VN - Ren'Py - Selara [Update 8] [Sacred Sage]

I see a lot of long reviews for this game saying that it is interesting or outright good. I wholeheartedly disagree, this isn't a game in my opinion its an on rails kinetic novel. It doesn't have anything interesting to offer that a million other games of its type haven't done and done better. Also it commits the cardinal sin of choiced based gaming in that there is no real choice. To break down what I mean, in the beginning of the game you have a gun with 5 shots, if you go the one direction you will always end up with no shots left no matter the choices, and the one character will always die no matter the choices you make because he has to die. If you go the other way he also dies, but its off screen so you don't see it. So there is no actual choice because even if you make the optimal usage of your ammo and save him directly. He is shot by another character that DOESN'T show up if you allow said character to die by either not having enough ammo or making the active decision to not use ammo on the choice before he is killed. Also the antagonistic character interactions where you have to pick one character over another is one of the most banal implementations of character interaction that has ever been done, with the boring tell tale games style "boring NPC 1 will remember that or appreciates that". All in all I would say this game has the right motto there are no wrong choices. You are right because choices don't matter at all.

English:............6/10
User Interface:.....4/10
User Experience:....7/10
Art:................7/10
Dialogue:...........8/10
Story:..............8/10
Opinion:............7/10................
Avg:.............6.71/10 [3.35/5]

I have tried to play this game multiple times. I see the previews and think "I like the robot aesthetic, let's try" What I can't get over is how ugly MC is. There are only two other games I find with an MC this physically unappealing and alienating. His face is simultaneously too babyish, fat, flat, square, and his mascara and bulging out eyes are too distracting. If your MC is this ugly, do your best NOT to show him. Not only will we not be forced to see his ugly face, but it improves immersion. There's also a GIANT SQUASHED PLACEHOLDER IMAGE IN THE UPPER LEFT. Excuse me? Does no one play their own game? It also opens with "I wish I knew then what I know now" implying something negative happens. But, being a dumb porn game, it probably means he had a rough wake up and it gets better. But I'll have to get more than 20 minutes into the story to know more. If this puts me off so much I quit again, I'll never know. A shame, I'm sure. So far, the UI is stock with some font, and the menus have extra coloring. And right away, the MC is an absolute moron. He wakes up, gets attacked, then has to be told they're under attack. So right away, I'm tired of him. I sincerely hope he improves and my biggest gripes are his and the UI's looks. The introduction bodes ill for his character though. He even doesn't know how guns work for some reason. And refused to take the assault rifle because... He forgot it existed? And the initial antagonist "Kyle" was tired of being on a space ship... So he destroyed one of their power supplies and starts a mutiny? I'm barely in and no one is thinking. It's absurd. Karaline is a bitch to be a bitch, the rebels are evil for evil's sake, and MC is a moron.

To rehash what I've already said, MC suddenly wakes up on a spaceship. Some guy immediately runs up to him, threatening to kill him. There's been a mutiny. MC is the next Commander, cryogenically frozen until it's his turn to lead. Because the chain of command and promotions for people outside of r cryo pods no longer exists? Either way, Amelia, the ship's personified AI, wakes up MC to help out. She even saves MC by killing his would be attacker. An AI that can kill people, not a scary thought at all. She tells him he has 5 shots and needs to either save maintenance or med bay. No matter what you choose, Karaline thinks MC is a piece of shit for not being able to be in two places at once. Why? Because the writer said we needed someone to be a form of inter-personal conflict in the story. Then MC and Kara go to kill Kyle because who would ever name their kid Kyle. He wants to release prisoners so he has people to fight for him. Luckily no one can shoot someone 15 feet away and MC emerges victorious. Finally, Amelia lore dumps that this ship has been in space for 80 years. Which, usually, I'd rescind my earlier comment about MC not knowing how to use guns. However, why would a ship that is on a long journey like this need to develop new weapons that somehow read DNA though electromagnetic waves? Literally every other aspect of life needs to be considered before making the gun from Judge Dredd. Anyway, I digress. The crew just learned that they haven't been in contact with Earth for 75 years. This also adds to my point earlier about people getting promoted to commander, people would grow into the role even. It's an odd thing that doesn't seem like it would have been the best decision. Then you get a menu where everything is a shade of dark blue or less dark blue. It is hard to read, too small, and very "early 2000's techno" so, unappealing. If this is a major part of the game going forward, I'm gonna be sad. It's an eyesore both literally and figuratively. I'm getting war flashbacks of another game about being stranded in an emergency spaceship. At least this AI isn't insufferable.

This opens up the linear sandbox element of talking to everyone, one by one. Zoe tells MC her dad was killed, right next to Cora. Then MC says "Hey Cora, Zoe told me what happened." She should have been able to hear that? But it's so hard to make imagebuttons, gotta click on everyone! And, as per usual, as soon as you click on Kara, she lashes out at MC for no reason other than to be an asshole. Why. MC has literally just woken up and saved people and helped stop the mutiny. But no, he's an ass because he can't perform mitosis. My only thought is she finds him as ugly as I do. When MC finally winds down, you, the reader that is 99.9% male, get to see his raging hardon when he imagines the women he just met naked. So, first hint at sex is a dream sequence. That is not a good omen. Dream sex is pointless. Not only does it ruin the reveal of the LI's nudey bits, but they imagine them perfectly because making(buying) more than one model for a character would be effort. Moral of the story: we don't need to see that MC is hard, we can take his word for it. We KNOW this is a sex game, sex will be in it, we don't need to see him masturbate. This is also a poor section because Amelia send MC to get some rest, and instead of letting him rest, she calls him as soon as possible for a status update? And I love how, in the shower, MC praised his team. Then, in the briefing room, he's mad no one was prepared for a mutiny that sabotaged the ship. What? Am I the only one that read that? "SO Sorry not everyone is ready for an asshat that destroys the ship" shut up you idiot MC. He even brings it up as if he's been the only one doing their job. People just got done killing each other from going stir crazy, literally, after 80 years. His tragedy is his mom got sick, they all just had friends and coworkers killed in front of them. They're supposed to prolong the human race as well, supposedly. But there doesn't seem to be a lot of them. Then MORE DREAM SEX? Come on. Have faith in your game to not need to jangle keys for the horny crowd.

After MC is woken up from his sex dream, that turns into a wet dream, they get together to have another status update? The first one was just Zoe saying things are broken. This one was about Zoe saying things are less broken and they're headed to a habitable planet. It's at this point I decided "Let me turn the voices on to see the voice acting. That's new." I immediately laughed and turned it off. I would rather have no voices than the worst AI voices available, like in this. It is so dry and unnatural I don't know who thought "Yeah.. This is good!" It's not. The cadences are terrible. The monotone nature of everyone makes it more boring than just reading. And, any time the English is less than stellar, it exacerbates how bad it sounds. I would, honestly, just drop the voices entirely. Listening to two robots talk at each other is no fun. And definitely not enticing in an AVN. I would also like to point out that if MC had merely stated they were going to land earlier, it would have avoided some fighting and bloodshed. They're doing exactly what the mutineers wanted. Wow. You then get the choice to follow Amelia or meet Kara. I think it's impossible to not have Amelia like MC so I went with Kara, not feeling up to try every route. Kara is instantly annoyed by MC's presence, then he asks "Are we good?" and she softens up and smiles at him immediately. We then learn MCs mom had cancer. Because the only tragedy anyone can have is a mom with cancer or a dad that gets killed by the mafia. And after that, I found out you can't skip over the texting sessions. Great. The only thing I'm grateful for is it doesn't try to simulate the other person texting. Who wants that? And the day rounds out by MC and Amelia essentially visiting the HoloDeck together and an AI with no emotions suddenly gets wet because she essentially shoved her crotch into MC's face. There's so many questions and issues I have with all of that. But, "this is a dumb porn game, of course the robot is a sex robot."(I will concede that she later says the simulation makes her feign emotions, but still it's odd) They then have sex and the in-fluid motion and poor, flickering lighting make it laughable at best. It doubles down because he comes in his pants again right after. Amelia also has a bed for some reason. Then she gets happy that MC treats her like a person. You know, with her no emotions. More questions.

Finally, they make it to the planet. The ship crashes and Kara immediately blames MC. Okay? Never mind the cutscene that had a poor walk-cycle and a bunch of oddly tweened motions. The animations just aren't good. Except for the sex loops that are more than likely purchased loops. Getting back to the issue, instead of being concerned or trying to survive Kara just gets mad at MC. He's done two things since waking up: stop a mutiny, and decide to colonize a planet. He had no control over people revolting or a ship falling out of the sky. Unless he was piloting and even then it's made to look like it just stops working. Then Kit Fisto and his people attack MC and his crew and he passes out again. Because MCs backstory can't be told in a fluid conversation but only during flashbacks to make it seem more traumatic or meaningful. That doesn't work on me. But away to Cora, whose husband died less than THREE DAYS AGO fantasizing about MC. Earlier I was gonna make a joke that I hope Cora is the only one that has a sex scene to spite this game and because she'd need comfort. But for her to just start frothing at the gash for him idly is disrespectful and makes her a shitty character. If this were a show or book, it'd be one thing. But she's a character in an AVN, they're supposed to be likable. After meeting the locals, there's a language barrier. And another free-roam section opens up. You get done talking to Kara... Only for you to have to talk to Kara? Do you not see how pointless this is? What have I, the player, gained from clicking twice to get to the dialogue with a character MC was JUST speaking to? Nothing. Anywho, MC and friends instantly learn the alien language, and MC inserts the humans into their issues. Then hard cut to the Kit Fisto queen having sex with a prostitute. She's evil for the sake of evil. I guess they drink the green aliens' blood to survive. So that makes them evil. Don't worry. I'm sure MC's penis will solve all their issues. Eventually, the dev uses the multiple speakers function, but because they don't know how to use it, the dialogue box doubles itself over one of the lines of dialogue. I don't forsee that being used much.

Unsure if this is choice dependent, but you get a scene where Layla discovered an aphrodisiac that makes it impossible to do anything but orgasm. Apparently random weeds on this planet do that. Great. Layla even went into detail that she doesn't care about sex and hates loose women. But the next time you see her, she begs MC for dick and right after there's no repercussions for him just going along and having sex with her. These characters were so close to being good, but that's two now that went completely against their established characters for the sake of a sex scene. Why bother writing if you're not gonna be consistent? And why are all the chapter ending cutscenes so choppy and disjointed? They all feel so empty, like seeing that only one thing in the scene moves so you know they didn't want to animate more.

The next chapter, Celeste, the alien leader, is captured. They constantly make it a point to bring up how brutal the tribe is. But you, the player, never see them do anything more than talk and goof around. "They'd slit her throat for being weak and getting captured" Why? There is another species that wants to kill them and drink their blood, why are they killing each other? That, logistically, makes no sense. And you eventually find out they're the last of their kind as well. Why the hell are they killing each other? Zero people are thinking right now and it is upsetting. And it's even more frustrating that I thought there would be seven chapters. (To be frank, I was worried at just how much I'd written only to be at the second chapter.) It doesn't even get to a satisfying closing spot or cliffhanger. MC just gets a message about Walter's funeral and it ends. As the player, we saw Walter for maybe 10 images and 10 lines of dialogue. We do not care. That is not an enticing scene to tease. What? I s MC gonna be a funeral crasher and sleep with some depressed chick? He already had sex with his subordinate while she was drugged. And i don't know how Scarlett survived getting shot, if you chose that route, because scenes obviously have very little impact on the overarching plot. The sad thing about this game is I'm a little disappointed. But I think OVERALL, that's a good thing. This has good dialogue and the story isn't the same garbage you see all the damn time. It's not groundbreaking, but it could be alright. I think I'll know for sure come the next sex scene. If a character suddenly changes how they act completely, the next time MC has sex, the writing is bad. It's dumb to build these characters, only for them to be someone completely different as soon as they lose a bit of clothing. Hell, Kara, the woman that actively hates MC sends him nudes after telling him off. That's stupid. Consistency is key. If all you want to do is have women in spacesuits have sex with this Ugly Moron, just make sex animations. It feels like all the sex scenes are written by someone who hasn't read what the story is even about. So frustrating.

Ultimately this is a mixed bag. It's SO CLOSE to getting a 4 stars from me. But just barely falls short. The English is fine most of the time, but regularly there are lines that feel weird to say, or just don't make sense. I can only imagine how they feel with the AI voice on the whole time. The UI/UX is partially customized. A phone, coloration, and the texting/glossary menu are okay. But it's still mostly default, which is a shame. The Art is held back by the animations. All of them are choppy or wonky. If not then there's weird lighting glitches. I'd say just don't until they can be done well. The Dialogue is almost great. I don't hate the characters, and outside of the referential humor, it feels alright. The story isn't bad either. I think they need to focus a bit, and maybe get into why they left Earth, and maybe it's going a little too fast, but it's not bad. The TLDR of it is, this is better than 90% of the crap on this site. There's a few things to iron out, and I think the characters need to be fleshed out a little better, but it's pretty good. If you made it to the end of this, give it a try. Or don't, I'm not your mother.

Pretty decent game!

Pros:

1. Scifi has always been a good option, there is more room to do other things and this does a good job of that without overdoing it.
2. Models are very nice looking and animations are decent
3. Choices have impact that is noticeable
4. Story and writing are good, structured well and characters are interesting and complex enough without making it all too slow and tedious.

Cons:

1. No clear scoring for characters so the player can't really keep track of relationship status with any detail.
2. Some dialogue, typos and grammatical errors are present.
3. Not really seen much use of the stat system either, though it could be a bit more subtle hence I didn't notice much effect from it.
4. A built in walk-through would be useful considering the impacts the choices have on other characters and MC relation to them.
5. The AI voicing is a bit annoying, its OK to try it but I ended up just disabling all voices. I would suggest focus on the general sounds, sexual sounds etc. These do a VN good and provides players with more immersion than using AI voices IMO, perhaps if the voices have been edited to be more natural then sure, but as now, nope.
6. Per above point, during some sexual scenes some characters sound like they are making bird mating calls or something...WTF

Otherwise a solid good game and I am looking forward to more, I hope that updates are frequent and decent. Keep it coming!

Update 6

Story 3/5
Characters 2/5
Graphics 4/5
Writing 1/5
Audio 3/5

Story
Selara has an interesting premise - a prototype space ship sent away with the (allegedly) last humans, hoping to colonize a new planet. It's got a lot of potential, and could go in almost any direction. Alas it the follows the Captain Kirk route and already in chapter 2 there are freaky deaky aliens getting it on. If you are looking for a coherent story, this is not it. The dev does not seem to care about worldbuilding or a consistent narrative, or even logic. This is not a permanent problem of course; there is a lot more room in the story before the VN is done, and the original idea had promise.
There are some choices to be made, largely dealing with which LIs you want to antagonize and which you want to pursue, presumably leading to a harem of half the girls available. It works. There are also skills; strength, stealth, and intelligence, though what the effect of these are I cannot say.

Characters
The characters, including the MC, are one-dimensional. They all follow a single character trait and take that to an extreme. The MC is your basic Mary Sue, and can do no wrong. Conflicts and interactions between characters seem artificial and infantile. This area has considerable room for improvement. The strangest part is that the MC acts like your basic beta simp out of any new-to-college or coming-of-age AVN, but somehow he is the commander of the last group of humans in existence. This comes out as jarring throughout the entire story, and is remarkably disturbing. The MC also has a bitchy second-in-command that he lets walk all over him for some strange reason, further violating any sense of immerson or in-game sensibility.

Graphics
Graphics are great. Characters and settings look interesting and are well done. Cutscenes are far more than I would expect, and they are more than good enough to set the tone of the scene. The cutscenes inbetween chapters are confusing and do not seeem to relate to what happened prior, nor to what happens in the subsequent chapter, but that is not really an issue. Graphics are probably the best part of this VN.

Writing
The writing is bad. Really bad. Too much nonsense, too many grammar errors, too much ridiculous and childish reasoning. This part needs massive improvement.

Audio
This is the first time I've tried an AI narrated VN. Props to the dev for trying it. In some areas it kinda works, in others it does not. I would prefer having it to not having it even when it doesn't work, as it does add some much needed consistency to the characters.


All in all, this is an average VN. Graphics and audio elevate poor writing and story skills into something that can be watched. I hope this can be turned around into an interesting finished product, as there seems to be potential here and there. Best of luck to the dev.

As of Update 6


PROS

• Nice models
• Interesting setting
• There is SOME choice
• An attempt at animation

CONS

• Forced into scenes & routes
• MC is supposed to be chosen for leadership on a pioneer mission to save humanity but comes across as every wimp mid-manager you've ever seen.
• LI's personality traits seem to all be to the extreme (bitch, slut, kinky nerd)

CONCLUSION

This is OK. Routes are either/or so you just have to pick your poison and odds are there's at least one LI you'll like. Setting's interesting enough to see where it's going and this is still early enough for improvements.

OK, with potential

Amazing sci-fi AVN set in space. The game has absolutely beautiful renders, well-written characters, and the choices you make in this game actually feel like they have an impact. I know it's still early, but this game has potential to be really good. I'm really looking forward to the next updates.

It’s a bit early, but so far it’s a great action packed sci-fi story.

The writing is mostly solid, with characters well established and it’s fairly standard but done well.

The game uses AI generated voices, so wouldn’t be surprised if the script involved some AI as well.

The renders are solid, but you can see some render issues like fireflies and fuzzy renders showing here or there. I think some assets look a little odd too and don’t know how to feel about the aliens.

Characters are hot and fun and the most developed ones are the combative Karaline with the hot as fuck British accent, supportive AI red head Amelie and Zoe the mechanic.

There’s a stats system that isn’t explained well, but it helps affect the choices you make and scenes that get unlocked.

Really well written and entertaining. Great characters. I'm definitely looking forward to playing more of this in the future.

The only criticism I could think of at the moment is that the cast feels a little small. I think adding two or three more characters would make it feel more filled out. Since there are no aliens on the squad at the moment in the current version, I figure there are already plans in motion to increase the cast.

5/5

Update 3

Great world building, great characters. Can tell the writer knows a lot about this stuff (I liked the whole pulse reading thing from firearms, its one of those sci fi things that just borders on reality and seems feasible)

Just 1 point to improve on for now;

The consistency of in person and message interactions:
- I love the concept of messaging, as it feels like that is something that would definitely happen in real life. However, sometimes the messages with the crewmates seem a bit...out of character for most, it feels like they are cordial in person (which is absolutely fine), yet on messages the characters are suddenly sending selfies, emojis, and being informal with the commander.
- Imo, the messages could be more formal initially. I mean the MC is the commander, and he is also a stranger. So messages from his crewmates (who are also his subordinates) should feel cordial and formal. This imo would add more to the realism, and will make any future sexual encounters more fruitful and meaningful.

I have watched the progression of this developer. Through the consistent updates of his previous game, which contributed to the numerous changes, made it an absolutely better and enjoyable game.

This developer has strived to provide a better product in every facet. Could the writing be better...sure. Does it develop characters and the story...absolutely. As long as the grammatical errors are kept to a minimum, then I can get through it.

Selara has already proven the painstaking steps the developer has already taken to better his skills. All the main characters are being introduced and developed that sets the stage for the story advancement. I fully appreciate the direction that this new game is going and I look forward to the future updates.

So far so good. Nice animations, great renders and I kinda enjoy having a fully voiced game, even is it's AI.
It has also many sound effects and details like that, and it looks like it's going to have a good variety of content.
Recommended if you like Sci Fi

Promising game. But It's being held back by meaningless trivia. Renders are great. But the pacing is not. The main culprit is the writing. So much exposition to slouch through. The writing feels like mainly written by A.I, The dialogue is really boring at the time filling those deadpan face renders. The gameplay also reinforces the idea that your choices can feel meaningless. A decent amount of effort is wasted. I guess I'll be seeing in a year.

Review of Update 3

Well I have to say that this game was a very nice surprise. I am fond of sci-fi settings and this one is done really quite well. It's still early days but there is enough worldbuilding (galaxybuilding since the game takes place in space?) that is done to give you a picture of the setting you are dropped into. And you are dropped into it, right into the middle of a mutiny that you immediately have to thwart to regain control of your new ship. The pacing of the story is great putting you direcly into the action and explaining what is neccesary at the time instead of frontloading all of it and making it boring.

The RPG elements are implemented quite nicely and seemlessly. So far it doesn't seem like you will be locked out of content for not having enough "stats" but instead the outcome of scenes may vary a little bit depending on how you played up to that point.

All of the LIs are attractive and have very different personalities which is always a plus. There are only a couple of H-scenes in the game so far but the animations for them are top notch in quality. As are all of the renders in the game, I didn't notice any flaws in the rendering but I'm also not an expert in the field all I know is that it's a very good looking game.

As others have stated the whole game is voiced artificially and while it is far from the worst I've ever heard it isn't great either. With voice synthesything AI on the rise maybe someday a game will be made with good artificial voices but this isn't quite it. Not going to let that detract from my rating however since you can simply mute the voices if you don't like them. The other audio however such as the music and moaning during H-scenes is done well and adds a good amount of depth and ambiance to the story.

With the introduction of our first alien species in this latest update I am very excited to see where the story goes. I would highly recommend you give this game a shot it's very much worth the time!

One minor complaint I have is that upon reaching the end of the current version there isn't a proper ending screen and it just kicks you back to the main menu. At first I thought my game glitched but I guess thats just how it is. A little jarring, adding a proper "end of current version" screen would be a nice addition I feel.

P.S. AI Waifu Amelia is the best, fight me!

I quite like the start of this, also the bonus is the the voices aren't as bad as many computer generated voice services i've sampled, they all often have a robotic sound to them, so thankfully this avoids it for the most part.

I do like the sci-fi theme, as for preference on models so far, for me, it has to be Zoe and Amelia.

Interesting to see where this goes!!

The graphics are top notch as usual. Might even be better than Reclusive Bay. Or I just love the Sci-Fi looks more

The voice acting works very well and feels natural to the game. That combined with the choices you have make it feel more like an RPG game than a visual novel.

Well done on the first chapter. Can't wait for the next one.