VN - Ren'Py - Completed - Sorcerer [v1.0.0] [Talothral]

Hmm... my first review, huh? I used to write reviews for anime, so lets see if I still have a knack for it.

For the short attention span crowd, here is the summary.

Positives:
a) Renders are well done.
b) Story is well-written, engaging, and quite long as of version 0.31.0.

Negatives:
a) The adult content doesn't work.
b) No sound or music.

Here is the longer version in essay form.

I'm still a relative newbie when it comes to visual novels and adult gaming having only played 30 or 40 games so far. Still, it's enough to get an idea of what works and what doesn't. What Sorcerer has going for it is an excellent writer and excellent renders.

While the dialogue isn't perfect and contains a spelling error or a grammatical error every 20 lines of dialogue or so, it's far better than a lot of games I've played and doesn't detract from the flow of the story, and the story is where Sorcerer really shines. It's unique, engaging, and as of 0.31.0, is at least the length of a typical light novel. I never felt compelled to skip dialogue to speed things along as even the lore was interesting and worth reading.

On top of that is the excellent world building. The world of Sorcerer is full of magic and wonder, and there are quite a few throwaway scenes where the author doesn't use words or pay much attention to them, but it adds to the mystique of the world in a subtle way. Think of the bar scene from Star Wars. The author doesn't give the whole story away at once leaving me curious about what new rules of this world are left to discover. Sorcerer is one of those rare games where I was truly engaged in the story and read every single line with care, making sure I didn't miss anything.

There's a walkthrough for the game which I of course would recommend, though it's occasional fun to click on the "wrong" options just to see where things would end up. The author put effort into all paths, and some of the "wrong" paths end in an entertaining way.

If this were a typical R-rated game, the only thing I would ding it for is the absence of any music or sound effects. Perhaps they'll be added at a later date? I don't know. Unfortunately, this is an adult video game with numerous sex scenes, and this is where the game critically stumbles. I don't want to be too harsh, and perhaps some of this is personal preference, so if still frames with no dialogue and several seconds of two-frame repeats, say of a butt moving back and forth during sex, is something that *cough* works for you *cough*, then pay this criticism no mind. For me, there are two correct ways to do an adult scene in a visual novel:

1) Animation.
2. Multiple still frames with dialogue explaining what is going on. Good writing is a must.
3. A mix of 1 & 2.

Sorcerer does something unusual for a game where, I assume, this criticism has been levied before: It is "animated" in that the scenes progress from frame to frame without user interference, but they are more a collection of still frames, and most painfully, there is little to no writing. The scenes advance from undressing to "release" quickly, and attempts to back up to the beginning resets the whole scene.

So the adult content didn't work for me at all. I was expecting as I played through that it would improve, as a lot of adult games made by single authors do, as the authors get better at their craft. Sadly that was not the case.

The one other issue, which is more personal preference, is who you end up romantically entangled with. Without spoiling anything, lets just say that many of the couplings are aimed towards fantasy fetishes, some of which are quite "out there". They are skippable at least.

So great story, good renders, excellent world building, but the absence of sound and the poor adult content definitely brings the rating down. I feel this game could easily make it into the top 10 if the adult content were improved. Stayed for the story, and am looking forward to the next update, but I'll be keeping my pants on.

[review of v31.0]

I really enjoy this game.

The frequent updates, great world building and enough choice to make the story feel like you have some effect on events give this game a top score from myself.

I am entertained each release. i enjoy seeing how the story progresses and while the renders are not the best on site they are far from the worse. The animations are hit or miss with more misses than hits to be honest but i am hoping the author will improve as time goes by.

It is nice to have a non douche of a MC which is even rarer given that the MC is a powerful sorcerer yet still doesn't use magic to get laid. The author seems to know how to form a plot and craft a story around the plot. Most characters you have sex with are optional and the characters in the game are varied both in appearance and in motivation.

This game is very story driven so if you don't like the story you wont like the game but it is written far better than most games here. It is worth the download in my opinion even if you don't think you will like the game you probably wont but if you do you will have found a gem you will look forward to playing each release.

Worth the download.

VERY good plot, story, writing, characters, drama, nice twists...
The overall game is awesome, but what truly holds this back from FIVE STARS (which it does deserve):

• Lack of any music or sound anywhere in the game.
• Animations (in sex scenes) are 1fps slideshows and barely anything moves.
• Some animations are 10-15 frames of nothing but the 10 pixels of 2 people's tongues moving in the tiny opening between their mouths as they french kiss.
• A handful of typos, odd phrases throughout the script (perhaps 100 mistakes in 100,000 lines of dialog) which I tried to ignore, but cause me to re-read a line 3-4 times to figure out what it was supposed to say.
• The locked images in the middle of and at the end of animations await a click to progress the scene (without text to alert the player it's needed).
• Some scenes have 4-8 people in them and a single wide shot that does not change much or show who is speaking... for over 40 lines of text.
• Could use more variety of breast size proportionally (how about some B-cups tossed in in the future?)

Great stuff:

• Almost every time MC cums, it's inside a woman's unprotected womb (the promise of "heirs" will hopefully become real soon).
• Nice variety of women, many players will enjoy the selection.
• Amazing story with fun twists and magic reveals.
• Solid renders with good lighting.
• The final potential love interest in 0.31.0 has an amazing in-your-face shot of carpeting that really offset any dislike of the character.

Overall:
I look forward to seeing how far this game grows. It's already huge, took me 2 full days to play through 0.31.0. It may be a slower-pacedVERY STORY-RICH game, but it does have some cool stuff that keeps players invested and playing.

Came for the succubus, stayed for the plot.

this is a surprisingly well-thought-out and large game. I came for a quick hour or two play of what I thought was a semi supernatural harem sim. turns out there's a literal novel worth of story and intricate plot with decent characters. way more content than expected and a lot of choices that actually make a difference. that does NOT mean its a slow story-centric vanilla story. there's fucking. plenty of it every third choice or so. but there's plenty of actual story telling too and characters interacting and developing relationships that you have real influence over how they turn out and how you establish you "house".

pros:
-A lot of gameplay
-A lot of well thought out story
-A lot of sex, like A LOT
-A lot of choices/influence on story
-Good dialogue
-Likeable/relatable characters
-Diverse kinks present


Cons:
-no audio/voices
-renders are a little dated
-a lot of reading. Dev could trim the dialogue for pacing
-one character took way too long to get on the fuck bus. and one got on and moved to the front seat almost instantly with no effort. play and you'll see what I mean
-the Angel's random cryptic involvement needs more flashbacks/story arc to make her fit better

As of v.0.29.0 5/5 Renders are good. The models are great. But what makes this shine is the plot/story/dialogue. As soon as I found out about how the MC was raised and who raised him it made the badassery of it even more. it has split offs which makes it replayable (gorgon route best route ) And to add into it because i see a bunch of reviews saying the MC is emotionless... Play the game farther or pay attention its part of the damn plotline why he is emotionless

Thought I would give it a try, as Fantasy is pretty underserved in AVNs, and the hype is real with this, but was very disappointed in it's overall quality, though the story isn't bad.
The Good
The story is decent overall, though it does drag at times, and the lack of narration, or description, points to pretty poor writing skill. Has a fairly original plot and cast of characters, but someone seems to think it's a movie, so it suffers a bit from simple dialogue and slide show, and pretty much takes the novel out of AVN. The story is really all this game has going for it, so if that's not well written, the game is kind of a waste of time.
The Not so Good
No Audio at all. No sound effects, no music, no lewd sounds, nada. Really could use some.
No animations. While these are not required for a Good AVN, they do tend to make up for the lack of sound a bit, but nope.
Renders are not horrible, but are a bit dated, and models do suffer from lack of variety in facial expression, and poses.
No dialogue or description in sex scenes. This is by far it's biggest flaw. With no animations or sound you need some writing skill to make your lewd scenes erotic, and remotely enjoyable. None. Just a silent lewd slideshow, that is very jarring and pretty much takes you out of the game.
I don't mind slow burn if the story is good, and this one takes a while to get to the sexy time, But it's the first AVN that I actually regretted getting to the lewd scenes.
When the sex scenes are boring, and such low-effort that you just smash enter to get through them and back to the story, it doesn't bode well for an adult game. Really the first AVN that I thought would be better without the lewds.
MC is a nice enough guy, but really kind of boring, and doesn't seem to have to work very hard to be "The Chosen One".
So in short, missing most of the things that make a good AVN, and that is really sad, as the game does show some real potential.
Don't think I will be able to bring myself back just for the story.
Hopefully when they are done, they will go back and add some audio, and maybe some animations, and definitely some dialogue in the freaking sex scenes. Who has sex without talking or making a sound? Really? Who does that?

Gave this a try at v0.29.0.

There is a lot to going on in this game, but it isn't sex. Sorcerer is an adult VN with its primary focus on telling a story instead of fapping. Regarding the scenes that are present, while there are a handful of odd scenes I didn't care for, a lot of other scenes are actually very vanilla, and my interests are also quite vanilla (surprisingly?). This is good, but last I checked, fapping was why most people play adult games, and I am no exception. The scenes are just too few and too far apart for me.
I would not judge anyone for liking this game as a VN, it is simply not what I am looking for.

I do not like Gary Stu's, and the MC of Sorcerer is a BIG one. He is in perfect physical shape, he's endowed, he's filthy rich, he's a persuasive talker, a natural leader, has excellent marksmanship, is extraordinarily perceptive, becomes a gifted magician practically overnight, and might as well have an IQ of 200 for how quickly he learns and adapts to everything.
There is no tension, no suspense, nor any sense of wonder. In short, I think he is extremely boring.

And then holy shit, there is so much to read!! The worst culprits are the lore dumps. I would grow bored and begin skipping after a while to bypass huge swaths of the game until I saw a render that looked interesting enough to start reading again.
But I suppose the worst crime would be too little dialogue.

My gut feeling tells me, like most similar games, Sorcerer is being made by just one person. If my guess is correct, he seems to be one of the more competent developers and is putting in a strong effort. I didn't run into any bugs or errors, the spelling and grammar errors are minimal, and the character models meet expectations. So, 5/5 stars for the dev's hard work.

I was very tempted to give Sorcerer only 3 stars, but I'm giving it 4/5 stars because I recognize this game does exactly what it was designed to do. You might like the game better if you enjoy a long story about an overpowered protagonists with mix/matched fantasy and only a dash of sex. But I am not interested enough to return to play it again for all of the aforementioned reasons.

Version 0.28

The animations of the sex scenes are horrible. I won't bother mincing words on that one. The renders themselves aren't half bad and many of the models are quite delightful. So then having such stilted and short frame rate animations was just disappointing.

But I gave the game a 4? Yes.

The story for the game was actually really engaging and I found myself more interested in learning more about the world and the NPCs that I expected to. It didn't completely make up for the animation, but it definitely helped to balance the books considerably.

Some of the choices for LIs were likewise unique. Counted among these were a midget/dwarf, several elderly individuals, and even a woman with a prosthetic leg. Not all of them I was a fan of, but it was refreshing to see something besides the usual models being used.

The bottom line: The game has a lot of promise and I'll be eagerly awaiting the next installment to see where the story goes. Whether this is the game for you depends on whether you're more interested in story or smut. It's great for the former, but there are better options out there for the latter.

I play this one every like 5 or 6 updates, tldr; story won't hold interest click on through.

So if there's anyone that's read any of my other reviews they know I nit pick about this all the time, but the UI is just "I fired up RenPy and left it as is." It's boring and takes me out of any personability of the game. The models are /mostly/ unique but it's still the same DAZ stuff you'll see everywhere.

The story. You play as Stephen Stra-- Wait no, you play as Alexander Abomination or whatever the default name is. He's a super rich, amazing, nice guy that never does anything wrong and never has anything bad happen to him. BUT HE WAS AN ORPHAN so his story is sad. Right? I get it "Porn game! Me Horny!" But this is a visual novel, sort of, there's supposed to be an interesting story. The Saitama strongest hero works in parody and self awareness but its over done for one, and MC just keeps getting stronger no matter what. It's just not for me.

If you like the Saitama and Goku character type, and don't like hardships this is for you. I can see the audience for this and I won't shame anyone for liking this. I think I'mma pass on this one until if or when it's completed.

Flawed but engrossing.

I like the characters, the world, and the plot. I am quite interested to see how things continue to play out.
While the start is... bumpy, and people playing for the story might wonder why some things are just not explained (example for me was, when he got the note, why did it take him so long to read it, and why did he really have no reaction to what it said and how weird it was?), as the story unfolds, you do get answers. Not just about what is happening, but also about character behavior.

I find this to be a solid game, aiming for a well told story. Almost more "adult" in how it wants to present a story rich in world building and detail, than "adult" in the sense of sex.

So, biggest flaw the game has?
The sexual content is... boring. Stiff animation, no dialog.
Truthfully, I will return to this project more to continue the story than for any of the sex.

YES, there is lewd content. Yes, the girls look good. Yes, it is even somewhat fulfilling to finally get a girl. But the scenes themselves are supremely lackluster.

I just feel the game, potentially, offers a solid enough story experience that I can not rate it lower, as it does not deserve to be mitigated to a mere 3 stars.

great game always hanging for the next update, Check out Talothral's other game Terminus Reach: Sentinel it's awesome too check them both out as thay have great stories, its one of the few creators that i subscribe on patreon

The story and characters are excellent. This is one of my favorites out there. It does feel like a series. My biggest issue is the sexual animations feel very bland. I know it's an odd thing, but not having the text giving their expressions of passion and banter during the scenes makes these scenes feel very robotic. That doesn't take away from the enjoyment of the story. I can't say enough about that

When i picked this game up i didn't really have high expectations but I've been pleasantly surprised as this is one of the best VN's I've played . The story is good and engaging, your choices matter and play out in the story sometimes very unexpectedly, this makes it easy to miss some parts but adds great replay value. After the first time i played through it i did another run through right away since i missed the immersion the game brought me.

If you start looking for things to knock in the game it'd be the renders and animations can be a bit clunky or grainy/unnaturally posed but it's a very minor issue overall and the dev will get better and better as he keeps going.

I'd highly recommend this game!

Thank you for your hard work bringing this gem to us!

One of my top favorite games on F95zone. I have been following this one since the initial release and have enjoyed the journey thus far.

With an incredible story plot and above average renders this one only disappoints when it comes to animations. For me the adult scenes are usually skipped over since I find the animations extremely basic.

Still overall I do not have much to complain about and do enjoy each update release.

Thank you Talothral for all your hard work invested into this project! I will continue to look forward to additional releases in the future!

Really enjoying the story so far. Love having a competent mc that's actually not a push over. Characters are well written and the dialogue is very good thus far.

If there is anything that needs improvement it's the animations. They're so bad that I wonder why you have them in the first place. In any case that's no reason to dock the score of my review as the story and everything else elevate this to five stars for me.

Keep up the great work!

Pretty disappointed in this one from the description and the overall positive reviews going in.

It's a poorly written fantasy smut with stilted dialogue, unsexy encounters, dull characters with no emotions.

Graphics and routing are unimpressive as well. Dropped.

Would be a 2 star but I always give a bonus +1 for well-implemented VNs without any garbage grind.

I love this game, it has excellent art and a very good story. The story puts your character in precarious and often morally questionable positions. Its is full of action and interesting interactions. The artwork is of very high standard and the it has a big diversity in models , from old to young and from tall to tiny. I do not often give a review but this game has certainly earned 5 stars.

This game is nice story with contemporary fantasy setting. Mixture of modern world and supernatural has always nice feel to it. Characters and their motivations are depicted well and they have certain logic behind their actions that is easy to understand.

The game is visually great, with beautiful character models and the magic effects make it seem like it is truly a force to be reckoned with. There are few places where environment could use bit more sprucing and details or decorations, but all in all pretty nice looking game.

TLDR: Intriguing story with interesting characters. Writing is entertaining and i like the renders in the game. Reviewed using 0.26.0 Extra with Shaddy's mod.

I really like the story in this game. The characters are diverse and interesting. You never know what is coming next. I'm glad they corrected some of the grammar in version 25. If you like the supernatural this should be right up your ally. The animations could use some improvement. but overall I rate this an excellent game.

Really awesome game, but I have to remind that this isn't for everyone. It has some unique characters with scenes that might be off-putting for some. It isn't my thing either but it was hot.
Now, to what really shines here: the story! If you like the Urban Fantasy genre, you can't miss this, it's really awesome. The story is original, really fresh and the characters are very interesting without the usual cliches. You'll see a real growth with the characters and they feel alive in a realistic kind of way.
There's some mysteries that keep us on our toes and we can't help but wait for the new adventures and characters that will pop up.
Now, about the renders, they're good. Not great, but quite well done and the models are hot and unique. But it's not animated, so if that's something that you need to have, forget it. Also, it's somewhat low on the sex, as the focus is the story and characters. I can only hope this gets more attention and love.