VN - Ren'Py - Completed - Terminus Reach: Sentinel [v1.0 official] [Talothral]

I'm not gonna lie I haven't finished the game but I have around 6 hours in it, I decided to stop and (probably) come back someday. About the game, I didn't like the way we are introduced to this universe I found it too "rushed", eventually you get to know what you are, what you do, where you are, characters of interest and everything else... so let's say it was not that bad at beginning. What I didn't like is that there seems to be NO "main plot", it's like you're moving from quest to quest without a goal, MC had no motivations (and don't tell me MC had interest in the fking hybridization coz he didn't give a sht).
Despite what I mentioned I think the writing is the best asset this game has to offer.
This AVN feels like watching an average TV series when what you want to watch is a film.

Overall I'd give it a 6/10, despite being a dated oldschool game (no music, no animations, etc) the writing was good and characters were somewhat interesting, however without a main goal, IMO, it feels empty.

Have you ever wanted to be a powerful being stuck in often tedious diplomatic treaties, relations and meetings? I didn’t think so either, but Terminus Reach made it enjoyable. This is a game that completely focuses on story, worldbuilding and lots of lore. Best to approach this game as an eager sci-fi book with pictures, hampered by telling too much rather than telling too little.

STORY
Terminus Reach: Sentinel follows life on a diplomatic space station. You, an artificially bred species hybrid, are tasked with cleaning up dirty work. As the story progresses, you encounter new species and build diplomatic relations according to their customs. Eventually you walk the fine line between expert soldier and diplomatic heavyweight, killing someone off and forcing diplomatic treaties next.

The most impressive thing about Terminus is backstory. Talothral has gone to great lengths to shape a galaxy with multiple species, all with their own uses and culture. You will learn about which species are favorable to each other, which species are the cultural outliers and how you gain favor with a certain diplomatic relation. The story relies too heavily on your girlfriend Chiel having all the answers - but as a story crux it works to keep the story going.

Terminus does get way too caught up in the minute to minute dealings. You will have countless small diplomatic talks with ambassadors, checking up on fellow soldiers Nova and Aegis - only for most moments to not matter in the long run. The story could benefit from story cuts, making it more cohesive and stronger in terms of storytelling. There are things I didn’t need to learn about and things I cared about far more than the game did.

The game runs at about 10 - 12 hours and I finished it in stints because at times, the diplomatic conversations become a chore. The conversations where you learn more about the world around you are worth the effort though. In between it all, the game also tries to forward multiple relationships with women - but at this point I wouldn’t recommend you play this for any kind of sex or romance. That’s not the focus of the game and it definitely shows.

By the end of Terminus, you will have experienced a space tale that introduces you to all kinds of space shenanigans. The one issue is you often have to fix problems created by people you dislike. A new installment would greatly benefit from the main character creating his own diplomatic choices in order to influence the story and feeling more agency from that. But if you are willing to read, Terminus Reach has more than enough backstory for you to explore.

PRESENTATION
Terminus Reach: Sentinel is an older game and graphics wise, it looks dated. Talothral created countless same-looking corridors, rooms and tanks - all feeding into that early 2000 Sci-Fi aesthetic. While I appreciate the nostalgia, things tend to look very similar and sometimes downright boring. A few rooms stand out, but mostly it’s the same look shoved around, a missed opportunity even though it fits the story part of being on a space station. Towards the end, it varies a bit more - but by that time the dread has already set in.

Character models look cartoony and sometimes downright ‘rendered’ - which feeds into the 2000’s nostalgia. Up close the models look pretty detailed, it’s more so a matter of general aesthetics looking quite plain and safe. Newer projects by Talothral have shown he has since picked up on a richer visual style - so we can probably attest the look down to the learning curve of creating a game. It doesn’t really hamper the storytelling, but it might make events visually boring at times.

Sex scenes focus on intimacy and while multiple angles are used, I never got a sense of people actually bonding. This might be due to the clinical way the sex is presented, almost as if it’s something that ‘just happens’. The sex usually serves the story and isn’t that visually appealing, even though the characters look pretty good. Too bad a lot of the interesting prospects never get sex scenes. A missed opportunity, but the main character doesn’t hunger for sex like his girlfriend does.

GAMEPLAY
When introduced to Terminus, Talothral warned me that the difficulty of this game was unforgiven. A wrong choice could end you the game. Multiple times I would choose a plan of attack, it would go wrong due to random events and then I had to reload a save. It seems artificial, but it does drive home the point of the main character not being immortal. Personally, I played this game with the walkthrough included and most of the best choices felt pretty natural to me. There isn’t much in terms of variation here, it’s a novel that needs to be read in order to be experienced.

OVERALL
Terminus Reach might be a boring game overall. It might not look visually creative or appealing. But as a story, it’s quite rich. You will meet species and interact with them, only to figure out there is more to your own story as well. For people who like galaxy stories akin to Mass Effect, the worldbuilding is what makes this game worth playing. But you really have to be a fan of words and should be willing to look through the rough exterior it holds.

7/10 , 4/5 on this site.

Sci-Fi oriented story about some super-powerful psionic saving some space station from various threats and fucking some girls in spare time. Sounds boring? Nah it's actually really ok.

PROS:
+ Story. If you like games with long and interesting sci-fi plot this one here is worth playing just for sake of it.
+ Decent image quality and characters looking natural (no absurdly large tits, dicks etc.)
+ Characters have some personality, background and their place in the story so they are not just some random bimbos.
+ Bunch of sex scenes with strong focus on aliens (you may enjoy them or hate them, but you always have a choice who you want to see fucked by MC).

CONS:
- No animations.
- No sounds or music.
- Sex scenes are short and there are not many of them compared to overall game length.
- MC is absurdly powerful without any development or choices/upgrades so when it comes to battle/fight scenes we can be pretty sure about the outcome.
- More like kinetic novel than typical VN. Occasional choices are either adding new sex interests or leading to bad ends if you pick wrong. For the rest it's just cosmetics so go with the flow (low repeat value since every playtrough looks pretty much identical).
- Boring locations. Ok I understand that this is spaceship turned into stationary space station so it doesn't look like five star hotel. But if every room and location look practically the same (only difference is floor tile and decorations) you can call it laziness. And we can't see any action outside of it even if there are many things happening out there.
- Ugly crew uniforms even for sci-fi standards.

Despite all those problems and flaws it's still really good game if you are into sci-fi literature. This is no quick-fap-porn game nor RPG or action game. What we get here is good story spiced with erotic flavor. Personally I can recommend it.

I loved this game and the sequel. Great characters, some of which are pretty sexy, while the others are weird enough to make it interesting. Great story, too. Chiel is adorable. Imagine having a wife like that! Great work!

This is a review of v1.0.

Terminus Reach 1 is a bad AVN, but in an interesting way. You see, clearly a lot of time and effort went into the game, which is made clear by its length, worldbuilding and plot. But unfortunately it fails spectacularly.

Low quality visuals in AVNs, especially older ones, are almost always forgivable. But in Terminus, not only are they of low quality, but the rendering and models are done in such a way as to make the characters look flat, boring, and certainly not sexy. The environments are also largely barren and boring; the mc's bedroom literally has a bed, chair, computer, and nothing else. Just to ensure a complete lack of visual stimulation, characters (including the mc and LIs) are often dressed in ugly grey jumpsuits.

These poor visuals hurt in particular during the sex scenes. There is very little dialogue during them, so you must rely solely on the slideshow of extremely vanilla sex positions. Because of the framing, the mc's penis looks small and thin, even though it's probably slightly above average if the camera were to give us a better shot. We are told that the mc is great at sex, but from what we see him do, it looks like he would have as much chance getting a woman off as a teenage boy with premature ejaculation problems. The mc almost seems to be aware of how shit the sex scenes are, as he is most often uninterested in actually having sex and has to be cajoled into it. He shows very little affection to his partners and certainly no lust, which I believe was a deliberate (though poor) decision by Talothral.

The plot is cliche but good enough to keep you playing. The dialogue, however, is poorly written. Characters don't have distinct voices and often sound very unnatural. But the worst element is how the mc is written. From the very start, he has ridiculously overpowered, superman-level abilities, except without any kryptonite. So none of the many combat situations he encounters are interesting to watch. It seems he is supposed to be written as emotionless (except when with his partner), but also with some sort of good heart deep down. In practice, however, his character feels inconsistent and dull. Talothral repeatedly has him "solving" situations by threatening to kill everyone if they don't do what he says, which I think is supposed to be dark and badass, but just comes across as boring and unnecessary. He has no charisma and it feels insane how women take any interest in him.

Game seems to be rough on the edges, especially with models, but has good story and variety of characters. It is pretty straight forward and you can get "game over" if you take wrong choice early in the play-through. But i still recommend to play it and wait/enjoy second part or other author's game/games.

Normally I'd give out a pros and cons list, but this dev's works, two of the three I've played, have the exact same nature to them and it's far easier for me to use an external comparison than nitpick the details, as they pale in comparison to the overbearing style of the story/writing/characters.

It's Sword Art Online Season 1 and you're playing as Kirito, except he's allowed to pursue his harem master status and be gritty about it so you don't feel *too* much like a 16-year-old cringelord in an adult body. (basically, Overlord, though I know a lot of people find it cool, despite it being the exact same isekai cringe +1edgydark, so if you like Overlord, you might find this decent, too.)

If you find that type of story bearable, this game is an easy 4/5 for you.
If you don't, you might still be compelled to finish it just because it's at least written in an interesting way, albeit the plot makes barely any sense.

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I'll include a pros/cons list below but it will be short and far less relevant than what I've just written above. This applies to the other game he's made, Sorcerer, though I'll probably write a separate one for that, since it has improvements over this.

Pros

• Cohesive-enough world design.
• Decent character individuality
• Character reasoning is sound enough, given the setting.
• The harem makes sense, by virtue of the former?

Cons

• Characters can feel samey because they eventually all have mirrored interactions with the MC
• No music, would help because the MC is made to be bland-mc-serious and lends nothing to the scene other than constantly trying to be cool-stiff-killer-man.
• The plot is convoluted and characters not meant to feel compelling are written like bots.
• Character growth is limited. There is some. It is stiff and short. The MC has none, despite having the most reason to have more.

Even though you have some choices during playthrough, it's a pretty linear game, so Kinetic Novel tag is appropriate.

Pros:
- Interesting and logic plot, don't remember any abrupt or illogical story twists or smth like that.
- Good background for MC having a harem, game explains Elai culture and all that stuff, so MC has a harem not because he is a perverted jerk.
- Main LI, Chiel - probably one of the best Lis I've ever met. Sometimes she gets a bit annoying trying to pimp MC out to other women, but other than that I love her character very much. Oh, and the way how Chiel and MC hug and kiss each other during the whole game is just so very cute.
- Almost no dialogues during sex scenes.

Cons:
- Aegis and Nova. I've got a dilemma here, I liked Nova very much, Aegis, on the other hand, everything about her was a huge turn off for me. The problem is - if you want to have smth with Nova then you have to be engaged with Aegis as well, hence, if you reject Aegis, you automatically reject Nova as well. And they are not some lesbian couple or anything. It is the reason for 4 stars, I hate being forced into a relationship with a girl I don't like. It is not a big deal anyway, it is probably me, being a picky prick))) I played another game from this Dev - Sorcerer, and I did not include quite a few girls in harem as well but I don't remember rejecting one girl impacting other.

In general game is definitely worth playing. Space theme, aliens and all that stuff.

v1.0

Really enjoyed this one, unfortunately it does have a lot of negatives. Unlike most VNs which either leans more to lewd content or romance or equal weightage of both, this VN instead focuses heavily on the storyline. Lewd stuff and romance takes a back seat. The narrative has a unique style in that it feels like watching a movie with subtitles. Dev got the storyboard properly done right in this one. Writing needs a little work though, too many repetitiveness in conversations for example and interactions between characters feel stoic and robotic sometimes.

Theme is futuristic sci-fi with space magics(psionics), space ships and aliens. Setting is on a space station, kinda reminds me of Mass Effect, the Citadel where it is a neutral ground and galactic hub where all species congregate. You play as a psionic black ops soldier that gets skyrocketed to leadership role on the space station. Plot has heavy focus on diplomacy, political intrigue and subterfuge. Story is really good.

As mentioned before, lewd scenes and romance takes a back seat so this might not be the game for you. These 2 aspects are not the devs strongest suit, in this game and also his previous VN. So the sex scenes are pretty boring and vanilla while the romance is insipid and lacks emotion.

Models and renders are average. It doesn't have the quality, polish in a way. Like the sets for scenes are barren while the characters and assets are of mediocre quality. What it does got right is the aesthetics for the characters though. There are NO smoking hot aliens that is so prevalent in most games. They are unattractive and visually alien to us in terms of looks as it should be realistically. I mean you can't seriously expect aliens to look like the cat girl in your dreams. For the other humans, the females are fugly. A spec ops lady looks like what a female operative should, so don't expect beautiful super models in the military that you only see in recruitment posters. So this might not be for everyone. One missed opportunity though is the lack of more alien varieties, all the aliens are humanoids, i wish it had multi limb aliens or jellyfish aliens etc.

The characters is another negative point of this game. They lack a properly developed backstory and they do not have strong and unique personalities, so they feel very dull and uninteresting. This inevitably leads to monotonous interactions that feel lifeless. The romance between the MC and his wife is sweet but becomes especially tiresome as they are in honeymoon mode throughout the ENTIRE game. I mean seriously, there needs to be a certain level of decorum and professionalism at work and especially in a military organization which is all about respect and discipline. I've been in the military and worked in civilian jobs too, met a lot of work couples(close friends with some) but i've never seen a couple that honeymoons at work.

The MC is a hit or miss. I like his ruthlessness and objective focus mindset in addition to his emotionless demeanor. He is the kind of guy who is calm and collected under pressure, able to overcome odds when shit hits the fan, someone people look up to but he is kind and caring on the inside. However he borders on the line of edgy type of character, tragic history but holds great power, goes cringy type of berserk when in rage or his circle gets into danger. The typical chunibyou you see in anime with brats as protagonist. His strongarm style of diplomacy is unrealisitic and illogical due to this. This is an issue as it breaks the pillar of leadership image he has and makes him look extremely immature. Its further exuberated by his strong plot armor. Whats the point of difficult decisions when plot armor saves the day.

In conclusion, the plot basically heavily carried this VN all the way. Story is really good that it made all the negatives less obvious. However you can't help but occasionally nitpick on the negatives throughout the story. Personally i'd give this a 3.5/5 stars rating.

feelsgoodman. story nice. people nice. nice dialoge, space poggers. great update speed. you feel in depth of each person and they have story behind and they come back later when you think that they might be forgotten. and the small little things that you take notice to. and easter eggs or refrences

I should probably start with the fact that I don't think this is a 5/5 game. But I still gave it 5 stars for a simple reason...I'd say that there were 3-4 games at most that made me actually read the text.
Now for the "porn" part it has ups and downs. Ups because the characters are different from each other both in mentality and in their bodies downs because for example the alien species even though they have alien bodies their genitals are still 100% human which I find a bit sad (maybe it's an engine limitation but felt like a wasted oportunity) same with the horned alien lady lacking a scene where her horns are used as handles...it would 100% fit her "theme" so again felt a bit like a missed opportunity. Otherwise the models are a bit plastic and no real animations.
Despite all that it's a great game absolutely worth playing and reading through and I am glad I spent my time doing that. Really hope the author's next project will be able to hook me in a similar fashion.

Got so into the story that I wound up playing the game straight thru. The H-scenes are good but like I said before it was the story that grabbed and held my interest. Looking forward to future projects from this developer.

10/10! Excellent story and graphics. I was pleasantly surprised the more I played with how deep the story and characters are. I would highly recommend this game, and will be watching for more titles from Talothral ... keep up the good work!

Version Played: 1.0
Time played: 8+ hours. Reached end of game.

Before we begin, I think it's important to note that I played this after playing Sorcerer. For better or worse, this experience colors my opinion of this game. Not being a huge fan of sci-fi settings, I have to admit, I'm not sure how interested in this one I would have been had it not been for Sorcerer. I liked the modern setting with fantasy elements that game featured and it drew me into its world and characters. I'm going to try to finish out this review without referencing Sorcerer again, but if you happen to be in the same boat as I was, you should know that this game plays out like a dry run for Sorcerer, only in space.

In this game you play as a human gifted with (overly) powerful psionic abilities. The game's environs are mainly limited to the space station, so expect a lot of bare metal and airlocks. You find yourself learning about a sinister plot that starts with you and your kind that then reveals itself to threaten the very existence of the station you call home. I won't spoil anything beyond that, as the story is easily the strongest part of the game, but if a sci-fi space thriller sounds up your alley, you'll probably enjoy this. Sadly, the game falls flat with some older-looking renders and rather boring sex scenes (fucking aliens notwithstanding).

Positives
+ Great story and original characters
+ English usage is good (not perfect, as there are grammatical and spelling errors, but more than passable)
+ Complete

Negatives
- Lackluster sexual content, hardly any fetishes represented and bad animations
- MC is OP to an absurd degree
- You can advance very far in the game and lock yourself into a bad ending due to your choices. Not a huge issue as the creator himself has left a walkthrough and you can always use the skip feature to move things along, but annoying nonetheless.

I wanted to enjoy this a lot more than I did. It's a good thing I played Sorcerer before this, as I doubt I would have been compelled to play that game after this.
That said, while the creator is still very clearly still learning the ropes here, this game has a lot going for it if you like the setting and are interested in deeper narratives in adult gaming.
Recommended.

Gameplay
Controls: Click to progress, occasional choice of options.
Interface: Basic menus.
Writing
Plot: Pretty much the only reason to play, interesting enough to not skip through.
Characters: Diverse personality, with their own motivations.
Typos: Typos are not frequent, but sometimes it seems like a sentence got skipped over. A character will ask a question and the next line is them acting like they got a response.
Art
Models: Decent enough, not bad enough to criticize, not good enough to praise.
Background: Much better than the models for some reason
Audio
Music: Silent
Effects: Silent
Voices: Silent

Amazing story Talothral loved the universe and it's diversity.

I just don't rate this project 5/5 due to in my opinion there is room for improvement.

Will check out the sequel once time agrees with it, best wishes for your work and the team behind the scenes if there is one sry kinda clueless there.

Great game to be honest! I have just finished playing it for the first time! Awesome story! Great job! I haven't tried "The Sorcerer" yet, but this one was great! The creator is now releasing a Sequel, which is great!

I liked it a lot. While Sorcerer has better visuals due to being the second game I found the story engaging and interesting. I really liked the different species and the inter-relations. Definitely looking forward to the Second one.

My only critique is I missed out on a relationship with Zae'na by not telling her to stop mind reading which was strange to me as I felt allowing her to continue would be more 'friendly' an approach.

I gave this one a shot, but I just couldn't quite get into it. At its core, Terminus Reach is a sci-fi VN in which you play as Commander Shepard's less charismatic and more edgelord younger brother. Unfortunately, it's just not really good enough at anything to be a real gem.

The renders are dated at best and outright ugly at worst. I wasn't really a fan of them as bald isn't my favorite look and the aliens are quite unattractive. The animations, such as they are, are still images pushed together and repeated to create a stop motion-like effect. It's not great, nor are the sex sequences.

The story is much better, but still falls short. In a strange sort of way, I feel it's because of the porn. There's an interesting sort of political thriller if you dig around the unnecessary harem. Unfortunately, the harem really takes time away from the political machinations, which is rough as the story and alien societies complex and need all the screen time they can get to make sense. As is, it can feel a bit dense and confusing.

Stacked on this issue is the main character. Edgelord is truly the most applicable term. The core of his character is an assassin with a heart of gold who doesn't care about anyone... except his girlfriend, his friends, the people of the station... so okay a lot of people. But still, he'll kill anyone in cold blood who threatens any of those people and joke about it while doing it. I think it's immediately obvious how that character is unnecessarily edgy for the sake of edge. Add a few bonus points for him being the closest thing to god in the setting and we have a real problem child.

In summary, Terminus Reach strikes me as a reasonably decent VN that suffered from adding porn. Without porn there'd be no issues with unattractive aliens/females, more focus on the fairly good political drama, and a slightly more reasonable main character. However, the game does feature porn and everything is weaker for its inclusion.

An hidden masterpiece.
This is the first creature of Talothral, sometimes the pic aren't great, but the story itself is great.
I repeat myself, a masterpiece.
I played it no stop for like 6 hours. You start the game and after the first 10 minutes, you need to know what gonna happend next and so you go on and go on and go on and go on.
My fortune is that a finish it and discovered that there will be a next chapter. GREAT!!
One of my favourite game!


Ps
Sorry for my not so good English