VN - Ren'Py - Tangled Bonds [v0.4.5 Ch.1 Remake] [Naughty4Life Games]

Overall a mediocre story that gets stranger and stranger the more you read it.

The MC shifts from simp to creep in seconds. He looks okay, speaks strange and acts so often without player input that it hurts. All his training is good for nothing, he fails everytime it counts (so far at least).

The LIs range from very interesting to unbearable. Some you get to know both as MC and as player, some are old baggage. I would've been fine with concentrating on the ones I like while being able to ignore the other, but that is not the vision of this dev. One major LI is the typical "technically not NTR" trope with an absolute disgusting "boyfriend". Hard pass for me, but the cake takes Eleanor (the Ex): unavoidable dildo-scene, even tho I declined every encounter with her. Which shows how much value your decisions will have when it comes to LI.

The dialogue hops from ok to robotic, but all in all the interactions are fine and there were a few cute moments.

On one hand it could be redone to get rid of obvious bad decisions, but seeing that this is already a remake and the Juliette/boyfriend trope seems to be a fixed part of the plot, I doubt there will be meaningful improvements. So if you are ok with forced sex scenes, a somewhat unlikable MC and a LI that shoves her boyfriend in your face, this might be worth a try.

This AVN has taken a early bad wrap. At its core, it's a pretty solid little AVN. Sure, the writing is middling at best and there are some odd things happening with the "investigation" and the way things unfold don't really make a lot of sense.

There were a few questionable story decisions, like being able to call someone who had never been mentioned and who could instantly disable a security system he knew nothing about. And the whole doppelganger scene was laughable. Then there is one LI, Elanor... forced sex scene and I could not freaking stand her. I would cringe every time she came on because something ridiculous was about to happen and she is butt ugly to boot. Speaking of butts, all the women have butts the size of Texas, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but they are bimboesque and look out of place. The renders are getting better and the H scenes are pretty good, but they still need work, specifically with lighting decisions.

Despite all of that, the dev is producing a lot of content and seems to be all in on the story and we should always support active developers. At the end of the day, I enjoyed the playthru and while I would like to give this a higher score just to pump up the ratings, I think "Average" is a pretty solid rating.

Keep your expectations moderate and give it a download. It's worth a playthru.

LI's are attractive despite model changes/looking different in certain scenes

Lewd scenes are good

Story starts ok devolves into meh

MC looks like a toolbag

Free Roam scene cannot get past.

I've tried a couple of times to like this one but I just can't

I just wanted to increase the rating a little because while this VN has a lot of flaws, it shows that its developer does everything he can to make it look good. And to be honest, for a first VN, it’s really not bad and shows progress with the last release (0.3).

The writing is the biggest issue here as the dialogues are quite bland, very generic, and the worst are when the MC is thinking, and he thinks a lot, most of the time of useless things.

Renders are getting better with time, but the dev should focus more on the lighting, it needs improvement. Animations are just ok, not fapping material if that’s what you’re looking for.

The story is good and is a welcome change from the thousands of VNs featuring a teenager attending University/College for the first time, those get very quickly annoying, unless you’re a teenager yourself and I’m far from being one. But once again the writing is at fault here, it could be much more interesting with a better writer.

The love interests are all beautiful, with each their own character, but one of them already has a boyfriend and looks happy with him, while still lightly flirting with the MC, so I don’t really see where the dev is going with this (well, I’ve decided to avoid her in my playthrough until I see what the endgame is).

To be 100% honest it deserves a 3/5 at the moment, but I give it a 4 to motivate the dev.

There is so much unnecessary and uninteresting dialogue that just goes on and on and on. The premise for the story is actually not bad. If the characters actually had something interesting to say it would be a lot better. The animations are halfway decent.
I don't think I'll even come back to this one. It's just boring due to the constant jabbering about nothing important at all.