VN - Ren'Py - Summer's Gone [S1 Steam + DLC] [Oceanlab]

Ch. 3.5 Full

The models and animations are really good and I enjoyed the music. I just found the protagonist to be insufferable. He's one of those guys who has tragedy in his past and as a result is a total asshole to everyone in the present. Made it difficult to connect with him and the story.

i discovered the Game when it was first released and played it again with every update. i think there is a huge step forward with the quality since first release. The Renders back then were good, the newer ones and the reworked Renders are great.

The Story so far is interesting for me. I personally like the slow progression with Story and Characters. I like that the MC isn't some buffed Instagram Model, more like a Nerd with some psychologically Problems, maybe with some too dark thoughts, but overall ok. Most Characters are interesting, but sometimes it feels like there is too much going on with too many Chars at the same time for just the few days in the Game time.

So if you like a slow burn Story with some deeper sights into Characters and Story and you are not too focused on Sex Scenes ( cause there aren't any till now) you should try this Game. It feels like watching a good Show or Series.

Pros:

Renders/Animations: 5/5 Top Tier, some of the best i've seen so far
Story: 5/5 but like everything, strongly depends on your personally likings
Characters: 4,5/5 many Characters but not everyone is interesting
Music/Atmosphere: 5/5 Music fits well into the scenes and happenings

Contra:
Only Con for me is the Time between Updates

I can confirm that I have personally played this game and this review is a reflection of my game experience.

I'm obviously not the audience for this game. I mean, if you're not a teenager frustrated with life, I don't think this game is for you, just like it's not for me.

The protagonist is a typical "edgy" anime character. Every silence on his part is as if he were saying: look at me, I have suffered a lot in life and I'm a borderline who doesn't care about anything anymore, how unfair life is!

Normally when I play an F95 game these details don't usually matter much to me since I'm playing a porn game, but knowing that it has no sex scenes and that the story tries to take itself too seriously, which it fails to do, because it's a drama for teenagers. I can't give it more than one star


To summarize:

There is no game here, it's a book with pretty pictures.
The "game" is written for teenagers.
The protagonist behaves like a small child.
The situations are absurd
It has nice graphics.
The music is not bad.

The renders and art are obviously quite incredible. You can practically see and feel the amount of work that went into that. Also the video squences... Holy Shit.
I personally also like the story very much, esp. now with Chapter 3, which added a lot more depth to both the MC and other characters. It's definitely a breath of fresh air in regards to the MC and his behaviour, as he isn't just some sex crazed stud, but feels like an actual human. Obv. he is somewhat edgy, esp. at the start, but i feel that becomes a lot less annoying as the story progresses.
The game is a slow burn, and at the moment has no real sex scenes, but quite a bit of teasing. But i feel like the Dev handles this very openly, so i really don't mind.
I feel like there are a lot of stats in the game atm, that really don't seem to do all that much (e.g. the light/dark route), but that's really not that big of an issue. The story progresses regarding to variables you set in the game (with your choices) anyway, which feels totally fine.

The art and animations in this game are obviously what catch the eye right away. You can tell the creator goes above and beyond with the passion in that regard. Going into a slow burn kind of game like this not having sex scenes up to this point makes it so it needs to be made up with a good interesting story. They nail that in that regard also. There's numerous interesting characters in the story. Bella's storyline being my personal favorite up till this point since her character is extremely complex such as a lot of other characters. Even the MC by the end of 3.5 i've come to really like the character. In the beginning I didn't know how to feel about his edgy personality but his development throughout is great till now where I enjoy his character a lot. Even the minor characters that haven't had as much focus are interesting. Supportive friends to back you up and vice versa with you supporting them. Let alone the portrayal of his trauma and the backstory making this so much more interesting. It's worth the slow burn and I see it having a lot of potential especially after 3.5 with the introduction of so many more characters.

While the renders and characters are nicely done, the story itself is poor and unrealistic. The dialogue is unnatural and seems out of place a lot of times. The animations are usually well done, but there are a lot of pointless ones (hair blowing) which don't add anything to the story.

Renders ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Animations ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Story ⭐
Dialogue ⭐
Music ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Nice! Great game, great characters.. no faping? Unless you like stills, but you dont like stills this isnt the 80´s. Dont mind the last one, this is a very well written VN with great characters! But be warned the developer seems a bit on the ambitious side and he´s even tackling another game at the same time, so this will take a while...

Game of the year without a doubt, does not have a sex scene (yet) and still one of the best game i have ever seen.
The story is really good, the characters are great, males and females.
The only con i see, it´s that this game have the anime cliché, all the girls love the MC allmost at the instant, but it is not so much, so i guess it´s passable.

Great story and renders. I'm looking forward to this being a very long story. I haven't gotten to the current end point yet but so far character development is very well done. The scenery is great and facial expressions are on point.

Emotional rollercoaster of a game (In a good way).
The story is pretty realistic in itself, as it starts off kind of dark, which is normal because after everything that happened to our protagonist (at a tender age as well) has caused the mc to be an emotionless, lost soul, and he doesn't really know how to proceed, because he has lost his meaning in life.

it really gets you feeling his emptiness, and not knowing what will happen next, and not even trying to. Everyone who's had a dark time in their life will know exactly how much of a genius Ocean is.

All the characters are not just random, one-sided npc's with a maximum one-personality trait each, made for the hell of it, they are fleshed out, all have different personalities and quirks and it makes it unpredictable as to how the story will go on, because everyone is so different and it doesn't feel at all like they will bend for the story any moment just because the developer decided so which makes it life-like and realistic, because of not knowing what will happen next, and It feels very immersive because of that.
Not to mention that it's only starting and even more character, and story development will ensue.

There are no sex scenes (yet) but the renders are top notch, and if you like a Slow-burn, rewarding story, then this is for you.

Are you fucking kidding me!?!
What a let down...
First of, easily 1 star because of the expectations and hype. This game is terrible. Not my type at all...
Only reason I`m giving it more then 1 star is somewhat nice renders(not consistent) and cool but pointless animation scenes...
Not even once, for more then 1 hour of playing, did I get a bonner. Story is so boring, girls have some personality but also, quite boring... Choices are very scarce and there is no gameplay.
Seriously, this is totally unplayable...
What a let down in a sea of hyped games on this forum...

I give this game 5/5


In this game game renders are top notch. I really liked all the girls in the game. Every girls are hot and beautiful. MC is also looking good. There are lot of animations. Songs choices in the game are good. There is no sex scenes yet but I'm completely ok with that. Current the dev is concentrating on world building and relationships. So it will take many years for completion of this game. It's ok I can wait. Because it is worth waiting. In each version of the game dev is introducing new characters. My fav character in the game is Bella because she and MC are undergoing on kinda similar situation. Then my choice is nami and Sasha. If you are looking to play a game with good story line and renders try this one

The visuals and character models are good but that is about all the game has going for it.

The main problem is the writing and the unnatural behavior of all the characters in the game. Some examples:

The female motorist has a gun but it is loaded with blanks. Who does that? No one that I've ever heard of and I've been around guns all my life. There is no point in carrying a gun without bullets. I've been around concealed carry holders all my life and no one does this!

The college professor that gives the freshman introduction treats the college like it is a strict military academy. Students can't even select there own seats. I'm not aware of a single college/university that does this.

The girl that gets hit by the car calls over the MC to her home and is the happiest person in the world just after losing functionality in both of her legs. Plus she is a college student with no phone. Her primary concern is getting to know the MC better just after her terrible accident???

The MC acts like a heartless and insensitive asshole yet girls drool over him.

Your sister has severe emotional issues and goes from being calm to raging in a matter of seconds frequently. All because you didn't do something she expected like telling the girl in the hospital to get well soon.

My advice is to avoid this one unless you want a pure story driven novel with little basis in reality, characters who don't act like humans, and no lewd content.

Ch. 3.5 Full

In my opinion this is one of those rare VN that can be considered as such.
The compelling story for the inner conflicts of many characters to search for themselves, stories branched through player choices, the renderings and animations are excellent (they are not made as loops of images of a few istants), so far they are not about sex and are used to highlight some dialogues through change of expression and / or gestures, the gameplay appropriate to the type of story, no less the background music that is updated and changes continuously during the game.
A gem for visual novel fans.

3.5
Summary:
An interesting game talks about a damaged mc in not so realistic world with other damaged people, going to college, and trying(or not your choice) to make his life become normal.

Extraordinary aspects of the game:
The character development in the game is unique and good a the same time, sadly it only starts to take full force only around the third chapter.

What is good:
Render - the girls look great. Character development is unique and interesting. Intro animations are amazing with only make those moments stronger with the music that is added to them. Different choices will give different branches of events with is surprisingly rarely done.

What is bad:
A lot of bad.

The world is mostly unrealistic, especially the reactions of people around to some of the events and their behavior to each other. The timeline looks crooked too, the MC gets jacked in two days and the girls blame genetics, I blame fairy magic.

In the first two chapters, there is an issue of the characters jumping to conclusions and leaving the player confused, look at what can be made better to understand.

The flying hair everywhere is weird… but I think that is nitpicking, oh and the flying USB is funny.

What can be made better:
Time issues like the MC getting fit in two days, Victoria getting out of hospital just in half a day stuff like that easily fixed and needed to be fixed, the game shouldn’t be crammed into a week.

Issue of the characters jumping to conclusions:

Examples:
The gun scene at the start of the game, it’s the fucking pouring rain, and the MC talking stupid shit about killing the girl that got into an accident to stop her misery, and immediately the driver pulls out a gun and starts to threaten the MC.

People don’t act like that, the first reaction of people to unexpected situations is doubt, the right move would be is to add a normal human reaction instead of a character jumping to conclusions like this.

MC: “A simple cut.”
MC: “Right here.”
MC: “To save her from the pain she’s going to suffer as soon as she awakes.”
Driver: “What did you say?”
The MC snaps at the driver.
MC: “I said, wouldn’t it be better to help the girl out of her misery instead of letting her suffer because of what you did!”
The driver runs back to the car and grabs the gun and the scene continues as it was.

The Sonya bus drive was another example where the MC just jumped to conclusions and I don’t know if that scene isn’t finished or something but it looks more like a scene between mind readers than a normal human conversation.

And those two are just those that I remembered there more of them in the first two chapters, funny enough this thing vanishes in the 3 and 3.5 chapters.

My opinion:
It’s a really hard nut for me, personally I didn’t like the first two chapters at all. They gave me a strong feeling of an unrealistic world, weird behavior and weird conversations between characters. I even almost dropped the game because of this and was surprised why people gave this game such high scores.

But I sat around some more and got to the third chapter, from there characters get more development they turn from one-dimensional into something more realistic. You start to understand that the MC really got some issues and isn’t just some edgy weirdo that all talks, yes at the beginning that was exactly what I thought.

Oh, right I loved that the MC and the characters around him notice the out-of-character changes you force the MC into(he was a loner but suddenly you force him to be very social), with quite interesting as many devs tend to ignore this.

In the end, the game is quite interesting but the two first chapters leave a bad aftertaste in the mouth, I can see that the devs really have devoted themselves to the game but it still has many issues and because of them, I think that the game is underperforming.

In my opinion, it’s a good game but that is that. I come back to it later to see how it develops I have some good expectations for it.

Ps: I don’t give a fuck that there are no sex scenes in this game I am more of a good story person, and the story only starts to make sense from the third chapter.

If you want more reviews/recommendation check out my list [Link]

Apart from the fact that this game has beautiful renders, amazing animations with good soundtrack and very good looking LI's what makes this game better is the depth of story and character development. It is not some cliche game where MC is hung like a horse and there are Li's who are absolutely perfect and are drooling over him. Every girl in the game has her demons she is fighting and so is the MC. Then comes the mystery surrounding summer.

So all in all it surely is an amazing piece of art

(My first ever game review!) Game version Ch. 3.5 Full]
Okay right to the case this game is fucking amazing!It was "great" before,but now it's almost perfect.First chararacter the varety is wide and yeah they are a bit cheesy like in some teen drama.Really makes you appreciate slow burn story and not just
"Mc:Hi
Girl:Hi!
Mc:Wanna bang?
Girl:Fuck yeah!
I replay this game almost every day.And when there's update i make sure to play every route,every choice is important which is really cool.I would lie if said story is perfect but it really makes you addicted.Renders are out of this world with moles,wrinkles,skin detail.Safe to say best animation quality at the moment in vn 3dcg games.5 out of 5
Oh and word to those 1 star reviewers who are like "Boo where's sex?!Uwaa i want sex!"You have been warned at the start of the game and in dev's notes so stfu!

Unique game with unique characters, Excellent writing, I personally like the character development of MC and renders are beautiful and I like the cinematography and details, This game will be legendary without a doubt .

I noticed this game by accident, and it sucked me in completely. Great, addictive plot, interesting characters with whom you can get along in a way and amazing graphics. That's what I was looking for in VN. Immersion is amazing. The developer also informs on an ongoing basis about the progress of his work, which is pleasing. I was very happy to support him as a patron. I absolutely do not mind the lack of sexual content. The climate is so dense and well built that you want to wait for this type of material. I highly recommend it. It's worth playing if You like this type of game's.

Yep, this is it, the peak of story-driven porn games. The game also has the best renders I have ever seen in my entire life. I literally cannot say anything bad about this game at all, you rarely ever come across quality like this. Solid 10/10