VN - Ren'Py - Serenity [Ch. 2 v0.3] [N2TheFire]

Serenity [Ch. 2 v0.3] [N2TheFire]

Pros:
1) Honey Select
2) Interesting plot setup
3) Knows its demographic

Cons:
1) Linear VN with the appearance of choices
2) Not the best dialogue
3) Shallow characters (eg: "lawyer" who dresses like a hooker, she's """""really sad"""" that her friend died from f CANCER and she's here deff not to take that V card from MC. That is just one instance of MANY examples of a "good" writing)
4) Poor execution of story and writing itself.
5) """"""""romance"""""""""
6) MC is pathetic disgrace. Passive doormat.

Overall not good, but not that bad either. Truthfully, something is missing and it's something important. This VN just doesn't hit you. Check for yourself, at least it wasn't COMPLETE waste of time.

Im gonna make this short, sweet, and easy to understand.

Play this game. That's it.

Ok so maybe i cant just stop at that, because theres just so much more to say. I've played this game since the beginning, also its sister game Last Human. The story is fire, the music is top and the scenes the dev is able to put together and animate i have seen in maybe 3 other games in total. I love fantasy, and Sci-fi stuff. The girls are amazing, they all have special characters and traits. Just... look i know i said it but go play the game.

Thank me later.

Personally a 2.5-3/5 but I do think there is plenty enough for others that I'll give it an official 4/5 lol

+Characters look nice
+Concept of the Story was interesting, super escapist fantasy lol
+Music choices were good and Normally I just listen to my own tunes.
+Very much a nice, easy, feel good story

- Once the game music would run its course everything was then just silent :/
(Next "negatives" are all just 100% my opinions, so nothing objective)
-Everything seemed to be happening So Fast, to the point I was having some trouble absorbing what was going on
-I was expecting/wanting more Adventure! I know that there wasn't anything describing that this would be an "Adventure story" so it's on me, but still was let down that there wasn't much build up to having OverPowered MC powers
-Didn't much care for the MC, Thankfully wasn't just some fuckwad asshole but I felt like the MC was watching the Story as much as I was

4/5* I definitely think people can, will, and should enjoy this if they just want a Fun, Happy, Relaxing Story to simply enjoy. Personally didn't find the depth I for some reason was looking for. Personally a 2.5-3/5

Loved it. %100 worth your time to at least give it a go. Normally with heavily story based games like these, the author will just get lost midway through, and it will be a slog. Not here, excited for more.

Absolutely love this story in conjunction with Last Human. The writing is great, the models are amazing and the characters are very believable. You will not be disappointed so do yourself a favor and go ahead and hit that download hyperlink already. Thank you for letting us step into your world.

Great game to play ..
I have been enjoying playing this game for quite some time and look forward to seeing it grow in the future.
Thankyou for all the hard work in making it.
Please keep up the hard work and don't go listen to anyone complaining about anything in the game, if they find a bug, they should report it, not complain about it.

I truly wanted to like this game. I gave up on it once before, only to retry it. Even walked away multiple times just hoping the game would “click” with me or something.

The plot seems interesting and is rather unique once you dive into it, the art is solid and the characters are fine. The real issue is the pacing. Everything happens so damn fast, like the dev can’t wait to just rush through it.

You are basically fucking the main girls before you even get to know them. While this is a harem game, you expect things to progress quickly, this is insane how quick everything goes. It’s like it’s purposedly trying to give you whiplash or something! You talk to a girl for 4-10 lines, jump to next scene with a different girl, 4-10 lines, jump to another scene and bam sex.

It’s to the point that while I know the girls have at least some levels of personality, I find it difficult to actually decode it simply because you aren’t allowed enough time with any single girl. Even then, once you do think you’re getting it something happens with the story which alters some of their personalities so you have to start from square one. Which is irrelevant since once these incredibly fast segments lead to the story segments, the game rushes so fast that you don’t get a second chance to actually meet the girls.

There are even moments within the story, key, vital, moments necessary to completely understand the story that are just completely skipped. Such as the backstory for one particular character, the protagonist knows their story and says so on more than one occasion, but he neither explains it to the player nor does the dev show it. Very strong “tell, don’t show” mentality here.

Additionally, there is even a specific character who just… shows up. Sure, the protagonist met the character already, and sure we saw how she arrived at the place the protagonist was, but we completely skip her introduction to the harem. We completely skip her reuniting with the protagonist or meeting the girls. Even if it was a short scene, it simply needs a scene. Instead, the game tells the player in a short sentence that she settled in. For such a narrative/love-based story, that one particularly felt brutal to me.

I have no doubt that the dev has all these meetings and all the questions I may have about the game firmly planted in his mind. This feels like a self-insert story in which the protagonist is meant to be the dev himself. Which isn’t a problem, except the dev doesn’t seem to care about allowing the players to actually share this fantasy. All we can really do is hop in this ride and hope we don’t get whiplash from it.

Just found this the other day and I must admit I really enjoyed it a lot, the story is interesting and made me laugh a lot which is always a good thing.

This is based on season 1 only. I have yet to start season 2 mainly because I like to be able to play a while and not be frustrated when the current build is finished so I will wait a few more updates before starting it.

So season 1 good and bad.

Good

1. Plenty of different models and in the main they are all hot, mainly Neko's must admit I don't mind if they were just normal models but the Dev obviously has a kitty fetish lol.
2. Story is good and there is scope for it to proceed in the future and I look forward to it.
3. Good bit of content in season 1 which is good, must admit I prefer games with a lot of content and not a fan of short story games where each chapter has just a few hundred renders etc.

Bad well not really bad but could be improved should I say.

1. The sex scenes could be a bit longer with more options and stuff but that can be improved in future,
2. Noticed that there wasn't any choices we could make it was a one path story for the majority of the game. You had a very few at the beginning . Again this can be worked on

To be honest if this is the Devs first game then you certainly have what it takes to bring some amazing things to us all and this was a really good chapter and is definitely already going to be one I will play again and that hardly ever happens unusually play a game once unless I find it really good so thank you for that.

I want to like this game. I want to like this game SO MUCH. There is so much potential here. But its fucking boring and the writing is bad and this is upsetting to me.

Central Idea and Kink - i'm 100% on board with this. Pure, unapologetic, escapist fantasty about becoming a literal god with a literal harem of devoted-to-their-core catgirls, with just general feel-good vibes and facing off against and beating various fantasy antagonists. Early on there is mention of a rule "The Master must not sleep alone." Holy shit, yes.

Overarching Story, setting and ideas - Honestly this stuff is all good/fine. dream writers, fade vs shade, different dream worlds, conflict between MC's mother and father, all fine. There's a whole subplot about "dragon script" which reads like nonsense and seems to be terribly important for awhile and then stops mattering. Then everyone is a dream angel and visits earth and yeah its all sort of cool.

Gameplay/Interactivity - None, this is a story experience with no branching/choices. Not my personal cup of tea but also I've played enough poorly-executed sandboxes to say that if this is what they author wants to do I can't really take an issue with it.

Music/Sound - the author makes a big deal about turning music on. Generally I like it and it helps set the tone and is appropriate for various parts of the story. The lack of other sounds is kind of disappointing.

Art/Animation - the character models are gorgeous and there's a heavy emphasis on the various characters having different forms, which includes outfit changes, makeup/tattoo changes, and sometimes changes to skin/ears/wings etc. Its all very cool and generally well done. I really like this. The lewd scenes and animations themselves are below average and somewhat simplistic. This isn't really a deal breaker to me and you can see the dev getting more skilled as development progresses.

The MC - The MC is pretty bad to play as. He's sort of a turbo-virgin in the worst possible way. His main defining characteristics are 1) he's really nice and forgiving and 2) he really, really... REALLY... likes to play avns. To the extent that even halfway through chapter 1, when he's got literal god powers and has more than a dozen horny catgirls fighting over who gets to sleep with him next, he makes sure to take some time to play avns. He meets a new LI and his main way to break the ice is to suggest playing an avn with her. He plays completely passively with his harem, doesn't really take initiative with them, and basically just waits for the next character to get impatient enough to "spend time" with him. Also every 5 scenes is the MC talking to his mom for guidance. She is arguably the most important character besides the MC.

Characters - They're not great. Some of them are kind of endearing but they lack any sort of depth and they don't get any development. At least two characters are jealous of other characters with bigger boobs, and its a point that is brought up repeatedly. Very frequently characters are introduced, they get a few scenes, then one lewd event, then they just disappear because there's nothing for them to do and there's no content/character arc for them. The author can't figure out how to make the characters interesting so the band-aid is to constantly introduce NEW characters, re-hash the same "join the harem" type sequence, and then make a ton of filler scenes of the new characters getting introduced to the old ones, and just different permutations of the growing cast getting together to talk about how much they love the MC. No less than 6 antagonist female characters go through the exact same arc of 1) being a threat and attacking the main cast. 2) note how hot the MC is 3) easily defeated. 4) are grateful for forgiveness 5) lewd scene and join harem.

Its actually a problem with the game that every single threat that is introduced is pretty soundly defeated without any trouble. It feels like this game has no stakes to keep you interested in what's going to happen. It doesn't help that this is explicitly made a plot point, with the Mom character constantly saying that the MC is invincible if they trust in their own power.

As of the writing of this review I've played through Chapter 1 (Final) and 10 minutes of chapter 2 (1.4)

This is a tough game to review. The beginning is pretty cringe inducing with banal characters and the women throwing themselves at MC for no reason at all. No one acts like this, people don't talk like that, I know I know it's a game but the lawyer who is arbiter of MC's mother's will is dressed like a stripper, flirting with him after his mom and her best friend had recently died.

The MC is a huge virgin and it shows. He's afraid of sex or human desires and it's boring to play him.

But then the story picks up and the game shows that it can write characters with depth. Plus the models are imo GORGEOUS. There is also music but it's not looped so half of the time it's just awkwardly quiet.

It's overly sappy but sometimes that's alright you know? The dialogues can be a bit cringe inducing but it's all rather forgiven. The dev has great talent for creating scenery and atmosphere, truly. And despite a rather simplistic story, it's difficult not to get drawn into it. Perhaps it our own fantasies that fuel the story but the game really broke down my resistance.

I can't give it a 5 because of aforementioned reasons, they're too important to me. But this game is well above the rest that you find on this site.

7.5/10 would recommend.

One of the Best. Not so much for the pron but for the story. A simple but interesting story with mystical elements, well done graphics and although kinetic was fun to go through. And the homages to other works, some of which I've already read, and the fourth wall breaks were entertaining. Going through it was fun and encouraging. Highly recommended for its fun and positivity.

Just finished Chapter 1 (v1.4).

Serenity is hidden gem. Not ideal, but well-made harem gem.
Pros:

• NEKONEKONEKONEKONEKONEKONEKONEKONEKONEKO
• Hot HS2 girls with beautiful faces and visually pleasant interiors. Graphics part is great
• Animations are likeable. Maybe short, but well-made.
• Nice music.

Cons:

• Plot. It's strange for totally linear VN. The story constantly jumps from point to point, like MC teleports from girl to girl. Many times I asked myself what the hell is going on. So, it's mom's fanfic about MC, don't ask questions, just deal with it. On the other hand, Dad's arc is interesting. Maybe, we need to go deeper.
• MC. The good point — he is not jerk. The bad one —he is Mary Sue in mom's fanfic about himself. All girls meant to love MC. MC is written to make all girls fall in love with himself. Just. Deal. With. It.
• As you can see, while MC fucks nekogirls, game plot fucks fourth wall. It's fuul of gloryholes.

In conclusion, Serenity is nice porn VN. And the balance shifted to porn side. Not to story.

This is one I kinda skip over a lot. No real idea why, it's always just been one I hold CTRL through to see everything? And I'm not usually like that, so this time I read through it all. And I'm sad that I did. The first few lines of this say "It's written with love" so I thought that meant time was put in to make a good story to read. And it wasn't. Plain and simple. It is another story where everyone is so nice and we all feel nice and things are nice. Even the problems are solved with 4 lines of dialog. And yet again, every female you come across falls in love at first sight.

You play as MC, your mom just died of cancer, you're a loser type of geek that took care of her until she died. And your only other personality traits are you like adult visual novels and anime. And you go to her will reading to see what she has for you. Being her "only relative" everything was left to you. However, she also left you a magical book she wrote for you to live in paradise. If you so choose. Naturally, you do and bring your childhood friend, Kat, that is in love with you, and you, for no real reason, did nothing about it.

You read the book with Kat and end up in Serenity, essentially paradise island. You meet Morgan. A dumbed down, demonized version of a woman your mother was in love with, and she wants power that you have no idea about by taking your "seed." A phrase that is overused. Anyway, you fight with Morgan about finding Kat because you're split up, eventually find her, and then meet the other three main love interests. Rin, Lena, and Jas. They are Nekos that call you master. And use the word Neko all the damn time. They have no real personality, the only differences are hair color, powers, and attitude. Rin is short tempered, Lena is submissive, and Jas is supposedly smart but they never actually go into anything about it.

You have powers to control everything and in less than two weeks you're an all knowing king that's stronger than god himself and can make women orgasm from burping in their general direction. The last part is an exaggeration, but still, you literally kiss a girl and she orgasms, that's dumb. There's more love interests but there's nothing actually interesting about them to note. All the time it feels like all the characters know exactly what's going on at all times unless there's a plot point that need to be hidden by the fake version of your mother.

Can we circle back around to that for a minute to actually think about what's going on? Your mother essentially wrote a power fantasy erotic fan fiction about her son. It's a little weird. And everything happens so fast. There's a point where you get mad that someone else is playing Morgan's save in a VN on your computer. But you as the MC haven't been in the house enough to have actually known that anyone but you have used your dumb porn machine. And even all the "villains" fall in love with you almost before they even see you. I get it's a dumb porn game, but if it's supposed to be a story, write a story.

And clearly a lot of work went into making this. The aesthetics and world building are fairly well done. But when it feels like the MC does one small thing and gets rewarded with sex. Then all the girls look into the camera with a thumbs up saying how proud they are. It's a little condescending. Ultimately it ends up being a long story about how you can beat up your dad. That chatroom in 2006 would be very proud. And the "harem" word is brought up all the time too. Using the word will never not irk me. But this is a story that sort of actually addresses the interaction between all the girls you're cheating on. So there's that.

TLDR - It looks very pretty but it's just a story meant to stroke your ego more than anything. A bunch of Mary-Sues that will never say no to you, a guy reading your mom's fanfic about you. And it's spelled "doofus" Dev, for some reason that spelling mistake bugged me.

Reviewing Serenity v1.3 Chapter 1 Final (on Android via JoiPlay)

Below is a 1 to 5 star rating on parts of the game, from my amateur perspective, that I feel contributed to my overall rating.

Graphics 3.5/5 ⭐ - The graphics definitely get better about one third the way thru but the background and landscapes need some improvement. Adding some depth-of-field when appropriate would help alot. Composition and camera angles could use a little work in a few scenes as well, but overall a good looking game.

Models 4/5 ⭐ - Alot of beautiful ladies here with models that don't look familiar to me. A fair variety of sexy body types, this isn't one of those games were every girl has overly exaggerated features. I do wish that the tails did look a little more natural instead of just pasted on.

Animations 3.5 /5 ⭐ - The animations are short and sparse, but just as good in quality as the static scenes. I would have liked to see a better variety of animations during sex scenes.

Story 4/5 ⭐ - I was going to rate this lower but in the end the game delivered an interesting story with a narrative that was simple for me to follow. The pacing, especially in the earlier parts of the game, is quick and sometimes erratic but gets better as the game progresses, except at the very end where it picks up quickly agian. Narratively this story, as it is right now, could be expanded out to be a much longer experience; the first couple of story beats happen in quick succussion, a lot more content and dialogue could be added to make each of these beats a chapter of their own. Also, to me, it seems like the MC is earning "things" with little to no work when the story/dialogue suggest otherwise.

Lewdness 3.5/5 ⭐ - There are plenty of sexy girls wearing northing or next to nothing and quite a few sexual encounters but I feel like there are quite a few missed opportunities. I kept finding my asking myself why the MC isn't having sex right now, especially with the core premise to how the magic works in this universe. The sex scenes are short with almost no variety except slow, fast, and cum. I would like to see a few position change options with each sex scene and more foreplay options as well.

Overall I had fun playing Serenity and would suggest it is worth a play thru for anyone that enjoys a fun and sexy fantasy story...and who doesn't enjoy some time with a sexy neco girl.

This game has been a wonderful ride from start to finish. I'm a sucker for "feel good" VNs. I'm a "sweet bitch" if you will and this game is sweet moment after sweet moment and I found myself smiling alot playing this game. I love the characters and the fantasy elements. Every time a new girl was introduced I was excited to see what her transformation was like anf what her powers were. I also appreciate the cameos of characters from other games as well. Graphically this game is gorgeous, the girls are beautiful, and the scenes are fairly varied too. And I may be a minority on this opinion but i'm glad there wasn't any incest stuff. If it's written well I typically don't mind it most of the time but I feel like it's the low hanging fruit when it comes to VNs lately and I appreciate that this game stands well on it's own without it. Overall this was a fun experience and i'm excited to see where Serenity goes with it's next chapter!

Review aside, i'm truly sorry to hear you've been having a rough time. I wish I had more to offer other than positive words but hang in there!

yes its basic fantasy fulfilment, although it has yet to have a kink I expected the girls have great artwork and individual personalities, you grow into your new position as the game advances ( more vn than game) the storyline is both holsum( for a porn game) and quite fun I can't wait for the next chapter to be released.

Having played this game since it's first release, I gotta say, I have had a great time watching this game evolve, both in it's visual representation (N2 switching from AI Shoujo to HS2) and in the pacing of the story and character development. Friends of mine turned me onto the first release as they know my passion for nekos, and even though we didn't get to meet them then, the intro was interesting, between our first meetings with Trina, Kat, eventually Morgan and Karen, seeing the first renders of Serenity, the fact that N2 actually created the instrumental piece used for the Main Menu, and wanting to help support it, it had me, so I was a Patreon as soon as I finished.
Were there issues, sure. Grammatical issues that needed a bit of work, not to much, a few glitches that, as a patreon, I got to help in beta-testing weed out before it ever hits public, did the girls fall for him to quickly? The Serenity girls themselves: Jas, Lena, and Rin were created that way, by the MC's Mom! The others...
I have gotten to see N2's growth with story-telling, and him managing to "slow the pace" a bit, but in a place/land that feeds off of Love (granted, almost typical plot device, so I'm really interested to see how things go with his next project without it) and the MC as the Focal point OF said energies... I've seen worse!
The fact is though, the MC never has let it get to his head, and from the beginning has questioned it all, from his time with Trina in the office, to even when Kat was confirming after he goes "home", and even when they go together to Trina's Office. Morgan even uses his lack of belief against him to trap him with HER Powers on Day 2, a feat that IS repeated on Day 5. Even though he is told, shown at times, that he has all this power, he still maintains his humanity, and often, he has a hard time acknowledging what he is capable of doing, such as when he asks Fade to help him "Find" Cam on Day 7. Even now, in 1.2, he is still figuring out the extent of his abilities
I was really thrilled to see Trina get added in, because I was concerned she may not, especially due to her initial dialogue with the MC, later changed, so when the end of Chapter 6 came up and I saw her looking for something, I was to the moon, as I really enjoyed her scenes at the start of the game! I was also amused when her change ended with her becoming foxy! Nicely played! I've also found it fun to watch as N2 goes back and reworks some of his older scenes, touching them up where needed, making Serenity look less bleak-deserted-island-esque when the MC first gets there, as well as changing out the old AI scenes with HS2 scenes. It brings the whole game together in detail to look less like you are looking at it through two lenses.
It may not seem like I have a lot of negative points to bring up, but then again, I am a Patreon, and active in the Discord, and get to talk to N2, so if I see an issue, or have one, I can generally give him any feedback myself. I love that this game is a gold-mine of Nekos, and a Foxy...I have enjoyed watching it's evolution as a story, and I am looking forward to what the future brings, and I hope that others will give this game a chance!

This VN is awesome, simple as that, I'm reviewing after reading that there's another 14 to 15 days possibly planned which is great, can't wait to try the next game from N2 hopefully it follows this games feel good vibes, and of course maybe some Neko harem

Version 1.2 Public

Pros: Likeable MC, that even if he had much shit happen to him earlier in his life, he still acts both bravely and nice to his harem. The harem girls are so sweet with all their different personlaties, (Neko )! The story is good, still has some flaws, but much better than most others here. As I've said before, I'm not here believing I'll find writing of Noble prize quality. (And some of those writers are boring!)

Cons: The animations of the lewd scenes could be better, still not so bad that the game loses a star.

So, if it continues like this (or better) I'll keep the 5*.

So a harem game with good story, beautiful models , wholsome moments that melts my heart, a nice MC who is not a wimp and hopefully incest in the future updates. What do you need more?

Of course, it has defects like the fast-paced relation build up or the bad writing sometimes, but every game have those. The point is, do those defects deducts from the enjoyment of the game, IMO no.