist, there will often be a reason for this. There are a lot of conflicts in the game, the protagonist solves several problems at once. The protagonist is not a weakling, and very often thinks logically and makes informed decisions.

LENGTH OF THE GAME
- This game is large. Even if you are a fast reader, you will need at least 10 hours to read the entire novella. At the moment, the developer claims that the game has over 316k words. That's a lot! For those who like big games, this is your option.

HAREM
- There is a HUGE amount of varied content in this game. Catgirls, doggirls, mermaids, foxgirls, goblins, dwarfs, elves.... The developer tries to give each race its own characteristics and behaviour.

GOTH FOX GIRL!
- It's pretty self-explanatory. Have you ever seen a fox girl who is goth? Well, this game has one and thank god!

CONS:

AUDIO
- There are 5-8 looped tracks for the whole game, each track is 15-40 seconds long. Considering that the game is quite large, these songs will not only bore you, but drive you crazy. Most of the sounds in the game are of poor quality, I'll give you some examples: the sound of a spell being used has a long delay and the silence at the beginning could have been cut out; the sound of a slap on the arse has a lot of background noise and high volume - it could have been cleaned up.

BLACK SCREEN
- This is one of those games that suffers from the 'black screen' problem. Quite often the developer will tell us that some action has happened, but instead of showing it, he just writes the text on a black screen. Just note that the action has happened, you won't see a picture.

GRAPHICS
- This game uses Koikatsu for the graphics, and this immediately puts a lot of constraints on the developer. However, I would like to point out that I have seen many Koikatsu games where the graphics were of much higher quality. All the images in the game are 'flat', there are few sources of light and shadows, which makes the image dull. Considering that the game has been in development for over 2 years, I expected the graphics to improve with each update. Unfortunately, this is not the case. At one point I noticed Koikatsu interface elements in the render, which tells us that this is a screenshot and not a render. It's very common to see characters or other objects fitting into walls or each other. Also, many renders have glitches on them, which tells us about the poor use of compression. I would advise the author to use the Webp format.

H-SCENES
- Unfortunately, this is one of those games where the developer has chosen quantity over quality. There are a huge number of H-scenes in the game, but they are all made up of standard Koikatsu animations. Once you've seen them, you've seen everything in the game. After a while, they cease to evoke any emotion and very often make you want to just skip the scene.

HAREM
- Here I will talk about the negative side of the main character's harem. There are TOO MANY characters. Yes, it gives a lot of variety, but at the same time - everyone gets less content. A big sign that the game isn't doing its job for me has always been the fact that even after reading the entire novella, I couldn't remember the names of most of the characters. I just get confused between them.

NARRATIVE
- The game often has narrative jumps and inappropriate scenes. I'll give you an example without spoilers. Let's say there's a conflict in the game and a group of people, including the protagonist, are at war with another group. The protagonist finds out about it first, and instead of calling a meeting and discussing the problem, he just... goes to bed. And then he has sex a couple of times. It's only a few days later that another person suggests calling a meeting and asking how things are going. At the meeting, the protagonist suggests a few ways to deal with the group of enemies, and the meeting chooses a few. Now we have a goal. Is it time to start fulfilling it? No, the protagonist chooses to lie on the bed and then... sex again. And more sex. These moments create a lot of frustration and resentment. Combine that with the fact that all the hentai scenes here use the standard animations, and you can see how annoying these moments are.

GRAMMAR
- It is obvious that the developer do not use English as his main language. Sometimes there are strange phrases, sometimes there are mistakes. It's forgivable, but it's worth pointing out.

Finally, I'd like to say that I like this game. I find it interesting to see how events unfold, but I would have liked to see a higher quality of execution. Having said that, I understand that a lot of work has gone into this game and that the developer cares about his game. Please consider supporting the author! I wish the developer a huge success and I hope to see a continuation of his game's story!

Lovely VN, really interesting story. I'm way more hooked on the plot than the *plot* if you catch my drift.
Am pretty annoyed that it keeps spoiling different tv shows and movies though, most notably fullmetal alchemist. Yea sure the show is ancient but my "to watch" list is only getting longer.

I love Koikatsu games, I just love them. Lessons in love was my gateway drug and I've never looked back. Now, F495 Zone has gone through a pretty big expansion in exposure since last year, we're still niche but there are a lot more active people on the site browsing through games, myself included.

Since the start of the year, I've downloaded copius amounts of games from here to scratch my itch and uhh, and I've developed a system of bookmarking games without a lot of reviews as a self-imposed quality control system.

Secret Island is probably the 20th Koikatsu game I browsed this weekend and I decided to give it a go just to see if my itch coucl be scratched and I was thorougly surprised.

I'm in it for the fapping, but if there is a story to be told, I give all devs a chance and I have to say, Nocturnal dev has something really really good going here. I care about the characters!

There are character arcs worth monitoring, lore (very very intriguing lore) worth exploring, and a story that puts you in the role of a protector, while hiding your very interesting background in regards to a world at war. I was not epecting this at all, and like the recently released stormside game (also on f495), it has my hearty approval and I very much look forward to the game's development.

Sorry for the drawn out review, I tend to do that, but if you're looking a pretty decent characters and good renders, I highly recommend.

The story just dident do anything for me, maybe its all the text and dialogs that feels pointless, its just a ton of lore and pointless information that made it soooo boring that the skip text button was temting and i dont like to skip stuff but there are limits to how much lore and pointless talk i can take, like talking about movies or MC telling stories, it all results in very slow progress with LIs and main story, ratio is like 5 lines of story/relationship talk after 50+ lines of pointless lore, not once but every time you talk with a girl.

There are also alot of spelling issues or word in the worng place which makes you stop reading to figure what it was it said, it gets really annoying since it happens pretty much constantly, it could REALLY use proofreader it would improve the game by so much.....

Also text dosent really follow choices at times, like Sarah comes in saying she wants to sleep with MC one night and she talks about knowing there is a queue for that and how the others might not be happy with it, but it really makes no sense when shes the only one you have ever been with.....

The personalities arent good either, they just feel bland and without showing much emotions.

MC looks like a kid, hes so much smaller then any LI, even hes face is like half the size of everyone else, it makes him feel like a 12 year old kid which is a bit weird and worng.

Please explain to me why MC and Sarah is going up on roof tops to find solar panels when MC can just fly up and check every single roof in 5 mins...
even MC thinks it would be easiere but dosent do it? everyone knows hes a mage so dont see any reason not to, and the pointless comment from MC when he thinks "cant tell her the truth just yet" like when he was detecting people with Sarah, why not tell her...theres no point in hiding it when hes already told them everything about him being a mage, he even showed them he could mind controle someone.....

Girls are cute and there is a bit for everyone.

Animations are at best average, some times stuff like MCs head or someone hair goes through other body parts which looks a bit weird, also in some scennes cam views are bad so you dont really see dick in pussy since its covered by legs or MC making it feel more like softcore.
But i was supprised when i saw a virgin/deflower scene that showed some blood, its somewhat rare that devs get this part right.

Music/Effects are pretty good.

For now ill give it 3 stars since its not really bad but not great either, remove 80% of all the lore and pointless stories then it would be better.
What added some points for me was that it has somewhat good virgin/deflower scenes and pregnancy.

[As of partway through Ch3]

It's really bland. Nothing is particularly offensively bad, but nothing is particularly good either. I appreciated some of the more obscure references, but everything else is just kinda there. The characters barely have personalities, nothing much really happens, there's never any tension, etc. Clumsy exposition dumps happen instead of natural dialogue, and it's unclear why they're even there: it's all just a D&D lore dump that doesn't seem to be relevant to anything actually happening.

Overall, I'd pass on this one. There's nothing to drive me away, but nothing to draw me in either. It's just a meandering hike forwards to nowhere in particular.

It’s very clear that the game is a beginner’s work. The dialogues are wooden, way too much description of things that happen, that we can clearly see (like the MC uses the stairs and meets a girl while doing so, the dev wants to make sure we know what happens and the textbox says: “You meet Helena while using the stairs.”) and not enough use of facial expressions, which makes the dialoguers just even more bland. The dev must tell us for example that someone blushes, because the character on screen isn’t doing so. It’s clear that the dev is not a native English speaker, while there are no spelling mistake, the grammar needs some work here and there and the use of language is quite basic. The background lighting or textures have some problems, nothing bad, but noticeable. There are also not many animations, what further leads to the stiff, bland and wooden feeling of the game. The characters however are better. They mostly are good looking and have different personalities and it’s nice that the MC is smart and has more personality than the usual horny but friendly plank of wood. The dev also puts quite a bit of work into the worldbuilding, which is very much appreciated.

I really would like to give it a 3.5. I do would recommend giving it a try and I really hope the dev finishes the game, you can already see his improvements throughout the game.

Really good game. For some reason there's a lot of Koikatsu based games where you live in a fantasy world and are a overpowered badass but this is one of the few that actually delivers.

Pros:
- Actually interesting world and magic system
-Powerful MC without being cringe
-Nice girls with decent progression without being rushed
-Interesting plot

Cons:
-Unusually far camera angles. Sometimes is just the MC and another character talking but the camera is like a bird's eye view watching the two from really far for no reason.
-Some conversations feel a bit too stretched.

Overall a really good game just short of 5 stars for me but I would still say it's a must play for anyone that likes the fantasy/magic in a modern world setting.

This game is excellent. The story is interesting, well written, particular and intriguing. is a pearl, a masterpiece of writing, mystery and passion. The protagonist is really very strong, the other characters are a chorus that slowly evolves as the protagonist reveals himself. Truly a masterpiece, congratulations!

Review as of 0.4.0.3

Interesting story that leaves you wanting more after each update.

The character designs are good and each character's personality is distinct enough from others.

Sex scenes are ok as well. The buildup to them is nice as the dev tries to establish a connection between the MC and each of the characters.

Version 0.3.3 UAM mod applied for variable tracking

Excellent implementation of Koikatsu graphics with an intriguing story line and a bad ass MC. Plenty of mystery as both the MC and the women in the survivalist group he ends up among are hiding a number of secrets. At first we know little of MC's background or nature, but over time (and with the appropriate choices) we see him display his abilities and powers while gradually establishing relationships with the 12 LI's currently in the game.

Choices are important and the player can choose the relationships they want to pursue and content they wish to avoid. (Hint: Don't turn down any chances to help out with the chores, and porn logic is your friend if you aren't using a mod.) While magic and the standard demi-human races are part of the world, day to day life is largely governed by 21st century technology.

The developer provides a plot based explanation as to why much of the action takes place in the familiar corridors of Koikatsu High. Animation quality is pretty good (Koikatsu standard) and character design is attractive (although the MC sometimes suffers from K's tendency to feminize male appearance). Sex happens relatively early with some of the LI's but it is a slower burn with most of them, Pregnancy is clearly going to eventually be implemented, but the player has a choice of whether to cream pie or not. There is potential for 3p (including oyakodon) in future chapters. Updates are on a regular schedule.

It's a solid and entertaining bit of work and well worth your while if you appreciate this graphic style.

Review as of 0.3.3.

Plot: Pretty good. The story is easily the best part of the game so far imo. There is a lot of set up for future stuff, which also makes me really excited for future updates.
Art/CGs: Decent. Standard Koikatsu renders, nothing stands out as particularly bad.
Characters: Ok. Each one is unique enough. MC is the most interesting however (see plot).
Sound: None. Some ambient music would be appreciated, even if no special sexy time sounds.

Super excited to see where the game goes from here!

Small Edit as of 6.0.0: I called it! (see spoiler relating to speculation proven right in 6.0.0).

The story is intriguing, the characters decent, the sex scenes serviceable. This isn't some big shot game, it's humble and cozy but pretty good in its niche, the only area i feel it falls short is the ESL, you can almost always tell what is meant but it's still definitely ESL.

The main mark i use for myself when it comes to whether a game is worth playing or not is whether i react with joy when a new update is released and i certainly have that reaction for this little diddy.