VN - Ren'Py - Shadows of Ambition [Ch.4.5] [AbyssGames]

My love for “Shadows of Ambitions” is complicated. The Art is 9/10, the music is mid, and the animations are too few, but amazing. The beat to beat of the game is simple. The writing is serviceable. The characters are caricatures. But what’s the special sauce, the secret ingredient, that special something that makes it stand head and shoulders over the others. Simple. It takes its bat-shit insane premise seriously. Spoilers going ahead.

While other games dance around the NTR/NTS aspects, and others will dive head first into them; Shadows of Ambitions finds a different way to approach it. What if NTR was fucking Cool. What if your GF wants to cuck you like it’s some x-games sport and she wants to join the big league. We’ll, we’re in the training Arc at the moment. But instead of honing the Spirit gun with Genkai our FMC Alice is training to be the worlds #1 Slut. Every Female lead you meet in this game is a slut. Their words, not mine. Every female in this game actively colludes with eachother to ensure they are slutting more and more, lest they get stale. There’s even some slut infighting.

The story is off the rails with it’s logic, but the stakes are low. No ones in any real danger, Maybe the city is running low on Penicillin. Who knows. But even when the MC stumbles across some wet-work in an alley, the only real danger is a 20 minute long conversation about corporate espionage. Part of the zaniness is the introduction of an aphrodisiac, presumably being poured into the water supply of Nyctora City. I can’t even remember if that’s a real plot point or I’m lining too many dots together.

But all the craziness aside. Coming out of comedy mode: This is a fun Visual Novel. While linear, I think the unexpectedness of everything will leave most people forgetting about story branches. Touching upon the art once more, It is one of the best examples of AI Art on f95. The art is also getting better as the chapters increase. Where there were visible inpainting marks and wonky proportions in the earlier chapters, those are almost non-existent by chapter 5.

Lastly, I feel the only real detractor during all of this is the blacked content. Some people are here for it, I’m not. But it really comes with the territory at this point. Piss in the wind.

So, to sum up. If you like your Netorase/Swinging Visual novel to be a little edgy, and, you can shut your brain off and enjoy it for what it is. You’ll love Shadows of Ambition. As I do.

I really like everything about this game. The story is super interesting and engaging, with a touch of mystery that makes you want to keep playing to see what happens next. The art style and renders are amazing, and they always get better with each update. The animations are awesome, super fluid and very well done. The characters are also great, they all look beautiful, different and unique. Each update makes the game even better. I'm really excited to see what comes in the next updates.

This linear VN is part of a contemporaneous group of high quality, heavily edited AI CG projects mostly focusing on some type of sharing (NTS/NTR/Swinging) in a kind of coming-of-age story. It also shares much of its visual DNA and proclivities with the most recognisable of the group. Nonetheless, and contradicting all the flak AI CG VNs get, the developers here have no problem creating a distinctive story and memorable characters.

Unlike its kin, SoA does not confine itself to the bounds of a kinky neighbourhood/school drama as it seems to be developing a complex narrative where an undercover investigation into a sexy, sinister SeeEO and her wide-reaching conspiracy underlies both the coming-of-kink story of a young couple and their social circle AND a Don Juan adventure performing the double-duty of porn recruiter/producer and male talent (the last of which I hope will be extended in an episodic "monster-of-the-week", meaning girl-of-the-update, format). This complexity does not really distract from the sensuality of the story, as, like its kin, SoA is consistently H-ot beyond the frame of a H-scene, keeping you H-ard most of the time.
As sexy as all this sounds, it may well turn out to be a mere tasty crust to a ball-draining erotic novel -or, even better, game- whose independently fun, interesting, non-sexual plot adds multiple layers of kinkiness to the simplest lewd event.
In short this is a very satisfying, linear, VN which balances story and porn quite well. It caters to (or touches upon) such genres as dress-up play, exhibitionism, Romance, Facial abuse, Swinging, NTS, NTR (not MC), corruption, femdom, ball-busting, blackmail(-ish), BDSM, cuckqueaning(?) to varying degrees. The adult-content is not always lengthy as it is integrated into an interesting story. It is not a gonzo sex-scene fest. More importantly, for those seeking mental as well as visual titillation, there's a lot to enjoy and to look forward to in the conflicting sexual and psychological motivations driving its protagonists. Though the actual text could use improvement the writing is well-done overall, with good pacing, character progression and a brilliant plot.

This project thus merits strong support, well-earned for what it already delivers, and to encourage what it has proven it can offer in the future.

Amazing game with a variety of lewd scenes. The different designs of the characters make them feel unique and each have their own personality/motivation. I like the animations, they add a lot to the visual appeal of the game. Every chapter the game seems to be getting better and better. The Oogle Corp storyline is intrigueing and I wonder where that's headed.

Character design: 10/10
Dialogues : 8/10
Story: 9.5/10
Music: 9/10
Interface: 9.5/10

One of my fav game beautiful art, good characters in term of looking and well written for most of them. The game is updated quite quickly, there is like almost no bad things about this game, i love the NTS type, hope we'll get more. 5 stars easily.

One of my top 5 best AVNs of the year.
Great story, great artwork. I love it!
Chapter 4 starts off strong but goes off the rails with unnecessary
fan service mid way through but recovers and gets back on track for
the ending. It's no secret it infuriated the hell out of me. And it does
nothing to move anything. But it in no way changes the fact that SoA
is a really great AVN. Sometimes shit just happens and you move on.
5 legit stars <3

I saw some people saying this is kind of a copy of similar games of the same kind out there, but i strongly disagree because of the new ideas, and of the personnality of each character. I also really like the idea of oogle fan and everything related to that, and i really hope to see more of that oogle fan content in the futur, especially with like for example one character who has on site interaction with another. So yeah overall very good, i like the art, i like the effort put in it with animation and sfx. And i also really like the cross over. I can't wait to see what the team will cook next!

Best Game!!
Couldn't ask for more. Great Characters, good Story and amazing Art!
I'd like to see where this Game is going, but for now it fulfull all my needs.
I hope we get to see more soon!
A Threesome scene would be nice (MMF) or even a Gangbang, but that's just my kind of kink

I think this one even though it's kinetic and it's more of reading a comic than a game, is pretty good. I guess one of the better AI games out there. There is no cucking of the MC so far which I think is great as a lol ot of these games have that which is getting kind of bland. There is focus on NTS and NTR which I don't mind when it's done well and bonus points for actually focusing on the relationship of the couple and how they want to do some exploring but without it diminishing their relationship.

Great lewd scenes and characters are gorgeous. In chapter 4, dev introduced animations which are already great and will definitely get better with some experience. One of the only 3 AI art games I like and play each update.

Character design: 10/10
Dialogues : 10/10
Story: 9/10
Music: 10/10
Interface: 10/10 (+ for phone texting and images)

High-quality 2D images, a good plot, and no problem with support. It insists on manual design instead of relying entirely on AI. Such works are rare. I highly recommend it. Another advantage of 2D is that it takes up less space and images are easier to compress, which means that everyone can play more content in the same volume, which is a plus.

The game has a good
rhythm which is appreciated, the images are great and the animations are adequate. Congratulations

Things to improve or I didn't like:

I think the introduction of the Nyct X takes away all the fun from the sexual game, it's like an easy excuse to introduce all kinds of scenes. Furthermore, it doesn't make much sense for them to "pour it into municipal water" and then market it, any analysis of the water would land them in prison.

Yes, I know it's a porn game, but a certain level of consistency always helps. I think the Nyct is the factor that unbalances it.

Sorry for my english, not my language

My overall thoughts on the update are positive. I can definitely see the progression in quality in this update, both in visuals and animations, which, by the way, chef’s kiss! The story is coming together nicely, with each update building on the last, making the progression feel even stronger and more engaging. Definitely looking forward to Chapter 5 as the story continues to progress!

Although I generally have a low opinion of AI art and AI-generated games, this one is not bad. It has several scenes that are actually spicy and going somewhere, with a slight buildup of tension between characters and progress to match.

However, the text dialogues can be excessive and bloated at times, a common issue with many other visual novels. Simply including more text does not necessarily mean more content or gameplay. Players often don't want to read through boring walls of text that explain meaningless details about the game world or casual conversations between characters that have no impact on the game.

The game does include a few sex scenes, but it's missing a gallery feature. The AI art, while consistent with other games that use it, makes it look familiar - I actually thought I had played it before, but I hadn't. Despite this, I think it's still one of the better examples of AI-generated art out there.

Shadows of Ambition is an interesting game, one that has a ton of dialogue and discussions with characters. I feel the whole main plot of corruption with drugs is... IDK weird. I think the characters are interesting but I don't know if I can really rate it completely until it is fully released.

Now on what we have, its very half baked, no gallery, no replays. It's a kinetic novel which is cool but I just think I get bored of all the dialogue. And characters who really have too much screentime get way too much.

It has better than average AI art, with animations.

Scoring
Art 7/10
Story 6/10
Characters 9/10
Design 8/10

So its essentially a mixed bag, very good focus in certain areas but others clearly need work. A lot of people have difficulty with dialogue but I think dialogue in general is very... poor.

In one instance a character jumps to a conclusion after someone says they would see them soon and text them. I don't know if this is supposed to be foreshadowing that said character isn't in their right mind. Then they jump inconclusively "hey this person hasn't answered their phone for more than 12hrs they probably aren't cheating." In terms of this dialogue it just didn't make sense for the character.

Now I do hope at some point we get a bit more characterization and more for these characters as this is a kinetic novel story is everything here. The art is basically already there. It just needs the sound effects, story, and quality of life for it to be better.

This might seem largely negative, but thats because I think this game has a lot of promise. I am hopeful at somepoint when this game fully launches that the earlier chapters set the characters up a bit more, and give this new plot turn a bit more foreshadowing. Or more dialogue to indicate this new direction.

Great game with amazing renders and intriguing story, they recently added animations that are really nice and make the game feel much more alive. Good soundtracks, good atmosphere and very hot lewd scenarios

As of chapter 4;

Graphics are very good. Characters are intriguing. Writing is acceptable. Story is going good. There are lots of sexual action added by every new update. Sound design is a plus. There are some animation, good for AI generated graphics, I hope the dev adds more of them.

Good netorase VN. I wish it had choices and different paths. Maybe in next updates, we will see.

(Review written after Chapter 4)
It's a bit unfortunate that every character is drop dead gorgeous and look quite similar to each other, as it doesn't really make any character stand out. Their personalities are also pretty much the same; most of the women are extremely horny, and one or two of them are shy or reserved but "willing to explore" (one baby step away from also being a slut).

At least this game tries to justify the extreme sexual nature of the female characters and does so in a decent enough way, but at the same time it ties it into the main story in a way that ultimately means the game can only end in one of two ways. Given that this is a kinetic novel without choices and that its success hinges upon the increased sexual buildup each new chapter, it's already extremely predictable how this story will end.

What you're left with is a very bland game with a lot of pretty characters that from the very start are extremely sexual, and since they are already so horny from the start they can't really get any hornier or sluttier than they already are. So you're only really there for those few characters that are more shy and reserved since they are the only ones that can actually get "sluttified". And these few characters are so flat and impressionable you're scratching your head thinking how they even managed to reach adulthood in the first place. It's apparent for each new chapter that there is a problem with how to progress the story and character development due to this fact, and it means there will be a lot of teasing without much payoff. Which again is pretty weird considering what absolute sluts most characters are.

I also noticed this game borrows heavily from other titles which contributes to it feeling quite unoriginal and generic. But still, it's... okay-ish? I'd give it a 2.5/5 if possible but since that isn't possible I'll just round up the score to be nice.

If you enjoy the art in this game you are better off just looking at the renders and making up your own story with your own imagination. Don't expect a story with great character development, good pacing, and a good balance of teasing and payoff.

It has dialogues and has good scenes, to think that it is in its chapter 3 it has the balance between scenes and dialogues, as it is a visual novel, there is no interaction, many may not like it but the intro of the story looks interesting, it is not a typical game with immediately scenes +18, the creator is trying to create a plot and develop characters so it is fine for me.

I recommend the game, but prepare to just be a spectator, I hope for very good updates in the future.


Summary (SCORE: 7)
o Character Design/Visual: 10/10
o Background music/sound: 8/10
o Plot: 7/10
o Animation: 8/10
o +18 Scenes: 8/10
o Gameplay: 7/10
o Interface: 10/10

I love the art stile overall, the women look VERY good, especially the fit girls.... There's a part in a gym where i was in paradise. Love the content hope it keeps this standard and this might become my fav game.