VN - Ren'Py - Completed - Sunshine Love [Ch. 3 v1.01i Extras] [MrDots Games]

Here is my honest review on Sunshine Love. I love Mr Dots previous work but this game is a shadow of his former projects.

Good points:
- I want to start off by saying that the renders are amazing and are probably the best out of all of Mr Dots other games so far, but thats pretty much the only compliment i can give this game in its current state.

Bad points :
- This game has a decent story concept, but the amount of pointless text in it is absolutely absurd and something i never expected from a game created by one of the best devs around. I constantly find myself skipping through the text because of how repetitive and boring it is, which is something i rarely ever did in the devs other projects.

- There are way too many characters in this game. This makes an already badly written game even worse because of how slow you progress with each character.

- The few lewd scenes that are in the game right now are extremely short and seriously underwhelming considering the wall of text you have to go through before even getting to them.

At this point in time, i can only justify giving this game 2 stars. I would give it 3 but the fact that its from Mr Dots just makes it even worse considering how high my expectations were when this game was announced. Seriously hoping theres an increase in quality as the game goes on or i might just have to give up on this one.

A real step up for Mr.Dots here. The animations for one definitely improved and it is a new concept and more interesting story compared to his previous games in my opinion. It is still early but there is definitely a bunch of content already. There are also a lot of girls to choose from so it is almost guaranteed you will find at least one you like.

I have to say that with this game MrDots has reached a new high point, the renders are excellent, the girls are beautiful(Actually super hot) and we have were to choose (Milf, Lolis, Asiaticas, Twins, Brunettes) the story has not developed well (for the moment) but is promising,it has very interesting interfaces and adding a new item in MrDots games a playlist.

But nothing is perfect, the dialogues are usually very complicated and strange and the MC lacks of personality for this reason I give a 4/5 to Sunshine Love

The renders are good, but reading all of the pointless and repetitive dialog and internal monologue is like watching paint dry. The author needs to learn how to make situations fun and flirty, instead of just spouting off useless information that makes it sound like the characters all think of each other as having the intellectual ability of a 5-year-old. The taco scene is maybe the best example of this. In addition to being mind-numbingly boring dialog, the character who works in a taco truck explains to the MC a number of facts such as:

"There are various types of taco shells, soft or hard, and I have both."
"Whatever protein you choose, a taco surely wouldn’t be the same without the meat."
"Pico de gallo or diced tomatoes can make the taco shell soggy, and putting the lettuce on a taco early prevents it from staying warm."

It's really too bad, because the models and scenery and UI are all beautiful. I don't listen to the music, so I can't comment on that. The characters ARE diverse in appearance, which is another big plus. However, the developer relies on the same facial expressions for each character, and has done so for their previous games, so they all seem very familiar in that regard.

My advice to the developer would be to hire a writer or learn what real people talk like, because I've never met anyone as boring as the characters in this game.

Edit for v0.0.6: This story is SO boring. Changing my review from 2 stars to 1 star. On top of that, 99% of the choices don't matter, so you end up looking at the character scores after a lot of decisions or using a walkthrough mod. Good developers have choices that have trade-offs. For example, love vs. lust, or innocence vs. corruption. This game just has the most basic +2 if you pick choice A, -2 if you pick choice B. It makes it seem like you're interacting with the story, but when you play other games that do it better, you realize it's just bad game design.

We're several patches into the game at this point and I feel I have a good grasp of the tone of the game.

There is nothing happening. The writing is pretty poor, there's a ridiculous amount of dialogue that's completely unnecessary, the characters don't talk like normal people and there's a distinct lack of anything actually happening.

Melody went down a similar path but at the very least there were fewer girls involved. In SL there are more girls, there's way more dialogue and the story is so incredibly dull I ended up CTRL'ing my way through most of it. The latest update (0.0.3i) was devoid of any interesting content, never mind any sexual content.

Very disappointing given that the renders are alright. That said, the lighting is way too bright and unnatural on the models. Every scene feels like it's been taken in a photographer's studio. The models are pretty good so it's a shame.

Overall I'm amazed that Mr Dots didn't learn from the extensive feedback on Melody and the criticism of there being way, way too much exposition and dialogue. It feels as though they're unable to keep to the point which is what drags every update on for a very long time without anything of substance actually happening.

A real shame.

I didn't make it super far, maybe a couple hours, before the game crashed on me (I'm on mac though so I won't hold that against it). My biggest impression from this game is that it's frankly boring. The sex scenes are all very short with pretty lame buildup to them. Often I'd end up less turned on by the end of them than I started, just because the actual scene was so short and there was not really any emotional payoff at that point to counteract that.

The renders are great, as you can see from the preview but the girls look pretty fake sometimes because of that, almost akin to Barbie dolls. The animations are decent, high graphical quality but like I said they're pretty short without much feeling to them.

The plot seems like it has potential to be decent with the characters having their own motivations. I particularly liked that the main character isn't a pushover but isn't a dick either, he seems like a fairly well-adjusted person up to where the game crashed for me. The choices I saw were basically all sets of 3 answers, only one of which raised affection and about half the time one of them would reduce it. That made me feel like I needed to follow a walkthrough, though this is somewhat alleviated by having the stats accessible at all times.

If this wasn't a porn game then I'd likely rate it about 3.5 stars, but I just don't think it's good at what it's meant to do so I can't give it more than 2.

Version: 0.0.2
Visual novel/Script: 5+
Gaming experience: 3 (nice for a visual novel)
Graphic quality: 5+
Character development: 5
Xcitement: 4

Considerations: Few choices to be made, character decisions have a small impact on the story so far. Very good characters and story.

I'll be extremely generous and give Sunshine Love v 0.0.2 a 3.5 stars of 5, which rounds up to 4 stars.

Let's go trough the positives first, shall we? Main LI (the friend/sister) and her buddy Victoria are absolutely stunning. Legit two of the best-looking LIs this year.
Renders are generally of very high quality, clothing and visuals are quite varied and not only go-where-the-bar-is-lowest stock shit.
I like the atmosphere, setting and story in general. It's a story you want to follow (I'll return to this later). Sure, it's a very slow burner, but I don't really mind it at all. However, I'd like to point out that I rarely play these VNs for a quick fap, but also want to experience a good story to pass the time, especially as we are in the midst of a global pandemic.

Then to the Ok things. The characters are visually varied so that there's something for everyone, but it's also a flaw. After 0.0.2 I already know who I'm going after, which are the two I mentioned earlier. For various reasons most other characters I'm just gonna ignore.
While I like the setting, the story is pretty bland. I think it's good that we got to know all relevant characters early on, but there's very little depth to them. Yes, they have commercial differences, but very few personal characteristics in order to make us engaged with them. Most characters have potential to be unique, but so far we have seen nothing of that.
The music is irrelevant, and I switched it off. While the playlist isn't bad, it's just a Spotify playlist and not tied to any events or scenes.

Finally, the bad things which need improvement.
Dialogue is extremely repetitive and even tiresome at point. While having its high points, some of it is like listening to a career politician. Speaking a lot of words, but saying very little.
MC's train of thought is disappointing, even childish. The story has its fair share of plot holes and/or absurd dialogue.
The stepmum. If you're gonna make MILF characters, at least do them properly, and not looking like 25 yos. Compare to Shortcake and Asian Aviatrix lolis who are real lolis. Too loli for my taste.
Because of the wide and early branching, collecting donuts will be a low priority, because you have to play every branch to get them all. The idea is good, but make them appear only in main renders, because the wide variety of so far quite shallow LIs won't make people immersed enough to play all paths even because of boredom.
If not only the dialogue, the character expressions are also pretty repetitive.

In conclusion; the game has great potential, but currently is pretty underwhelming. During writing this, I decided Sunshine Love is currently worth 3/5 stars and not 3.5. Definitely will play the game to its end, but it's not one I would recommend as a must-try one. It has the requirements of becoming a 4-star game, but that depends on future updates. Try it and see if it's for you, I'll guess it's a pretty hit or miss game.

TL;DR: Like every Mr. Dots game, it's very good, with a strong 10 hours of story, great characters, beautiful renders, and an overall polish that screams of passion and dedication.

Version Played: v0.0.6 Extras

Time to Complete: 17 hours

[5/5] Story: The story and characters are incredibly engaging. The game takes place in the same universe as other Mr. Dots games

[4.5/5] Renders: The renders aren't flawless but they are still very good. A tasteful amount of work has been put into the fine details of a render such as in depth of field (which some devs seem to forego or not understand) and in post-processing such as with contrast adjustments. So far I only have two gripes. Firstly, in the prologue to the game, the housing area has a shitty outside appearance, lacking trees, grass, and other details. Secondly, the Seaside Hotel isn't Photoshopped in perfectly, though I admit that I don't know how to make it look better myself. If there were other issues, they were not major enough for me to notice them.

[5/5] Renders -- Characters: The characters are actually perfectly done. One point that really stood out to me was facial expressions. They not only managed to show emotion, but to cause me to feel it. I also did like seeing Georgina, and it makes canonical sense since this dev's games all take place in the same shared universe. Although it layer grew on me, however, I did not initially like seeing Dee's model being almost entirely reused with no major changes whatsoever.

[5/5] Music: The way music is handled in this game is superior to any other game I have played. Unlike other games where music is sometimes an element that is controlled entirely by the script, looping and cutting between tracks, music is handled by an entirely different system with a playlist you can skip through that runs looks to run independently of the script. Somehow the dev even managed to make the playlist almost always fit the scene. Not all the music is entirely for me, but some of it is incredible.

This review turned out longer than expected.

Great game. I think MrDots achieved a new level of rendering and beautiful models.

The story is also pretty interesting and goes beyond that incest. The relations make sense now, and does not follow other formulas that are common here.

Even the context is shown, with images (and hot renders), not just told in a black screen in the first moment of the game. That is the clearly an evolution and the kind of games I'd like to see.

All girls are beautiful and have their own personalities and background stories. Awesome.

!!! This review is revised and based on NO Reading style of gameplay. Previously some texts forced me to stop the game with frustration. (My previous rating for this game was 1)

+ CGI's
+ some characters
+ some romance scenes
+ I really liked Peeping Tom feature. More than donuts.

- MC childish, loser-type. Strange motivation.
- Many unnecessary texts. Really bored and frustrated to read.
- Main girls character strange and artificial. Stupid and fickle relationships.
- Connections with DMD (Lusac)
- Few genres.

I recommend not to read the text (read minimum).

Experience with reading all the texts 1/5 (Spoils everything)
Experience with no reading 4/5

Rating is 3/5.

Pretty women and girls, even what looks like some options in this one, compared to the previous 2 Mr Dots games.
It all looks and sounds great right, so why only 2 stars you wonder?
Well the writing is just obnoxiously bad and dialog is just convoluted, drawn out drivel. I can not describe it any other way! God, I hated it.
The way these characters speak to each other is just the most wooden and disjointed, drawn out and just utterly boring shite you can imagine. How to make a taco, what steps to take when organizing an event. And it draws it out to unnecessary lengths. It makes it something of a mini-game that gives you points with the girls, like a reputation grind in an MMO. Except the mobs in this game are slogs of text needed to be murdered in the correct order or no points for you, literally! It is a boring slog to click through, but while you look to the same 1-3 renders of whomever you are 'talking' with you now need to look around for donuts that unlock extra renders. Yeah, it just isn't worth it. Even with graphics this good I will not torture myself with that horrible writing for a few extra screens. At least this has a text-rollback function you can exploit and I recommend you do and just skip everything else.

Did I mention the music? Since most 'sexy' games are silent affairs, you would think I'd be nice to have some sound and music for a change right? Well, not if it is as lazily done as in this. There is just some royalty-free (?) music playing in the background, and it never adds to a scene, it is just background noise, like a radio set to a random shitty station. I can do that with my own favorite music. Total miss, should not have bothered implementing this.

That leaves the animations. Eh, not bad to be honest. There's a scene with the GF that was a poor loop, but for the rest they all look good. Bit short. Standard for a Mr Dots game. Added some screen controls to 1 scene but thats it for innovation I guess. It is not enough though. Combined with all my other gripes I just think this is not an interesting but a boring 'sexy' game and boring is the complete opposite of what a porn game should be.

I could rename that 1 obvious teenage girl 'Jailbait', so that's a plus!

I'm in love with the visual of that game.

Very good, great scenes, I love incest.

And the shy character (co-owner of the hotal) is so cuteeeeee, I loved her little titties.

Waiting for more content.

Wow was so pleased at the renders. I know The Mr Dots Games are one hot ass games but this one makes me go crazy.

++ Characters looks so firm.
++ Story has been great so far.

Defentily some game which i follow

Cant wait to see what comes next. Five Stars

One thing this game has going for it are the visuals, the renders and animation are top notch and the premise of the story is interesting but that's all the pros I can think of.

There's a lot of girls you can choose from, which is good but they all feel the same. The only interesting one is the cousin with social anxiety, all the other ones don't have any distinguishing features. But all this would have been fine if it weren't for the dialogue. It is so boring, most of the times it feels like they're speaking but they're actually not saying anything (hope it makes sense) and it feels almost robotic. Here are some examples...

"The trick is to make good use of it and hire competent enough chefs to consistently create quality meals for your hotel guests."

"She's going to forward them to me sometime today, which should include her references and resume?

"I'll let her know that working with us immediately may not be a guarantee, and that she might have to look for work elswhere for the time being."

"I'll make sure to store Trisha's number into my tablet, and then I could perhaps give her a call tomorrow some time."

"It's just as well that dog is restricted from moving, otherwise, there'd be no way in hell I'd be doing this."

Who talks like that?! I'd imagine people talked like that 60 years ago and even then it would have been weird.

Finally, Mc has zero chemistry with the "main" girl. She was quite annoying at the beginning but this update she became more likable I would say . Still, their relationship feels so artificial.

All in all, this game looks good on surface but once you look beneath it, all the other things are average at best.

No choices at all. Slow and boring pace. Just like Melody there is no interactivity. The renders are good and the animations as well but other than that it is VERY boring. I will give 3/5 for the renders and animations.

Reminder!This game isnt a harem game.Its a dating game,you can have as many love interest as you want,but you can only choose one.Also,if you have more girls,there will be a risk they will find out and break up with you.Its a pure romance game.There is no pregnancy unless you keep loyal to one girl only,and ignore the rest of the girls.(boring i know)

pro:
-pure romance and vanilla
-have a good story
-good renders
-good gameplay
-multiple choices(choose one only)
-little sex scene

cons:
-The game have many girls,but you can only choose one only.ignore the rest.
-no pregnancy,probably 1.

This game includes some of the best characters and renders I've seen, characters such as Jane, Vicky, Ashley, Trisha, Lily & Ivy are especially well done. It is currently setting up for a great game right now as it is still early days. Hopefully next update we will have some H scenes.

Great Game so far .
+The cousin is the really the best.
-But the story must be better in the future. And the most boobs are for me to big.
+The gallery are really great.
There are currently a few bugs from the previous version that need to be fixed.

It might be a bit early for a proper review but since this dev already has two games under their belt, they should have the know-how by now.

Starting with the good, this game has impressive renders, better looking than dev's previous works. Not only the girls but also the game layout looks crisp and colorful. Unfortunately that's the only positive point at this time.

My main gripe with this game is characterization. This particular dev loves making games about completely pure waifus who will take forever to engage in anything remotely sexual and it seems to have worked for them in the past. But while MC would get no scenes with the main girl, the dev was smart to include other characters who didn't seem to be locked in chastity. The problem with the new game is that most of the characters read like the same pure, vanilla waifu. What's the difference between the main girl (sis) and her best friend (cook)? They both read like nuns who are completely oblivious to anything sexual. And that also hurts the cousin character who's supposed to be yet another shy waifu type but in this game she doesn't stand out at all.

The only characters who at least act somewhat lewd in this adult game are the two MILFs. But even them suffer from the same issue, as they are written to be exact carbon copies of each other. MC gets a choice at some point, having to pick between slightly suggestive MILF #1 and slightly suggestive MILF #2. And the only difference between the two characters is the color choice in lingerie!

MC is, of course, not immune to characterization issues. Seemingly on par with dev's previous player characters, this one seems allergic to any kind of behavior that might look even a tad bit assertive. At most he gets to pout when his sis doesn't heed his advice. And when in a dialogue you are given an obviously good choice, that gives a + and an obviously bad choice that gives nothing, then that's not really a choice isn't it?

To conclude, when you are making a game with an ensemble cast, you have to make a conscious effort to make the characters read different. When the player's interactions with them look copy-pasted, you obviously haven't done that. In this game most interactions boil down to : aggreable dialogue choices followed by a hug and maybe a kiss (oh my!). After a point it gets tiring.