VN - Ren'Py - Stray Incubus [S2 Ch.2a] [Flynn974]

[Review as of Ch11]

VNs grab me for all sorts of reasons. Some are technically excellent, some have excellent writing, some are just great porn, some have characters who capture my imagination, some keep me wondering what'll happen in the next chapter. Sometimes I might go through a really visually impressive VN which I can tell the author put a lot of time into but doesn't really do anything for me, while other times I'll go through a cobbled-together VN which nonetheless captures my interest.

Stray Incubus is the latter sort. The entire setup is noticeably awkward: the English isn't great, the dialogue is frequently awkward, the graphics aren't particularly inspired, and the early chapters have the characteristic roughness of a newbie project. It has all the hallmarks of first-time ESL VN, and it stumbles its way towards its destination with noticeable troubles. It leans on goofy tropes, seemingly mostly Naruto (although I never actually watched Naruto, so I might be wrong here). That said, once I got past the first chapter or two, I couldn't help but look forward to what might happen next.

The first thing that grabbed me about Stray Incubus is the missions that the MC goes on. I wasn't sure what I expected when I started it, but it wasn't what I got. Most chapters involve some sort of fantasy adventure where the MC and certain cast members have to resolve some sort of mystery horror scenario. And overall, these adventures really landed for me. While the abuse of RenPy choices was grating at times, with tons of meaningless "go forward" prompts and such, I could nonetheless feel the tension as the MC and sometimes one or two companions stumbled through a dark house in the rain in pursuit of some unseen foe. I thought the first such adventure might just be an odd detour in a harem slice-of-life VN, but once I realized that they're in fact the main plot I found myself committed to finishing Stray Incubus. The main character is a bit too overpowered at times, but luckily it doesn't rob the tension anywhere near as much as it does in many similar VNs.

The characters also really work for me despite the clumsy writing. A lot of VNs either forget to give their characters personalities at all, or alternatively lean way too hard on lazy power fantasy tropes which just don't work for me. Stray Incubus doesn't feel that way. Torr's insecurity for instance feels relatively well-executed, and the other characters' treatment of it is frequently quite sweet. The VN never feels the need to take a shortcut in addressing these issues, instead letting them play out over the course of the story. It manages to juggle a lot of characters without making me feel like those characters are being neglected, which is a rare feat.

Stray Incubus also makes use of some animations which really added to the charm for me. Most VNs don't touch animations outside of sex scenes, and understandably so: they're a lot of work, add a lot of file size, and it isn't always clear that they contribute enough to justify that. However, the animations in Stray Incubus constantly put a smile on my face and do a great deal to pull me into the events onscreen.

The sex scenes are generally well-executed. This stuff is largely up to personal preference, so it's hard to give too much useful guidance here, but it puts some effort into covering a variety of fetishes, partners, and body types. There's some room for improvement: the usual anime bias towards unnaturally huge breasts, for instance—although thankfully not every character is like this. Misty is super welcome, and while monstergirls might not be everyone's taste I always appreciate when a fantasy or a sci-fi game really takes some liberties and experiments a bit.

The biggest weakness of the VN is its early chapters. They're incoherent, tropey, poorly written, the works. You can tell that the dev was just starting out when they made them, and they could really use a revisit at some point. I'm not sure what drove me to keep going despite them, and I can easily see someone dropping off early on. But for some reason I didn't, and I ended up being really glad I stuck with it, as things improve rapidly.

Overall Stray Incubus has enough clumsiness that it'd need a lot of work for me to consider it a 5 star, but I still really like it and look forward to seeing what happens next. Despite my initial misgivings at the rough early chapters, I've found myself invested in the story, enjoying the visuals, and charmed by the characters.

Starts out a little rough but gets a lot better as you progress. This is the story about an incubus child who survived a genocide of his race. He ends up joining a ninja like village and the game focuses on his adventures after joining.

I like the sex scenes and I have come to enjoy the plot. The characters are interesting and I like the humor and the overall progression. To me this is a 4.5/5 which I am rounding up to a 5/5. I would encourage newer players to give this a chance and keep playing the game despite the rough start. You can see the dev and the game get better as the chapters progress.

I'm on chapter 4 and it honestly seems like other ratings are overselling this title.

The writing, scene setup, and animations are all fairly amateurish. Which I am not saying to be mean, and I'm sorry to the author for saying so. There is little charm or personality, everything so far in the beginning of this VN is too cliche. It feels like there are not enough panels to justify everything going on. The setup is too perfect for your amazing generic superman protagonist to start fucking everything. It's a blatant power fantasy.

The protagonist is immediately thrown into a naturo-style ninja village where only hot 18 year olds live. With absolutely no explanation why everything is that way, what the world is like, and why your character who apparently was secluded away for 20 years of his life still manages to act like a functional human being around other people. Apparently.

Maybe things improved in the latest chapters, but it is starting out very rough. This one is certainly not looking to be in my top 5 or top 10 like how others are calling it. It's not the next Eternum or anything. If the author ever comes back to the initial chapters to smooth out things by adding more filler/exposition to the life of the world and your main character, I'd give this a better rating.

Questions need to be answered earlier in the story as to why this fantasy world has ninjas everywhere. If there are more and worst monsters than goblins. How strong/how weak the goblins are supposed to be. What the MCs life was like growing up. Where the hell the MC is in the world, is it barren, is it heavily populated? Are there more towns? Why are the gods in the world important and do they matter in daily life? How many races are there in the world? What makes them different than just being cute faces?

This has to be in my top 4 most entertaining h-game I've played from here. The amount of different places, characters, the jokes, everything.
Also many characters likeable, that passed the point of just being mere character models and full character with their personality and lines.

Also very good amount of content.

Give it a try

If I were to list cons, I honestly wouldn't know what to say. Maybe the lack of a clear and charismatic antagonist ? MC also seems to be overpowered and not have faced enough notable losses.

Also, I've seen the increasing rate of h-scene between ch.1 et 11, I think it's good right now (maybe very slighly too much ?) but if there were to be more I think it would be at the cost of the story/character development which would be a shame :') But I'm just being picky right now since I can't find real cons.

Based on the (as yet) unfinished ch.11

My usual disclaimers when writing reviews on here are that A. I am here for the "plot" not the plot and B. I am very picky with visual novels and think broadly they can be very subpar. So, take both of those into consideration for my review when thinking about this game.

Pros

• Hot as fuck my guy – Let’s get the big thing out of the way first, god yeah it’s fucking hot as hell. The girls are gorgeous, it’s Honey Select of course so there’s limitations there, but in spite of that many of them look stunning with a nice variety of body shapes/sizes. Plus there’s fucking loads of them. Then the actual sex-scenes are also absolutely scalding and designed to dehydrate me. Caters to amazing kinks as well with a lot of D/s vibes, impregnation, harem stuff (of course), BDSM, NTR (where you are the one doing the cheating, not the other way around). It’s just… Just so fucking hot…
• Decent quality of visuals – Animations and graphical fidelity are all pretty standard Honey Select. But there’s a lot of effort on display in the later chapters which does raise the bar.
• Quantity of sex – On top of this it feels like there is the perfect amount of sexy stuff. Which is to say A LOT. Turns out that if you make an h-game and then just fill it with porn-logic and various sexy scenes, I don’t need much more.
• Casual encounters – I think I’ve seen a few h-games which will introduce Big Tiddy Bitch #3 as a side character you meet just in passing, and sometimes these models are hot as hell, but nothing happens. In Stray Incubus if you meet a new named girl in a chapter, there’s a good chance you’ll get to stick your dick in her.
• Mind control (kinda/sorta) – I am a fan of mind-control games, and while there isn’t REALLY an element of it in Stray Incubus, there’s a heavily implied element of addictive cum/addictive cock (which is fairly close). This is an element I really rarely see in h-games (because it’s super porn-y, I guess) but it’s just a massive favourite.
• Light-hearted and simply funny – The game relies heavily on porn-logic and so with that in mind it is also mostly just an easy-going romp of a story with silly encounters, characters and events. It is also one of the ELITE games on this site to actually make me LEGIT laugh and not just “snrk”.
• Pretty great writing – I’ll touch on this again in the main review, but for now let me also say that the writing BECOMES pretty great and the characters likewise grow into being class (a distinction to be made that neither of them are always good). A lot of the girls feel distinct and interesting, and again simply nice and FUN to interact with and the dialogue 90% of the time feels pretty natural and flows pretty well. Plus… The sexy dialogue is just fucking hot…

Mehs

• Rapid-fire sex scenes – Perhaps due to the quantity of the h-scenes there is occasionally an issue with them feeling a bit rushed. You’ll push your dick inside a girl with the animation going in the background, you read a few lines and then BOOM you cum. This is definitely not always true, but some of the girls seem to get a bit hard done-by with just super-quick shags (justice for Gabriella, she deserves to be absolutely fucked silly!)
• Animation needs pauses between text – This is maybe a “me” issue. But I am a fast reader, so I often rapidly click through text as I read it. So, I will click-click-click and then suddenly realise that the whole scene has changed. This will inevitably be because a small, animated cut-scene (of some kind) occurs between two lines of text and I totally skip over it, meaning I have to go back to watch it. I’d prefer if these things weren’t such long segments so that it was clearer what was going on and when the animations were happening so I don’t have to KEEP scrolling back to actually watch the shit.
• Setting quibbles – The game is set in a (seeming) medieval fantasy world of the swords and magic variety. This doesn’t stop some of the settings seeming to be modern kitchens and with characters wearing contemporary-style clothes. Again, it’s a silly porn game so I don't really want to overthink this, but it was something I noted a few times.
• Mini-games – I’m gonna put it out there, I often actually LIKE mini-games. And I liked them here too. But I’m also aware that many others hate them. The reason I stick this firmly in “meh” is that literally every mini-game has an “auto-win” button. So, if you hate them you have absolutely no reason to complain. The other side of it is that I feel like some of them aren’t super clear. The most reason “torture” mini-game in particular had really very little in the ways of visual/written clues about how you were actually meant to win. If you can’t win without consulting a guide, the game needs better clues.
• Lack of cum inflation and dick bulging – So this is a kink-specific thing, and as such I’m aware that they really are super variable between people. However, a big part of the game’s sexual side is that your character has an absolutely ludicrously massive schlong. This is unrealistic, sure, but it’s hot as fuck. Having girls go “oh you’re gonna break me” is absolutely primo fap material. With that in mind, it strikes me as a missed opportunity to not lean further into this and go for stomach bulges and at least minor cum inflation.
• Ear penetration – On the OPPOSITE side of the spectrum, in the later updates there was a very, very minor case of ear penetration, and that was definitely the most outlandish kink so far and also just weirded me the fuck out…
• Decent level of choice and interaction – Only a few cases of real branches as far as I have seen so far, and relatively few story influencing choices, but enough is there to keep me occupied.
• Minor grammar and spelling issues throughout - Nothing outrageous here and nothing to write home about, but it could do with a second read-through basically.

Cons

• The first few chapters – As before, I’ll come back to this in the main review, as this is one of the most utterly damning aspects of the game.
• Segues between scenes – I’m scraping the barrel a bit for this criticism, but I feel like it still ought to be addressed. In the early chapters the dev was VERY guilty of using scene cards between basically every change in background, which was just ridiculous and I’m VERY glad he stopped. Now however there’s just nothing… There were several instances of, for example, characters going to sleep saying “good night” and the VERY next button click is “right we need to investigate the market” while it’s already midday the next day. Like with the sex-scenes, this makes it feel a tad rushed, and is really asking for small fade-to-blacks and some “the next day” or “two weeks later” kind of stuff. Unlike with the sex-scenes, this sort of rushing is definitely much more jarring and actually an outright negative.

Right, let’s address the elephant in the room with the writing and the early chapters.

I don’t know the dev and have never interacted with them, but this game seems to be very much their first project. This means that the creation of it has been a learning process. The writing gets smoother, characters become more developed, visuals become clearer, there’s a very clear progression and learning curve on display here, which seems to still only be increasing.

On the other side of this equation though is the fact that the first few chapters of the game are absolutely fucking dire. The writing is atrocious of the sort of H-game which introduces a bunch of girls with big tiddies and expects a few renders to be enough to keep your attention while the dialogue goes like.


It is robotic, characters are introduced and shuffled away and the setting is absolutely ridiculous. You are an incubus being raised by a big-tiddy girl in a… Cave? Why a cave? What? Why does it look like the cave is actually outside? Why does he wear that absolutely ridiculous fucking bobble hat to hide his ears despite nearly everyone else being used to seeing pointy ears?

There’s been a war in the past and all the incubi were slaughtered and you are the last one (oooo, maybe?) left. So, you go to the nearby ninja village (lol, yes… a “NINJA” village?! In a game where so far every other character has been Greek-mythology based???) to visit them for the first time, despite having lived next door your whole life? You then, after visiting once, decide to become a ninja for no apparent reason. There’s no driving motivation there, not even “hey I want to stay here so I can dick all the hotties”. You get accepted in, of course, but even then it continues to be just kinda daft. The ninjas get points for winning fights like it’s a game and that gives them the ability to level their belts up (basically).

I hope you get what I’m saying that the setting is initially ALSO just absolutely fucking silly. There's a very clear element of things just being made up on the fly, the dev is inventing the story and lore as he writes it.

So, with this in mind, it is no exaggeration that I very nearly gave up on the game when I was barely through chapter 1. It is only because I saw a few reviews saying it improves that I stuck with it…

Thankfully though, for me and everyone else, I want to make it abundantly clear that this is ABSOLUTELY the case. Things DO improve and the increase in quality of just about EVERYTHING is rapid and drastic. While chapters 1 and 2 in particular are just horrific is it is already by chapter 3 that things start to actually start to improve, coincidentally around the time the sex scenes start to become more frequent.

The first major mission through the Temple of the Faceless God and then subsequent escort quest is the sort of “transition” period. It very rapidly improves, the writing, dialogue, characters, everything just starts picking up and starts to sparkle. But it still suffers from being a bit silly and the backgrounds being very clearly the 1980s instead of medieval… It’s not until around Chapter 5/6 with the plagued village arc that I think things really just fucking KICK OFF and then they never look back. And from this point on it's just smooth sailing, exciting interactions and absolutely smoking sex. You also have been through the awkward introductions phase now and as such by this point you are able to become invested in the characters and the story meanwhile the sex is just getting steamier and steamier, and so it all gets a big old thumbs-up from me.

It just really needs to be reiterated that you DO have to suffer through 1-3 chapters of just nonsense before things start to get good.

The setting is obviously still potentially a bit silly (ninja village caught between a war of Greek Gods and Demons) but honestly, the silliness is now “fun” rather than “ludicrous”. It is also becoming increasingly interesting and with more intrigue and drama. The “monster of the week” mission format is also highly enjoyable as it allows our characters to go around getting stronger, growing as people, their relationships growing all the while the overarching plot just slowly trundles along in the background. It really just all works quite well and I have to admit to being pretty invested by this point.

I also think that while I generally look for hot porn in my h-games, one of the hardest (hurr hurr) things to do for one one of the writers is make me laugh. Well, as the plot goes on and the dev feels like he relaxes into the story he absolutely succeeded in making me laugh. More than once. And let me make it clear, that’s no small compliment on his ability as a writer and the ability to set-up amusing scenes and situations.

It's somewhat worth noting that the protagonist is very much a Gary Stu, with alongside the monster addictive cock he also is just the most ultra-powerful and strong person (or rather he is growing into that very rapidly) but there is progression there which at least doesn’t make it feel absolutely dumb. Plus, in a harem game it just kind of works to have the main guy be kick-ass, frankly.

This is then all a very scrumptious helping of plot and story which surrounds what we are here for: and that is dicking down a bunch of hot elf girls and getting them pregnant. I’m so fucking glad that this game leans into the “risk of pregnancy” kink because that’s just an absolute favourite of mine and oh man… I’m gonna tell you the game is fap-worthy as fuck.

All-in-all I think the game is very rapidly earning a place alongside other extremely high-quality Honey Select games by the likes of Caribdis and Jestur. The ONLY reason I don't rate it a 5/5 is because of that barrier for entry provided by the early chapters and honestly I think it probably deserves a rating on the higher end of the 4/5 scale.

I confess that I didn't expect to get attached to the game or the characters in the way I did, especially if I were to watch it just based on the title, I thought it would be something just for fap, but it really has the touch of horror and mystery that I'm looking for, including It's made me laugh several times too. the setting really gives you a feeling of mystery and the characters really show that they care about the mc and you can see the development in the relationship little by little as you play, making you want to spend more and more time with that character, it seems to be a game with slow progress, our character doesn't have much experience with relationships at the beginning, LIS even comment on it casually in the story, fap things don't happen right at the beginning, since it's something progressive and natural, as it should be, just lighter things , as they develop, the game presents some moral choices such as forgiving a character who was unfair to the mc or some story choices, with references to gods such as athena, zeus... domonios... the rendering is average in my opinion, but the characters are absolutely beautiful, it's certainly a game that's worth 5 stars for me and one that I intend to follow.

One of the best games I've played in years. It has large amounts of H scenes, the girls are really pretty, the plot is very interesting, the developer pays a lot of attention to the details. It's really worth trying.

Really well written, thought through and quite funny. Characters and their personalities are different enough and consistently so in my opinion.
I am always a little flabbergasted about what people come up with storywise - positively so here!

This being said I hope the renders of the first chapters will be redone - if it hadn't been for the good writing they would have put me off quite a bit. Apparently we are totally spoiled nowadays ;-)

This is Awesome!!! it's just like Eternum but in a fantasy world. I really really like this game and I hope the dev will continue cook this game for US. I've already highest level supporter of this game dev.

Must say that I was expecting the usual story, but after the first two chapters the story was really captivating, I am now up to chapter 9 and this story is just getting better.The sex scenes could be better, but who cares, our hero is a really good mixture of good and bad, he is not as weak as at first thought, and on the whole this is an excellent story. Hope to see more content. Great work.

Flynn cares. Many games on this site are by devs just looking to make a quick buck or milking their established game as long as they can. Not here.

Flynn is a rare case of a dev who's passion shines through the work. Great game, and I can't wait for what's next.

(Although the eyes on the spider-girl are freaky, in a not-my-favorite way)

Top 2 Honey Select games of all time. If you're a fan of OIAL/Eternum, you'll LOVE this game.

In my personal opinion, the game is quite similar to Eternum in both its writing style and art (hell, it even has an easter egg with one of Eternum's LIs) . Visually, you might be underwhelmed by the first chapter, but the improvement in model quality is immediately noticeable, and by chapter 5 or 6 I think it has one of the most stunning art on the whole site. There is a plethora of girls to choose from (but you can pursue them all, too), in both visual design and personality. The writing is fluid and entertaining, and the game juggles between funny/lighthearted and serious expertly. The sense of humor is witty and very well-placed, and while the game has an overpowered harem MC who has a literal in-game mechanic designed for girls to fall for him, he's actually likeable and not cringe at all. The developer is also very active in the community and even releases free versions of the game 2 weeks after Patron releases; he's also very open to feedback, and you can clearly see the improvement in his work as the game progresses, with better art/added music & sound/etc.

An underrated game even with a 4.8 rating and a hidden gem that everyone must try. My only complaint is that I have to wait to play more of the game. Truly a masterpiece, you've earned yourself a Patron!

The game starts of somewhat not that great, renders aren't the best & writing could you some improvement but damn do all of those things improve. The quality of the renders and the writing drastically improve. Starting with Ch. 07 there are sounds effects & music which honestly makes it even more immersive. The Story is great, anybody who likes fantasy will love this. There are funny moments, sexy moments, sad moments and all-in-all great moments.

Pros:
+ Improvements with every Chapter
+ Interesting Story
+ Great Renders
+ Animations
+ Sound and Music
+ Amazing Characters

Cons:
- Early Chapters

I strongly recommend giving it a try

Its great.
Went into it with somewhat low expectations a few updates ago and was very pleasently suprised. And it rly shows the dev enjoys making it as it keeps getting better, esp in the renders and all, you rly see big improvements, keep it up man!
Writing and pacing are nice, as other ppl already mentioned, and the diversity of the scenarios is also done rly well, with more calm and sweet moments sprinkled in between more tense ones. You very rarely feel that something is just unneccesarily draging on or too much of the same. At the current point theres lots of characters, most of which are well done and fleshed out well/enough. I fear it might get into a situation where the cast gets to big to keep up with everyone, but its holding up well so far.

This has to be one of the best games I have played! I would highly recommend this game to others without hesitation! It's has a well thought out story and it doesn't feel forced or specifically contrived without reason like some games, and for me this makes the world building experience much better and something that you can easily get invested in. I love the develop of the main character and how he start from the bottom (in terms of ability but not totally useless either ) and steadily grows in strength. Not to mention the personal relationship the main charter gets into are diverse and situation are exciting ... it has humour, intrigue, romance, and of course suspense as well. Well worth give the game a try!

What a pleasant surprise. I opened this game at random.

I love the horror/diverse settings aspect to the game. The characters are all nicely done and I like that the MC sees a lot of attention here. Also any developer who mixes a pantheon lore adapted to the gameplay into their game is a gem. Love that stuff.

If you don't fancy early graphics they get markedly better and very cool with later episodes. No complaint there. Also play with transitions enabled. The Dev pays a lot of attention to little movements there.

Can't wait for more. Great job dev!

Oh and Misty is by far the best girl. Nobody is allowed to dispute that.

Really a great game. I like the renders and the atmosphere.
You can tell how much effort the developer is putting into the game.
I can fully recommend it.
And also at the risk of you hating me, Misty is best girl.

One of the more unique games on this website. Mixing weeb and greek mythos, the story follows the femboy with the biggest dick in the planet.
While the first two chapters at the ninja village burns my eyes due to white lighting, the dev quickly learned how to do great lighting and ambient design.
The quality increases with each episode, as does my desire to breed the spider lady.
Great fun for the whole family. Would stream it at the italian parlament.

One of the best novels arround (the story is really really good, and the comic moments with Torr always gimme a good laugh)
We can see the writing skills and the renders being polished chapter by chapter, being in an impressive quality
Even the "mini-games" who, usually bother ppl, are kinda fun ( and some scary if u are someone who can be easily scared e.e)
Oh, and I can't forget about the girls e.e every girl here have an amazing personality ( and i reeeeeeeeeeeally love the arachne one e.e)
The only sad part is = dev refuse to do athena scene haha <3

Stray Incubus is a great example of what makes western adult visual novels so fun to read.
While it starts rough in places, it makes great strides forward in quality as the chapters go on. Not only the visual quality increases, but also the writing, pacing and design of the game itself improves greatly.
The game itself is largely a slice of life with horror, action and mystery segments dispersed in.
The world consists of an interesting mix of feudal Japan romanticism and a mix of Greek and Christian mythology.
The sex scenes are also very fun. While they start out following the classic porn game formula, you can tell that the dev quickly became more comfortable making them and they get a lot more creative with a lot more varied scenarios.