Ren'Py - Onhold - Strings of Fate [v0.6.3 EP2] [M.C Games]

This is a great epic story with competent writing and interesting characters. There really is not much else to say, but for a few caveats:

- If you skip text, there's very little for you here. Art is servicable. There's hardly any sex scenes and those that are there are uninspired at best, more of an afterthought.

- While the writing is good, it is also very self-indulgent. Scenes are sometimes longer than they need to be and it seems the Dark Lord enjoys most to hear himself talk (and think).

- I think the writing is good enough to stand on its own, which makes this flaw all the more glaring. Both art and story borrow greatly from established fantasy. The "Dark Lord" didn't need to have a LotR storyline. We didn't need to see Triss and Ciri as characters. If you write this well, create your own universe, don't poach others.

Now, all that sounds negative, but despite this, it IS a great story to read. The characters have depth, you don't usually see here and the general pacing is creating the necessary tension. If you can live with the above, it is worth a try.

Almost left it thinking a Witcher 3 parody...Then downloaded it after reading the reviews. After player both of the episodes back to back I can say this is a masterpiece.

The writing is very good. Every significant character has depth especially the Main character has badass personality, which lacks in most others games.

The visuals improve and there's no freeroam in EP2 which makes it even better. Good luck to the dev.

it was great experience. MC is similar to my Favorite Novel character. can corrupt people with Words. but as a wuxia fan it was kinda annoying to see a women surpress MC . Still MC is great and i prefer those type MCs over random heros who want to save girls .there's only few sex scenes but i hate rushed scenes.i generally dont like to write review since im lazy .but this game deserves more love.

V0.6.1 Ep2

I will come right out and say it. This game has one of the best stories in any of the games I have played here.

The main points of this game are the story which is really great, those who likes great stories to be incorporated in their games would surely dig this.

The second best aspect of this game is the MC. I really like the Dark Lord and how well his character is written, especially his scene in episode 2 with the Viking raiders were epic, a lotta other scenes were great too. I like the Chaotic Good aspect of him.

The LI's who are introduced for now are all great, each with unique characteristics making them not any less interesting than the MC.

I have played till the latest update and wishing that the next one comes soon so I can continue this gem of a game and know more of the story, it really ended at a great place with a awesome Cliff Hanger.

The number of scenes in the Game is really really less, but honestly I am now playing this game mainly for the story and I think any scene we get is a welcome bonus.

Great Game M.C Games, wish you the best of luck in further improving your product to perfection. Any one who loves a good game with a great story, intriguing Protagonist, charming yet unique LI's can surely try this out.

11/10 MASTA PIECE.

[ up to 0.6.1 ep2 ]

Story: 3/5 : 5/5 for premise, 4/5 for dialogues, 1/5 for sheer walls of it

Graphics: backgrounds 5/5, characters 3/5 (ep1), 4/5 (ep2)

Sex scenes: 0/5 -- yes. There are a like 3-5 sex scenes over the whole game so far, but the rating stays. More on it below.

Maledom: 0,5/5 (I have decided to put this in my reviews from now on, since I am almost only playing and reviewing games with this type of tag)

Summary: A not-a-porn-game porn game AVN. If you'd expect to fap at this, you'd be sorely disappointed or have a really strong imagination or very specific fetish that involves getting aroused enough from simply talking (mostly about power, not sex). I give the game a total of 3/5 because the story premise is good, but the execution is mostly overly winded.

Should be tagged kinetic novel by Ep2. There are about 1-2 choices in Ep1, but they don't seem to lead to any changes in plot.

Background:

So we have a twist take on what is very loosely based on the Lord of the Rings, mixed with other sources, where you seem to be playing something that might be (again very loosely) seen as Sauron returning in an incredibly weakened human-like state. A decent and interesting promise, certainly something that's been explored before, but not in AVN context.

SIDE NOTE: btw, if you're into LotR setting [not sexual], I refer you to Nick Perumov's trilogy "The Ring of Darkness" (1993), which started out as fanfic set in Tolkien's M-E 300 years after War of the Ring, and later on got published (originally in Russian, not sure if there is English translation published, but there surely is some coop-translation available at least). These are some fully fledged thick novels that, beside the theme, are pretty decent literature dealing with the stuff Tolkien might find inconvenient, were he to live now -- the exploration of how people may later on view many of the things done by the "good guys" in LotR/previous M-E books; Perumov has since become a respected fantasy writer in his own right.

So, back to SoF.


[Ep1]

This part has sandbox elements, which are thankfully gone by Ep2. While the sandbox is not very burdensome, it feels contrived -- mostly because it remains for 80% emnpty, but you can inadvertedly skip minor elements of story, if you do not check every location every time.

There is a lot of content in Episede 1, yet 90% of it is babble. Not only loads of conversations, but also practically every dialogue line will have 2 or more lines of MC's thoughts, which doubles the reading amount.

Nevertheless, in his very circumlocutional way the dev is trying to build a grand story, and has done a lot of work.

MC is supposed to be revived/summoned back to his followers' controlled territory, but something goes amiss and he is recreated(?) at some small village on some remote island. His magical power battery almost at zero, so he is supposedly trying to refill his powers and get bearings.

The episode deals with him assembling some company and travelling across sea, and then to some old ruins where he has lots of memories, and starting to gain some power.

Unfortunately for those of us who expect an AVN on this site to have some sexual content, there is practically none; and where there is, it's all very basic little vanilla.

Reason: MC is not really interested in sex. He is above it, he apparently doesn't enjoy it very much even when it happens. How's that for a twist in a porn game site. So he waits until the girls offer themselves, and goes "well, ok, if you want it...", and then later on they are graetful for it and he is obsequiously nice about it. As in normal speech MC is quite dominant, here he becomes a wet blanket. Worst place where it could happen, if you tag your game mdom, actually, yeah? And you're DARK LORD for Pete's sake. Even if you don't yourself enjoy physically dominating others anymore, you might consider doing so to more fully corrupt the targets and advance your plans of world domination or whatever it is the MC seems to be aiming to do.


MC's recurring thought during Ep1 and 2, is that he is very weakened and is gaining magical power very very slowly.
I perked up first as I read this, as I thought he'd find out that sex does it for him (allow to gain power faster). Nope.
Thought maybe darker deeds do it for him, torture or whatever. Domination. He hasn't tried and probably won't. Also, no BDSM in tags.
Afraid it might turn out to be love, at which point the game is officially shitting unicorns and coloring itself pink.

I mean, a dark lord? Don't make me laugh.

The dev claims he dislikes mindless sex. Which is fine and dandy, but he abhors apparently also sex used as weapon, means of corruption, torture, or anything like that. Actually now I think about it, the sex scenes possibly are so bland because they might seem mindless to dev -- why would you link sex with violence or with domination. Ahm... okay... duhh.

[Ep2]

I think Ep1 gave impression of how the game looks, so this is just a brief overview of a couple points, the length of content is more and quite adequate.

UI looks very nice.

There's decent amount of content, 95% of which is not sexual, but more about building power/corruption. Sorta okayish.

Humanoid children of gods and of dragons appear.

MC is thinking all kinds of power fantasy thoughts, which are all very abstract level: when I become lord of everything, you will bend to my will etc.

Clearly, he has no human concepts of enjoying power over others physically. He does punch down a female barbarian clan leader, but... again, lacks any human-relatable concept of claiming his victory and cementing his hold. She has to ask him to do it herself. Which he proceeds to do in another vanilla scene.

And so on.

I will have a look at next update, when/if it happens, maybe things improve. That last episode with barbarian queen was sorta starting to turn out okay, if the dev builds from this we might actually get somewhere. As it is, as a reader I don't care about MCs grand plans unless they are matched by some action in flesh.

A great VN although lacking somewhat in the graphical front, the story makes up for it, there is a lot of room to polish but the story has a lot of promise so i wont deduct any points, music is great, the storytelling and focusing on the different characters is pretty good, i have only played the "non-evil path" restraining powers and violence, partly due to logic, partly due to preference, i dont really care much about the porn aspect of it not yet anyway, just seeing it as a adult vn, perhaps that could see some improvements although it should not take precedence over the story, i just wish for some graphical improvements and more of the story, I am keen on seeing a tactical path where we are not "evil" but more akin a military general which does seem like the case, as that is personal preference, i wish the dev best of luck and keenly await future chapters

Tldr: The good depiction of the dark lord.
Score: 4,5/5.
Weak points: background graphic; lack of some standard “quality of life” features; sex scenes
Neutral: lack of voice acting; rare, rather simple animations; amount of content; characters;
Strongpoints: MC; story; music; characters graphic; mysteries; immersion; performance

1.Background graphic
At first I had an impression that state of the art graphics from the beginning of the century. Quality of background graphics is rather uneven and some backgrounds look better, but it doesn't look like a graphic created after 2022. Overall the quality of background graphics is getting better further down the line, but in rather a sinusoidal wave. Some people may see it as old school, but imo most find it simply bad. That bad impression is stronger if you compare characters' graphics and background graphics.

2.Lack of some “quality of life” features
Lack of typically standard (or custom made) layout on screen with several buttons displayed below the text box; like save/load, prefs etc. and most important: auto - options.

Mostly the lack of toggleable auto-forward feature is painful. What’s more, I wasn’t able to turn on an auto-forward feature in any simple way.

Lack of a typically standard layout is good for immersion, but it shouldn’t be done at the cost of comfort. Especially considering that making a good custom layout with quality of life features shouldn’t be bad for immersion and it’s excellent for comfort.

3. Sex scenes

The biggest sin is the lack of control over who MC has sex with.

Overall sex scenes are nothing fancy. MC starts at a lack of sex drive and develops to some sex drive. MC’s state influences his behavior and that influences both the text and pics. I doubt that description (or pics) would make you aroused. But even if, the lack of auto-forward feature may be in the way of enjoyment.

You’ll not encounter hardcore male domination here. Rather soft and moderate, but with magical influence on minds.

3. Characters (MC excluded)
Most characters didn’t have lots of screen time and didn’t manage to irritate or interest me.

Side characters aren’t bimbos, what’s an advantage. However I felt bored sometimes reading their dialogues and thoughts. Ofc it may be mostly because of the lack of auto-forward feature that I usually set higher than comfortable for me to motivate me to read faster.

The most screen time (except MC) has one woman, but she irritates me more, than interests me.
4. MC
This is mostly one man show. MC is the strongest point of the game and has both positive and negative impact on everything in the game, as he makes other points pale in comparison.

MC is giving a feeling of an alien being. Mostly MC’s thoughts and dialogues kept me playing the game. It’s quite hard to classify him, but judging him from a human perspective, he has antisocial personality disorder, having traits from both sociopath and psychopath, is evil, rational and wise. MC starts at a lack of sex drive and develops to some sex drive, undoubtedly an interesting choice for porn game.

5.Music
Significantly increases immersion. Music gives an epic/dark/fantasy vibe, depending on the situation.

6. Characters graphic
Characters are of good quality and look good. It’s also easy to know who they refer to.

PS. I first played this game about 2 months ago. From that state the dev not only polished it a lot, but also added lots of content. Much more than I expected. He’s also engaged in community both in this thread and overall. According to rules I can’t take it into consideration, but you can and you can see this game as a 5/5 game that’s worth your attention.

Pros:
-Great renders
-Crazy production value compared to other HS games
-Immersive atmosphere
-Unique Premise
-Good execution

Cons:
I only really have one, although it's a big one. I think the mc is almost a bit too asexual for a porn game. I understand why but since it is a porn game sex could be implemented a little better into the story.
Giving a light spoiler as an example:


But even with that said I would still give it a 4.5/5, but since I can't do that and I think it would still be a good game even if it had no sex at all I will round it up to a 5.

Graphics - OK, I've seen in games with HS models much nicer than the ones here.

Story - Good and engaging, hard to complain about anything here.

Music - Not my vibe, but very fitting to the theme.

Characters - Rather well written, dialogues are not tedious with them, it is even possible to like them.

MC - It's nice to play him, even though we have a negligible impact on the gameplay, he's not a douche, he doesn't have creepy thoughts.

Normally I would give 5 stars because I had fun, unfortunately for two reasons I can't.

First reason - We have no control over who we have sex with.
Second reason - This "sandbox" or as the dev called it in one place "free roam" zero sandbox or free roam there. I completely don't understand why this is added?
You check two or three locations if there is no action to perform you click "rest" then You check two or three locations, something new appeared then you enter, no? You click "rest" and check again and so on and so forth, completely pointless, completely unnecessary since you can't skip any action anyway, I suspect that with the sandbox tag you scared off a lot of players and here there is no sandbox just tiring clicking and waiting to see if something appears.


If you are playing these games for sex then don't turn it on, there are a few scenes but you won't be satisfied with their performance, however if you are here for an interesting story download without a second thought. But be aware its a classic kinetic novel hided by few no matter choices.

I wish dev good luck with future updates.

For a new game this is amazing with long play time plus good story(middle earth style)good one here really good one with defeated dark lord style 5 out to 5.

Graphics good characters good too and Mc is not annoying story is smooth and pacing is good too.

Side characters not some dumb bitches who jumps to Mc thats plus for me.

Well one con is that theres hardly sex scenes thats not bad for me i like games with min sex scenes but maybe for some other people can be problem so but still this is good i can suggest to other people and i wanna say thanks to author and good luck cant wait to see more.

This is PRETTY GOOD I must say. Yes, model renders don't seem attractive yet, however they have their charm. Game implementation is simple and effective. Using the lore and building your own story out of it adds its own uniqueness to the plot.

Music is okay and animation adds nostalgic feel to it, from the early 2000 video games. As of yet (CHAPTER ONE) I'm impressed by this one. Has decent amount of content. Though I'd like more of the world building if possible.

Already has H - scenes if you want to enjoy. Free Roam and Story Continuity are well balanced, even feels like a Kinetic Novel sometimes.

Review for v0.4

I played up until what I thought would be the first lewd scene basically got black screened. Said "ok, strange decision but whatever." Then I got to the scene where I could order our strangely devoted mercenary to kill a bunch of other mercenaries. That got black screened too. Then I said "why am I still playing this" and closed the game.

The overview states you don't play as the "cliché hero." Very true. Instead, you play as the cliché dark lord. A character who can only seem to speak in words of wisdom and metaphors, because of course he does. He is an old and powerful dark lord and you should fear and respect him because of it!

To me, he only really comes across as incredibly pretentious. Even if he technically does have the power to back it up. The MC feels like the villain that I could actually see the aforementioned cliché hero defeating. One of the first scenes of him is the MC walking into a tavern and getting upset when they won't give him a room and food for free. Damn greedy humans!

I have no problems with slow burn games that place a large focus on things like story and less on the lewd stuff. I'd prefer them even. But that requires it to actually be interesting. In the hour or so I played, literally nothing happened. We meet a mercenary girl who is all of a sudden devoted to us after the MC essentially tells her "hey it's good to be evil!" and that's that. Neverminded the fact that for being a cold blooded killer, she turns into a blushing schoolgirl and sleeps with us at the drop of a hat. Besides that, we do some traveling and listen to the MC talk about how humans suck. I thought it would maybe pick up when we stopped to visit a pirate island, but literally the only thing we got there was a scene of the MC peeping and that was it. Time for more travel.

The dialogue is overly bloated by trying to create this sort of medieval dark atmosphere and I find it exhausting. I just want to see the characters do anything. I also have no idea why those free roam(?) sections are included when they only ever offer you one thing to do. That being to continue the story. It needlessly breaks the flow of the game.

My only other real complaint is that the game uses models from games like the Witcher and Dragon Age, which is really jarring for someone who has played those games. When I looked at the preview pics, I actually first thought it might have been because this was a sort of Witcher parody game. That is not the case. The dev just decided to use those models. Though this probably isn't an issue if you haven't played the games they are from to be fair.

The game has a nice dark fantasy vibe going when we aren't listening to one of the MC's philosophical musings, and I like the character models that aren't from other video games. Good cinematics and some decent world building too. Maybe this picks up later, but the first hour of the game did not really hook me. That being said, I also didn't dislike it enough that I wouldn't give it another shot at some point in the future.

Highly opinionated, but here it is nonetheless:-

I believe this is the entire quote: "Evil is Evil. Lesser, greater, middling… makes no difference. The degree is arbitrary. The definition’s blurred. If I’m to choose between one evil and another… I’d rather not choose at all."

It's clear where inspiration for the game is drawn from, right from references to the character models and backgrounds, to the soundtrack. Yet, to say that this is the only reason to play the game would be completely wrong.

There is much left to be discovered in terms of the plot and world-building, but that's expected since this is an early build. Whatever is present however, is a breath of fresh air in an ocean full of games with inept characters (mainly the protagonist) and direction. There is mediocrity, and then there is this- a visual novel which draws you in from the first scene itself and makes 2 hours feel like a couple of minutes.

The grammar may not be perfect, but that's a secondary issue since it can always be corrected. The scope of the plot is something that trumps all minor nitpicks- to the point that they're not even worth mentioning; it really is engrossing to that degree.

To summarize, a captivating world with a unique protagonist. Straight to the watch list for sure.

A breath of fresh air.

If you are looking for a game with a powerful, intelligent protagonist who are not obsessed with sex, this is your game. The mistakes and flaws many see within the protagonists of other games are rectified here. The main character is essentially a weakened demigod in a weakened world. You are still extremely powerful yet you try to regain your full strength to take over the world.

The game is extremely slow burning, with an actual story instead of mindless debauchery at every opportunity. One can think less of it like a porn game and more like an actual visual novel with pornographic content now and then.

The characters are of high quality, both models and personalities. The soundtracks are epic and the writing is good. The game is an actual dark fantasy with little pornographic content. It is precisely what I was looking for on this site, and if you read this I do recommend you try it if you are looking for a good story and not just sex scenes, if you are, there is no point in trying, you will be disappointed.

Review of v0.4

Strings of Fate is the most ambitious work of Mystic so far, and also my favorite, not only because of the narrative themes but also for the impressive quality.

It’s a dark fantasy story heavily inspired by Tolkien, tilf through the eyes of a villainous character and his journey to restore his powers.
The world building is narrated through different dialogues, monologues and characters which slowly paint the ruinous state of the world and his wicked characters.

The game is a visual novel in the real sense of the term, heavily focused on the reading aspect, you can expect to have some choices regarding the events but the protagonist Voldar is already a made character with his beliefs, decisions and background.

And as always characters shines through, especially my favorites Morgana and said Voldar, a great depiction of an angelic cold being having his way through the mundane mortal dilemmas.

Graphically it is magnificent, even with using HS2 the renders and the shades are rather high in quality, and so the animations and cutscenes, it is truly a step up from his other games.

The used music fits ambience greatly, cozy if it is in a tavern of a small village or menacing during tense moments.
It helps you immerse yourself in the atmosphere.

But if you cane here for sex and just sex, you’ll be disappointed, although it is an adult vn, it’s majorly focused on the story rather than his adult elements.

So if you are a reader who desires a good thrilling fantasy story with adult elements along the way, this is perfect for you.

v0.3
You are a lord of the rings style dark lord. Naturally that means you are very edgy individual who extols evil as a virtue.
It gets kinda weird where you are pananoid about your recent recruit betraying you, yet at the same time convincing her that she should discard the trapping of fake moralization and be ready to betray her friends for coin if you ask her to. Seems rather self defeating.

Recently returned from the dead. Ready to corrupt, conquer, and destroy.
Story seems somewhat interesting thus far.
Although it keeps on jumping POV nonstop which is harming the flow of the story.
This kind POV hopping is endemic in fanfiction and is just bad.
Focus on the main character. Make POV switches rare and actually count.

I have no idea how or why. But dev somehow broke renpy skip fuction from "skip only already watched" into "skip everything"
Which reduces QoL.

You do get a choice, rarely.
When you do it usually doesn't matter (aka. one of the choices does not work so you go to the other one).
Occasionally the choice does make a difference. so it is indeed a VN and not a KN.
However for most of the story you are just there watching the plot unfold.

Progress is stilted. You watch a scene. Now you can "free roam" between a few locations.
your only options are to skip time and look around for the 1 and only option that advances the plot.
In the very first instance that happens you can also ask for rumors
of which I found two generic sounding ones.

Later on I didn't even have that. Could only hunt for the advancement point.
This happens repeatedly. Just breaking the flow of the game.
Either put more things to actually interact with, or automatically move from one scene to the next without requiring us to hunt it down. You should only let us navigate between multiple locations when there are multiple things to do at any order we want.

MC is an asexual that actively disdains sex and lust.
I have been informed that that MC is actually discovering his new sexuality now that he reincarnated as a human...
This has multiple problems:

1. You are explicitly not a human. there is no mention that your new body is a different race, merely temporarily weakened by your resurrection. But multiple indications clearly stating you are not human.
Dev should go over early chapters and adjust the text a bit to make it clear that MC didn't just come back to life weaker, but that he is now a fundamentally different creature. having a human (mostly) body for the first time.

2. The game never shows the MC grappling with his changed body.
For example, MC could have gotten an erection and gone "wtf is this! Since when do I crave sex? what is happening to my body?"
On the very first day of your resurrection you needed food, water, and sleep (with no indication that this is unusal for you).
Later on you explicitly stay up all night to watch over your sleeping ally. Mentioning you are above the mortal need for sleep. Clearly indicating that you are not human and have already recovered the ability to stay awake nonstop. But no mention of grappling with no bodily sensation of being a human for the first time.

3. Having an immortal angel like spirit dark lord get corrupted from an asexual who disdains sex into someone who likes it is rather weak-sauce.

4. There was absolutely no reason to have the MC start out asexual. If dev wanted to focus on plot, then instead of multiple explicitly MC rants IC about how he disdains sex... he could have just been a driven individual.
"I am too busy for sex right now. I got a world to conquer!"

Story heavy, if that is not your thing. I would skip this one.
Visuals become better over the chapters, especially at the beginning it's highly mixed.
But it's extremely charming (atmosphere), nice music, ui and story.

It's clearly an Indie dev's game, I can see how much love has gone into this game. That is why it's getting 5 stars.

Finally dark phantasy for adults which lives up to expectations and does not try to deceive you, but is really a dark fantasy for adults.

Accustomed to the rather low standards of story development on this site, I was very pleasantly surprised that the author does not exploit the magic Dick syndrome, but really leads a coherent and motivated narrative.
Made in dark and melancholy tones, the story tells about a mysterious traveler in a fantasy universe.

For version v0.2, the novel contains approximately a couple of hours of text and graphic content. Developer skillfully using animation and musical accompaniment. But I want to warn readers right away, if you do not like reading dialogues and internal monologues - this game is not for you!

The disadvantages of the game include the fact that there is very little sexual content here.