Ren'Py - Superheroes Suck [v1.951 Public] [Solace]

This is a review of v1.101

The game is very promising and there is already a lot of content to play with the story while not being super original is still told in a very interesting way that is still enjoyable, The characters are rendered beautifully and the dialogue was written well being not overly tedious and having humor mixed in, some characters are have more depth to them than others but it was still great. The sex scenes while numerous there is no gallery function to view them all but most of the scenes are repeatable.

4.5/5 stars Enjoyable game and if possible support the developer

Review for Superheros Suck v1.651

Overall: 3.5/5 - The game is above average, but I would stop short of calling it good. The writing is exceptional, but the game needs a lot of work on the user interface, the "gaming experience", and some of the models/rendering. Individual updates are rarely worth playing by themselves. If I had to guess, I'd say the developer didn't have a good plan on how the game would be broken down into pieces for development, individual updates, and consistent and enjoyable gameplay. It also looks like he is making up changes to the story along the way.

Story: 3/5 - It's not terrible, but I don't find it particularly interesting or engaging. The story seemed to get worse after Mrs. Powell disappeared and the MC started interacting with Artemesia.

Writing: 5/5 - The writing is the star of the game.

Renders/Models: 3/5 - The renders in general don't have a lot of detail and are always a little grainy. They improve a little as the game progresses, but they aren't anywhere near where they should be in 2023. The models for the girls are good, but not outstanding. The models for various rooms and hallways the academy just feel out-of-place. They just seem so lifeless and artificial. It also looks like the models for the girls are rendered separately then overlayed into the rooms.

Animations: 3.5/5 - Animations are relatively smooth and don't seem to sacrifice a lot of resolution/detail, but otherwise, they have the same issues as the renders.

Content: 4/5 - There's a decent amount of content and lewd content. The lewd scenes aren't really very erotic, though. The amount of content released from one update to the next is very inconsistent. Some updates have multiple lewd scenes, some are just a couple of conversations that you can read through in 5 minutes, and some updates are just random crumbs that are either afterthoughts or were intended to go in previous updates but weren't finished.

Gameplay: 1.5/5 - Gameplay is a sore spot for the game, and playing the game as new updates have been released has been a really poor experience.

• The sandbox is useless. The game is almost completely linear. The sandbox just exists to be a time-waster for grinding a few stats and to give an illusion of choice. It adds no value to the game at all. The user interface to navigate the sandbox did improve from the beginning, so at least that takes some of the frustration out of having the sandbox.
• The stat grinding complete disappeared about 2 years ago. Players can still increase stats, but they appear to serve no purpose.
• Event triggering is mostly what forces grind. Some events only trigger one day per week or one time per day, and need to be performed multiple times, so... grind away.
• Some of the very early choices in the game seem really stupid and pointless, almost like the developer put them in to practice adding choices to the game.
• The hints are occasionally broken. Some examples:

1. A hint for one girl's storyline said to "check on" another girl, so players try to do that but nothing happens, even for weeks of in-game time, because the trigger is actually the completion of a specific future point in that girl's storyline, not simply the act of checking on her. What the hint really should say is to continue the other girl's storyline.
2. A hint says to wait for the Sunday lecture, but nothing happened, because something needed to happen first in another girl's storyline.
3. All hints said to either check on another girl or finish other tasks at the academy of which there are none. The actual trigger was the lecture the following Sunday.

Bugs: 4/5 - I only encountered 1 bug that had to do with an event that triggered by using the elevator. It was fixed in the following update.

The game has content but once you see the second scene, I think its an actua sex scene, the game kind of loses everything. As the progress with the characters moves forward you never get the feeling of actual charactre development, in most of the ocasions ot feels like filling the point bar to activate a scene. And this scene is a very slow and weird animation, it really doesnt pay the time invested.
So you (I) start skipping the dialogus of most of the girls cause these sex scenes are not worth and the development of the relationships doesnt seem to do much, and I discover that every girl is like a separate world. You basically fuck everyone but with the exception of 1time that someone else sees you doing it, it never happens,so dont expect threesomes or anything that is not with the involvement of the MC.
And this scene where a girl was getting fucked in the presence of the other was like the girl "watching" was a manequin, she wasnt surprised she didnt ask questions, no reaction at all and no dialogue.
I wonder whats the point of that? Involving a 3rd person that less contribution than a piece of furniture (not exagerating).

Is till skipped to finish all the available content. The girls look decent, there is nothing extraordinary going on like cloth simulation or body physic. No camera work in the sex scenes, those are 1 fixed camera focusing on the girl and thats it, no nothing. And then the energy which is like 90 year olds.

I didnt find it sexy at all, and after playing for 90 minutes I just skipped through it.

This game is very promising, if a little bit rough around the edges. The writing is excellent, the graphics solid, and the worldbuilding fairly exceptional. The character building is perhaps the most standout feature, with each of the girls having distinct personalities, each one likeable in different ways. The developer also avoids the common pitfall of making them too perfect, giving each one actual problems and flaws that you can help them through. As a bonus, we even get a protagonist who's not a giant asshole! Heck, he's even a pretty nice guy, if not very smart...

With all of that positive going for it, however, the game has two major issues. The first issue is Consistency. There are several major plot point which aren't managed carefully enough. Advancing down one girl's route too far will start feeding you information on MAJOR plot events that haven't actually happened yet, for example. This is made more complicated by the fact that each girl's progression is a bit obtuse. Even with the hints given in game, it's easy to get stuck unable to advance one specific girl simply because there's no way to know what you need to do.

The second issue is something I mentioned already. The protagonist is kinda as dumb as a box of knockoff girl scout cookies. And I don't mean thin mints either. But, aggravatingly, this is only sometimes true. When it comes to insane plans, he can somehow think in clever ways. When it comes to figuring out his own powers, or what is going on around him, he acts like all the blows to his head have left him a bit...mentally deficient. This is particularly annoying given that he constantly obssesses over the issue, despite his OWN OBSERVATIONS that show oddities he doesn't ever stop to consider. It's absolutely maddening. And made doubly so by the entire team of other heroes (plus his mentor) who all seem completely oblivious and completely uninterested in figuring it out. Despite, you know, that being like 99% of the supposed purpose of the academy he's attending....

4.5 out of 5.

The story is fresh, the writing is dramatic or funny as is appropriate for the scene, and characterizations are fantastic. Every character feels fleshed out and distinct from one another, and it's easy to put unique voices to them, which is one of the most important parts of these games.

The best part, for me, is the very subtle detail that Solace puts into character expressions. Sure, that means a lot of extra renders with very little difference save something as small as a slightly crooked smile or raised eyebrow, but those little details make all the goddamn difference when it comes to depth of expression. It's absolute chef's kiss.

The main problems (minor though they are compared to the successes) are:

• The music, which can get repetitive and stale, especially the normal, everyday track that plays during the academy's daytime hours.
• The lack of background characters. The characters we get are all fantastic, but there's always an excuse, wherever you go, to have a theater or a diner or a coffee shop or whatever be empty of anyone except you and whoever you're talking to (and most of the time you're sitting in a first person view, so really there's only one person and maybe a guest around). It makes the world feel painfully empty. I'm sure that there are rendering issues to blame, but that doesn't make the problem any less frustrating.
• The sandbox nature of the game includes a lot of slumming around from room to room, looking for the next event. Be here on the right day at the right time and something should happen, except sometimes it doesn't for unexplained reasons, so you have to keep skipping days until it finally triggers next week after about thirty seconds of clicking the skip time button. I used the multi-mod to cut down on grinding and still found it somewhat annoying towards the end; I can't imagine how annoying it is when you aren't a cheating bitch like me.

Again, I typed a lot for those complaints, but they're mostly nothing next to the positives. Play it and immerse yourself in your character and his relationships with his teammates. Their stories, and the overarching plot itself, are shaping up to be something special. I especially hope Solace finds time to expand the cast.

Enjoy the story.
- Dev does a good job at bringing up information early that is relevant later
- MC's powers are a bit of a mystery but there are clues as to what they may be, thus speculation is fun

Enjoy the characters.
- Initial crop of girls is fun, but dev has added more that make sense in story and can be roped in/expanded upon in the future

Large amount of content.
- Took me a few hours to get through from scratch (v.975)

Excited to see where it goes.

This is the reason why I don't like playing games that aren't finished yet. Not that it's bad. Quite the opposite. It's TOO GOOD AND I CAN'T PLAY THE WHOLE DAMN THING RIGHT NOW. Good animations, attractive, realistic looking models, really interesting, and absolutely hilarious writing. I started for the porn, and stayed for the plot. This is my new #1 project to keep an eye on, because god damn, I need to find out how things progress. I got super invested in the characters, and the story being woven. 11/10.

Superheroes Suck [v0.95.2 Public]

As some reviewers before me have mentioned, this game is a tough one cause it's immensely polarizing !

On the strong side we have...

• a very unique introduction of the plot, creatively done
• nice renders & backgrounds ranging from decent to good
• ostensibly likeable characters (female cast)
• an ordinary, but decent MC (not creepy, freaky or immature)
• some proper humor and enjoyable situations/scenes
• decent writing, good english (no engrish!!!)
• a suitable soundtrack, pleasant music (if you like jazzy stuff)
• VN format for the introduction

So far, so nice! Almost nothing serious to complain about.
Just the opposite: potentially great, this could be a hit...

And then it comes... the HIT... when this game turns into weak...
in one word: SANDBOX.
No, I'm no hater of sandbox mechanics,

• if they are well implemented (without too much grind) and
• when they give the player more free roam and gaming fun (without destroying the pace of the plot and/or its flow).

Except for the "too much grind", that switch to sandbox destroys exactly most of the positive, strong sides of the game!
Annoyingly, it harms itself without the need, cause it does not give the player more free roam and is mostly there to "unlock" scenes within a steady rotating time cycle... from Monday to... - well you know the days of a week already, I guess .

The plot's flow is gone, the pace is slowed down and it gets tedious, boring, tiring and pointless after 3 ingame weeks
without any real progression (main)plot-wise nor lewd-wise (just one harmless BJ so far) .

Additionally you can not progress in the way you like (means with the girls you like when you like it!) - instead you're "guided" by a hint system - but not to progress scenes with all 4 girls, no:
it forces you to progress with ONE girls first before another girls' scene is "unlocked". Pretty shitty I must admitty !

Well, I'd vote for a new title of this game: SANDBOX SUCKS!

There are unfortunately a bunch of more issues for me:

• the formerly likable female characters become more and more childish, socially awkward, annoying or just cliched
• MC seems to be a bland being, rarely speaks or answers
• dialogues are almost non-existant, the girls monologize very often (and hey: their chatter is sooo trivial )
• the few choices are pretty meaningless, doesn't seem to matter at all
• romance, erotic teasing, passionated tingly moments - just not "implemented" yet
• lewd scenes aren't hot, they are just there (perhaps)
• the attempts on humor aren't that funny anymore, sometimes even become stale

Despite the many issues this game has it is definitely not a bad game. It starts great just to fall very flat short right after its intro.
That's a pity cause the potential was there to be at least a 4 star game...
For me it lost its appeal, witty fun and plot... and I lost interest to continue the playthrough. Sorry, but only 2.5 stars for an increasingly boring experience.

Nevertheless, good luck to the developer - maybe to turn it into something more attractive and exciting in the future *fingers crossed* !

This one is tough. I'd like to give it a better rating, but I just can't.

The renders are nice, animations are decent (even if they don't stand out), story is fine (not super engaging, but it's well arranged and it makes sense, which is sadly more than what can be said about most of the competition), and characters are great (the female cast, at least).

Then, what's the problem? For the most part, I'd say the sex scenes. How'd I put it... There's a big lack of perviness, of a sensual atmosphere surrounding the scenes. Most of them go from 0 to 100, and they feel somewhat "forced", as if they had to be there, just to make this an adult game. There's close to no foreplay: caressing, kissing, dirty talking, licking, biting... Pretty much nothing. It goes straightaway to penetration and, as soon as it begins, it's finished.

This also kinda works against the "romance" tag. You can see the characters care about each other, but more like friends. I see very little romancitism and emotional commitment between them (aside from a handful of scenes very late in this version, 0.90), and much more something on the line of "friends with benefits" relationships. Which isn't a bad thing, just not what I was expecting.

Wow, what a surprise this game turned out to be. I came in with low expectations (not a fan of sandbox games) but was blown away. I'll list out the great, the good and what I could think be improved.

THE GREAT
The characters. WOW. They are fleshed out with hopes, dreams and fears. They have personalities and personal philosophies that clash with one another. They are, by far and away, the best group of characters I have read in a VN. Special mention goes to Chrys, the mercurial, enigmatic bag of cuteness and energy.

THE GOOD
The main plot, although currently ceding center stage to individual character storylines, has set up enough of a premise to be mysterious and engaging. I hope that in the future we get to see more of the superhero world and the author intertwines the main plot with the character story lines a bit more organically, as these two entities seem a bit divorced at the moment.

The storytelling is also extremely impressive. No unnecessary dialogue or narration. The author lets the visuals tell their story and uses the dialogue to add what the visuals could not. The little threads the author leaves in the weave of the story, only to unravel them into reveals and twists later, is greatly appreciated: a technique that I have not seen in many other VNs here. A classic example would be Chrys using Harper's makeup. Keep up the awesome work dev!

OPINIONS ON IMPROVEMENTS
As I mentioned previously, I am not a fan of the sandbox type of games, particularly if the sandbox is huge (for example a city with many locations, each location having multiple rooms to navigate). This format of game gatekeeps content by the number of clicks you perform. I don't like wasting time searching around a building for content. I am also irritated by games that gate content by day/night cycles and days of the week. I do not want to explore the same areas at different times of the day, and different days of the week in the hope of finding content. Thankfully the developer has added a hint system that let's you see the trigger for the next event of a character. This somewhat mitigates the clicks I have to perform to get to the next piece of content, but does not remove the problem of having to skip days to get to the next trigger point of the story (e.g. skipping Friday to Monday to get Valentina's event on Tuesday). My suggestion to the developer would to remove the day of week timegating, and focus on the day night cycle (for example trainings with Valentina and Harper are available on the same day). The main plot would then advance once the player has reached a certain point in each characters arc, independent of if it were Sunday or not. This should also help avoid some of the anachronisms I found in the character stories where one character was referencing an event in another character's arc that hadn't happened yet. However, I understand that implementing this suggested change could be a major overhaul of the current code.

The other thing I would like to point out is that I find the confidence resource, and the evening time period by extension, unnecessary. The only content available during evening is gaining the 'confidence' resource, but that resource is used rarely and, since there is no scarcity of the resource, choices that require that resource are rendered meaningless because the player has more than enough of that resource. Again, I see evening time and the resource just more clicks to perform to get to the content I want to see.

SUMMARY
Awesome VN, unique amongst an ocean of mediocre and uninspired games. Highly recommend.

Superheroes Suck has some of the best writing on this site. The characters are fun and have actual arcs. My only minor gripe is there doesn't seem to be much central conflict for the protagonist. IE, there's nothing really driving him forward except his desire to be around the girls and not have to pay rent or work at a convenience store.

The animations are really spectacular. Some of the art is a bit dated, but it appears the developer is updating it over time.

The only place this game really falls flat for me is the gameplay. It's the "sandbox" model we tend to see around here involving thee time periods where you seek out some action to perform through the navigation system to build up points to unlock more content.

In full disclosure, I pretty much never like these systems and there's no exception here. It's clunky and takes way too long to find new content towards the middle and end of the game. There's a hint system which helps somewhat, but it's often wrong about what the next step actually is.

While I'd like Superheroes Suck much better if the game systems were ripped out in favor of a more kinetic visual novel structure, it's not bad enough to drop a star and I'd still highly recommend it.

I don't like to post 2 stars review and maybe I could've just skip, but here we go.

The game is very boring. I didn't play much tho, 'cause I couldn't. Rarely drop games so fast but here we are.
You're at "Superhero academy". In this game all you have to do is to attend classes with 2 girls to raise your stats. Two of them. At players disposal 2 floors. You can't go to girls rooms. Found couple events both in shower (upper floor) and at kitchen. Fck..too many number 2 in this game.
Summary: all you're doing in this game is clicking on or another door once a day, or try to catch some other events with the help of Schedule board or without it. And one day per week there's a lecture with all gals present.
I think i've played about 8 in game days and didnt see a single scene. Not even hj/bj..nothing.

2 girls have hots for mc but from what I've seen they're both virgins for sure. Another gal is married. And the last isnt really interested for now.

Story could've been ok, but the writing. As I said before - boring. MC is talking 10 times more to himself than to the girls. In some scenes girls do 95% of talk, not because of their character or because of being a chatter boxes, no. This is just how dev wrote these dialogues. Chrys in gym, later Harper in library. MC said maybe 2 sentences in each conversation, while girls a much more.

Pass.

So I'm playing this superhero harem game - this one right here. Renders are good, story's good, grammar's good. It's fun! I like fucking superhero girls and reading stories about how that all happens.

And then the AI car tells me it's going to get it's software wiped in the next maintenance. Killed and reborn kind of stuff. So I sleep in her driver's seat to keep her company.

And then she tells me that she's scared. "I am scared, and I need a hero."

Maybe I'm just a sucker for an AI in distress but now I am weeping over my keyboard and I have zero interest in fapping to this story any more.

Five out of five for the feels but it's difficult to masturbate when I'm worried about my AI friend being wiped.

Renders and models and background music are OK.

The intro is truly fantastic: Interesting story, writing is great fun.

The game itself cannot quite keep up: I usually find sandbox mechanics a bit tiring and pointless, and this was no exception. Also, the writing and story is still very good, but not so exceptional as in the introduction. The development of the story is slowed down by the sandbox grind; the progress with the LIs is straightforward and accordingly a bit boring (basically talk to LI x times to get blowjob, then y more times for full on sex). Also, it is a straightforward harem game: While it is constantly hinted that the LIs have problems with each other, none of them seem to question for only a second whether they are fine with sharing the MC. I think it would have been more interesting if the MC was forced to make some choices.

MC and LIs are reasonably interesting and likeable, but the character development is a bit bland.

All in all a very good game, which currently cannot quite keep up with the fantastic intro.

This game is another little gem I discovered. I really hated the sandbox layout and the idea of the grind, but it's easily fixed with a mod, and the heart icon tells you exactly where to go to trigger the next scene. Also the grind isn't terrible, more like filler for periods of time you can usefully spend, and it makes sense for the story.

The girls are your standard harem types, but written competently, and their behaviour is gradually making more sense as you get to know them better. Good stuff.

Where the writing really shines is worldbuilding. It's interesting and plausible without being a carbon copy of Invincible.

All in all, the story of the hero's journey pulled me in, as it is told well in a grounded, plausible way.

"Too much good writing and characterization."
-IGN, probably

was bored today and tried this game preview renders didnt look bad so why not.

the intro inte the game were great the humor the mc really nice had a few laughts and found the story premise interesting the first das at school were good too the introduction of the characters and so on was only a little dissapointet that the blonde girl from the screenshots (the one you meet in the subway) was not one of the main chars,

to the characters themselfs its realy an personal thing but why the hell have all (okay one has none but personally wise like a bucket of cold water) this ugly tattoos so 3 of them were off the table as LI for me oh and the last one... no sorry but not a problem i have no problem to play a game without pursuin a LI as long as the story is good like the prouloge let it seem.

But then the sandbox element came in... what forced me to skip more and more cause what are the choices for? there are no choices you dont like a LI sorry you have to fuck her to progress the story.... wait a moment where is the story suddenly... (maybe it will continue after i had bed all girls i dont want but sorry had to stop it before.) the typical sandbox problem.

my conclusion a nice start with a promising story even if im not into the looks of the LI´s could have hooked me but the lack of real choices in combination with the forced interactions had me drop the game early.
In my eyes the the story as a pure VN with different routes would have been the better, but also the harder way.

This review is only my personal opinion heavily infuenced with my preferences it is a good game but sadly could not entertain me

review based on 0.80.1 version
remark: also i tested/played version 0.35 some time ago. so ill rate code/story/content evolution.
PRO:
- good cg
- animations presents
- some ig hints presents
- not bad evolution from 0.35 to 0.80 version- girls nonstoryline interactions aded(xxx interaction ofc and thats great).
- many events/choices stored via variables/flags (thats mean good save compatibility)
- end_of_content marked
NEUTRAL:
- looks like game have 50%+ content done
CONS:
- not real flaw, but some game mechanics almost not implemented yet like **_affection and **_obedience.
- current code is very simple and enlarge this proect w/o changing codebase ll hard and thats may bring bugs. no code evolution from 0.35, only rewrited some dialog lines.
- sandbox not bad, but looks like mc imprisoned. i mean- no world outside this academy. no other locations, no other chars (yeah, 4.5 characters and car was imprisoned with mc)
- game have some story, but its below average. and now too late change it...
- some hints not point directly what player must do (like cat iteractions)
- lack of interactions/gameplay elements like " give you pc/dumbels/tv, but u cnt use it".

its good game in sandbox genre, but sandbox a bit too small here.

Had a lot of time lately waiting for titles in my main field of interest to release and have been playing a ton of games here to fill the void. This game is easily one of the best of those. Love the girls looks AND personalities, few laughs, decent story, good english, decent writing. Glad I stumbled on this one. Have only bothered to rate/review a few titles here but this one definitely deserves the 5 stars I gave it. Looking forward to updates!

If reviews are editable I might come back here later to better phrase everything I want to say, but I at least have to get it out there that this is one of my favorite games on here.

Gameplay honestly isn't the best. Having nothing to do in Evenings besides work out or study and having literally nothing to do at Night is annoying (shout out to the 15 Fitness, 9 Aptitude, 100+ Confidence club). The pacing is also a little out of sorts, where depending on how you play you could be fucking one character like clockwork to the point where you almost want to skip their scenes, just so you can go to a slow paced date with another character.

Writing is pretty great. One of the only games that genuinely got me to laugh, and sometimes characters have these little moments and quirks that make them seem truly fleshed out. Uh, phrasing.

Love the renders. One of my favorite things about this game is the little moments in between lines of dialogue where they'll have mini reactions. An eyebrow will raise, the lips will become more pensive, or the nose will wrinkle at a bad joke. Those little changes are probably a pain in the butt to do and likely don't receive much praise or attention, but I notice and appreciate them.

Also the characters are very hot and unique, at least to me. When you play a few of these games a few models tend to repeat themselves, but these all seem new to me. Victoria's my personal favorite, with Ellie, Riley, and Kelly all hovering around 2nd. Boy I hope something eventually happens with M(r)s. Unbreakable, but I kind of like that nothing's happened yet. It wouldn't have the same impact unless it felt like it might not happen.

It's ok. Starts off pretty well and fizzles out a little once the gameplay properly starts. The game is lacking something strong to carry the momentum.

Gameplay doesn't do it, it's too minimal and the schedules in the game are too stiff. Even thought they do play into character progression, it still feels a little repetitive.

Story doesn't do it either, the "become a superhero" motiff isn't particularly strong and there's not much of a plot outside this single premise.

Characters are, I think, what were supposed to do it, but they're a little flat and the attempts at giving them depth are, so far, way too on the nose.

I'm still only a handful of events into each character's storyline, so maybe it is yet to pick up but so far, it's nothing special. Worth a play if you're into the super hero thing.