VN - Ren'Py - Soulmate [Ep. 1] [Soulmate381]

  1. 3.00 star(s)

    JackMiejov

    Overall: 3.5/5 - It's above-average and worth downloading and playing. Some work on the English translation would make it 4-stars. Hopefully, updates will be more frequent due to the lack of animations and higher image compression.

    Story: 4/5 - Definitely better than average. There are some contrived and stereotype situations, but not too many. There is an unusual mix of western (American/European) and eastern (Chinese) cultures and lore. It's definitely original and it'll be interesting to see where it goes.

    Writing: 2/5 - Poor English translation. Sometimes it's OK, but sometimes it's really bad.

    Renders: 4/5 - Female models are very pretty, but their faces and bodies are all too similar-looking. Resolution and detail seems a little low, and renders sometimes look a little grainy. The game size is very small, though.

    Animations: N/A - no animations in the game. The game simulates animations by alternating between two or three renders when you click during some scenes.

    Content: 3/5 - The amount of content seems about right for a first release, but the quality of the sex scenes is a bit lacking. In the existing sex scenes, the girls jump on the MC too quickly. There's not enough relationship building.

    Gameplay: 3/5 - The gameplay consists of infrequent choices. There are exactly 11 choices in the first episode. Choices change the content you see, but it's not clear if there are other effects.

    Bugs: 3/5 - I encountered a couple of bugs, but nothing game-breaking.
    • The clickable hotspots on the Load/Save page are both overlapping and not aligned with the graphics. I.e. if you want to click on the page number to go to a specific page of save games, you have to click on the empty space below the number.
    • While in the library, several lines of dialogue were spoken by the MC but attributed to Molly. There were a few more of these in other places, but I didn't write them all down.

    WTFs and other weirdness:
    • The car where the dead parents were found 16 years ago is contemporary with cars of the present day.
    • Molly the Ghost can feel pain and pleasure, feel tired, eat food, change clothes, and even have sex. Does she also poop? Where do her clothes go when she takes them off? So far, the only things that make her different from a regular person are that she can float and only two people in the game can see her.
    • Meave sees the MC having sex with Molly, who is invisible. Meave sees MC's cum squirt, which wouldn't happen if Molly was "solid". Yet, in the scene where Molly eats some French fries in the middle of a crowed entranceway, why can't other people see the French fries in her mouth?