Ren'Py - The Awakening [v0.4.6b] [SLim Games]

This is a game that has amazing production value (great renders, character models and animations) but has really mediocre to subpar everything else. The characters in this game are pretty unappealing personality wise and feel bland and uninteresting in both their dialogue and their "inner conflicts." The corruption in this game doesn't even feel satisfying as it feels as if the game is constantly battling being a romance harem and a corruption harem but it just can't choose what it wants to be.

The story isn't really even a story and more just there as an excuse to build up a harem. The characterization of the main character is pretty inconsistent going from the prologue to the story. He turns out to be the typical corruption pervert type of MC, not smart, charasmatic or appealing but everything always works out for him somehow. The voice acting is pretty inconsistent (I.E it's not there for most scenes and... the absolute best it can be described at is average) but at least it's better than nothing, certainly just having voice acting is a positive.

The amount of content in this game is... actually surprising little for how long this game has been out now (5 years). Of all other game's that I've played that have been out for this long or even for a shorter amount of time like 3 or four years they all have substantially more content. As for the h-scenes themselves they can only really be described as... average overall. Of course they have great animations and renders but the dialogue is pretty awful and short.

I wouldn't say this game is bad overall... It's just average but is really nothing more than Fap material

Review of v0.4.3b

The Awakening has by far the biggest disparity between production values and writing quality out of all AVNs I've played. The visuals and animations are top notch; you even quickly get access to a sort x-ray power to see beneath women's clothes, adding sex appeal to some dull scenes (though assumedly adding a lot of render time). There is also voice acting (the only AVN I've played with any), and while its quality is inconsistent - one actress reads all of their character's lines in an amateur, monotone "sultry" voice, which sounds so unrealistic it could be in comedy skit - some of it is genuinely okay.

But the writing is seriously mediocre. The plot is medium, the characters are 2D, the relationships don't feel meaningful, and worst of all, the mc is unlikable. He's a douchebag (at one point he tells his mom she is too old to wear some clothing), dumb, the opposite of charming, unconfident, and a wimp. However, the line-by-line writing is fine, so the game is playable.

The sex scenes are a microcosm of the game's problems: the high production values make them look hot, but the mediocre writing makes it hard to connect to them.

The game currently feels very short, with relationship arcs which feel 20%-50% done depending on the character.

I don't know for how long this game has been in development, but atm is like about 10% complete. And that is a bloody shame because what we have is so damn good! But is not enough..... It seems like the developer had the bright idea to remake the game instead of finishing it in the first place..... The game is practically in a frankenstein state atm.

I love it, graphically it is spectacular, the only bad thing is the time it takes to update, but it is worth it. The story is very good and engaging, I hope the Dev continues on this path. My five stars for a great game.

Such a difficult game to review.

There are times where it's worthy of a 5 star but the quality never holds up. While the renders are gorgeous and the LI's are sexy the plot always falls back on tropes that makes it a game among hundreds. It's as if the game doesn't know which direction it wants to take and tries to shove sex scenes into the mix and hopes it holds together.

Really want to give it a 5 but when the dialogues become banal enough for you to skip through there's little justification for the highest score.

Now that the overhaul or remaster or whateber is here - finally! Its good! Grwat animations, fun little minigames, beautiful characters and a nice story. God I wish I had a Trixy in real life, best winged wingfairy ever!

It is a alright game the graphics are nice but it might as well just be a visual novel none of the choices really matter and they are manly do you like this character yes or no. The Fairy part now coming back and replaying the game really serves no propose id honestly just rather have her by another character close to the MC like kinky girlfriend or something the only transformation is MC shrinking to her size or her growing to his. Game has Domination loss with teacher where it lets you choose for her to Dom you which is here lightly slapping MC dick with ruler once then never have any choice for her to Dom you ever again kind of makes it seem in story that it is wrong for her to be dominate and she could only be happy being submissive which i don't think was there intention for it just not the best written the scenes are well animated though and if you like just plan missionary this game has a lot of that. Overall Sandbox is kind of pointless in current state but it is with most games on here and I realized the game is really short and the reason I thought it was longer was because I was waiting for updates.

love the game so far. it started off as being a bit over the top but as the fairy explained the situation, the game sort of grew on me. Its wel written en most lines are voiced. Personally i would suggest the voice actors to use reverbes like he/his/him instead of silence for the 'insert name' field, to give the game a bit more pazazz, make it more immersive.

As for the interactions with Linda and her mother Victoria, omg i love redheads...; really lookin forward to more options to interact with them.

Also, mad props for having a physically challenged girl in the game with an artificial leg. Not all girls need to be symmatric to be interesting.

so to recap,
images and cutscenes 5/5
story 5/5
voice acting 3/5

TL/DR: Set an alarm clock to wake you on Christmas 2027, you may have a decent game to play by then


Ok, get in a car accident, wake from a coma 2 years later with no memory, check. Yes we've seen this before, but this one was one of the first times I'd seen this kind of plot. That's how old it is. Granted powers from a supernatural being, again check, and again it was a pretty novel idea at the time. The Dev decided to redo a lot work at some point, I applaud his dedication to producing a quality product.

A large chunk of the game start had been redone and I'm 100% for it. New renders are some of the best around now that it 2003. You like tits? "Landlady" went from a formidable EEE to a whopping HH! All while retaining her 28" waist. "Roommate" went from looking like a toddler took some Barbie and Bratz dolls apart, (went to reassemble then and forgot which pieces went to whom) to now looking like an actual teenage girl (for the most part, still barely a B cup, but that's ok). Dialogue changes feel more natural (turn due the FONT SIZE on the UI PLEASE!!!!)
Why 3 stars?
Us dedicated fans have held the faith longer than the lifespan of a small household pet , and when the update is finally released, IT'S ONLY HALF FINISHED!
I Say "half", but I'm not really sure. All I know I was really starting to enjoy the new merge/update when BAM! A notice smacks you in the face with a warning that you are about the view multiple dessicated corpses of great ideas whose life expired before the artistic skills existed to properly developed them. Grant you, the dialogue was never really bad, and I think it's improved even more with the update, at least the part that was updated.

So basically, your revving along in the muscle car of your choice, cruising and listening to the tunes , you know, life is good, when you fall in to a mud filled crater, and are handed a promise things will be better "soon". Well now I'm slogging through the old game (in the new) which I stopped supporting $$$ because the interface was horrible, even with CHEATS there was little coherence to any actual plan, and 90 % of game play ending up being clicking endlessly around your empty apartment waiting for your mother to get home, or waiting to sleep/rape your sister who would've willingly given it to you.

Oh, honorable mention to adding the voice overs, except they don't exist in the update part yet, and in the old part, the don't work with the existing dialogue.

Unlike others I do hope this is not another money grab and that the dev is committed to the quality of his product, but as for now, without seeing major upswings in the dev cycle (it IS software, after all), my only motivation to start supporting this game again would be so my yet-not-even-conceived grand kids have great grand kids that reach puberty. They may enjoy the game by then, or it may be undergoing another major rewrite. Good luck, Dev

The first time I played this was quite a while ago, I don't even remember exactly when, it was basically just a prologue. I played through again when the first chapter came out and it had been changed. After that to be honest I thought it had been abandoned. This is the third iteration of it I have played.

To be honest I think it looks good. The hospital scene at the beginning was a bit off writing wise. The doctor didn't act much like a doctor.

You can tell some changes have been made to the appearance of the models. Another mom with way over sized boobs, not my thing and I swear they got bigger. Sis is definitely more my type. I prefer models who look realistic.

A couple of spoilers ahead.

The biggest problem is after the haunted house part the next day at school there are a couple of glaring continuity mistakes. It acts as though things that happened previously either didn't happen or happened differently such as sis commenting about the MC playing video games all night and walls being thin when she had actually slept next to the MC. Also MC having a flash back and commenting on her having brown hair when he already had flashbacks of her with brown hair, so it wasn't new.

The look and feel of the game also changes. Interactions between the MC, mom and sis all take a different tone. They suddenly treat each other slightly different. It feels as though someone else took over the writing part way through and changed how the characters act and speak.

This is one of those VNs where you have to click on a choice box even when there is only one choice given. That could stand to be eliminated.

On the upside the sleep creep thing is optional, at least so far which is good, I've never been a fan of that. It's just another way of sneaking in nonconsensual sex. It would be nice to have options on fetishes such as anal sex as well. For me some is fine, it depends on my mood but vaginal is preferred.

Over all this has good potential but the continuity missteps need fixed.

My review on The awakening.
Pros: Renders
I found the models to be excellently drawn. Not too over the top. The Sister and Linda was my favorites since both of them had the 'perfect' size for me. And when a certain event happens with the Fairy....LOVED IT!
Storyline:
It had an interesting twist on an amnesia patient. It was interesting for the MC and you to discover his background.

Cons:
Like 75% of the games on here, you run into the 'under development'/ 'not implemented in this build' wall. It really sucks when you are enjoying a game and it abruptly ends. And having learned from past experience, if you 'support' the creator, a person is rolling the dice. The author may finish it in 3-4 months, never or marked it "Abandoned".

And what was the point of putting your seed 'deep' into one of the women to impregnate them? I had hoped that would at least have went somewhere but it didn't alas.

Verry Nice Game Love playing it !!! Amazing renderings and animations beautiful pictures Keep up the amazing work !!! very interesting story line it's very addictive to play such amazing game Can't wait for next parts to come out

(TL;DR at final paragraph)Have you ever played a game where the beginning is really great, and then shortly after all goes to shit, but the beginning was so interesting that you insisted through all the garbage content just in the hope that it would get good just like in the beginning again sometime? perhaps in your experience your effort was paid off and you enjoyed a good time after some sacrifices. that unfortunately wasn't my case.

Erotic game players play such games not only purely for the imagery of sex, of course. As many already argue in this site constanly, if that was the case, they would simply watch conventional porn, be it animated or filmed. Therefore, it can be said that one of the most basic aspects to compose a good erotic game is a good story and good characters that the player would love to see engaging in such activities; "The Awakening" unfortunately fails critically to deliver that

Perhaps the reason why is a personal "bias"(not really) of mine, which ironically comes from the development team themselves: the characterization established in the prologue. As recommended for those who want to have the definitive experience, I played the prologue first and only after finishing it I went to the main game. The clash between the quality of the writing of those two would frustrate anyone who got attached anyhow to the characters in the prologue.

For clarity's sake, it's perfectly understandable for the prologue to be in a better state than the main game, since it was seemingly developed after. So that's a good sign, it shows that the team are improving in the delivery of quality in this project. However, that does not change the fact that the prologue is still just a prologue. From the team's point of view, it might be that they're just getting started at writing a very good story from the prologue, sure, but that doesn't change the fact that the main game is still the main part, it's still where the player expects to receive what they came here for and where they expect to enjoy the game to the fullest.

Now then, elaborating further in why there's such a downgrade in the player's point of view(and upgrade from the team's point of view), it starts with something that is just an observation: the characterization has factually changed. And I say just "characterization" ambiguously because i'm not only talking about the characters, but even the narrative style of the story itself(which is inherently connected with the protagonist's writing). That happens because in the prologue, your protagonist is initially an average joe, there's no special peculiarity at all in him until the game establishes so later(In a scene where he's eating dinner with his mom and they talk about how he uses to think deeply about random things, he always used to). If anything, the protagonist seems to be a really good guy, always caring for those around him and doing his best to develop the best relationships possible with his comeback after 2 years(with the game even juxtaposing his current behavior with the one he had before the accident, a much more selfish and toxic one - perhaps a parallel using metatext to refer to his character in the main game? who knows?). In the game, the main character has a monologue in his head where he basically thinks "I've lied to you, I still lie to you and will continue to do so." in a scene where his mother is basically asking him to be honest with her. There's nothing the player can do about that, nothing they can change. This example is very straightforward in showing how much he changed.

That being said, it goes the same way for Mom's character too(and perhaps other characters that I can't even talk about since I just dropped the game before I even could analyze their lines more carefully. it's just too poorly done). Not only her characterization in the prologue is established as a very caring mother, doing her best to be gentle and pleasable with her son all the time, it's also presented in a very natural and humane way. That results in the Mom's character not being presented as an one-dimentional lady who's only nice all the time, but just as a good mother who's flawed just as much as any other one. She shows as a good and comfortable mothely character simply because that's her at her best, not because it's the only thing the character has to offer. Now then, please take a look at her line, said out loud, directed to her son in the main game: "I never wanted your gross dick anyway, you perverted asshole."(she says as she points her middlefinger to her own son). Of course, one could rightfully say that that's because of her own son's attitude, but that just goes back to my general point: It's the writing style as an whole(that affects all characters) that has also changed.

Talking about the visuals of the sexual scenes now-
I can't. Because the main game softlocked me before I could get to any with the mom. The developer of this game themself has already suggested simply loading old saves if you want to continue the story. Not only the game is poorly written, it's also poorly programmed.

TL;DR That's what sums up my experience here as an whole, even. Simply imagine getting engaged in a erotic story because of a really cool start and then proceeding to get frustrated not only because of the quality of the story itself, but because you can barely get anything beyond that since the game is so poorly constructed you can't get to play the game that much. I don't believe any of my criticisms here are inherent to this project and I hope that the developer fix them in a future update with a lot of polishing and rework.

The dialogue is boring and poorly written. There is no humor or anything that makes you feel anything. It's almost as if a robot had written it. The x-ray vision is overdone and to be honest, I feel this game is a waste of time.

It is a great advance that they have removed all the crappy sandbox elements, but the story remains what it always was, incoherent, poorly written, the characters are mega flat, you just wait for some fairly erotic scene to pull the sausage and that's it.

I think the model of the mother has improved a lot in some angles, like the face, but the breasts are terrible, the other characters are basically the same, at this point of time using Genesis 3 models looks very outdated.

Positive point, the animated intro, the UI, the few animations that can be seen in this prologue are well done, technically it is a well done VN, easily above average, but it still has the same problems as always, a null story , and flat characters, mostly outdated models, for me it's nothing more than another porn game from the pile.

This is a typical fetch-quest open world type game. There are tons of females to pursue, which can be a great thing, but also a bad thing. In this case, some of the bad comes out. Progress can be slow (both for us players and for the dev getting content added), and some events of the girl you want are blocked by events from others. The art and animations are all mostly top notch (most of the sex scenes are a bit too slowly animated for me). There is audio which is nice. The voice acting gives it a nice polish but really isn't necessary imo.

Really what it boils down to for me is that it isn't very sexually compelling. Linda and her mom are fun, but kinda slow to get into. Was hoping for a threesome but due to there being so many girls, the dev likely hasn't gotten around to it yet. The sister is kinda cringe. The mom and teach are great but, again, just a slow pain in the ass to make progress with. The dev does not push the taboo topics much imo, makes the game more on the """"realistic""" side (many quotes for obvious reasons), but it's a sex game with a fairy and magic and incest; let's whip out the over-the-top dialog please.

Anyways, it's fine. I got semi-erect once. If you've only played a few H games, you'll probably love this. If you've played some or many, this will fall unmemorably amongst everything else. I also expect progress to continue to be slow. I was very surprised to find that the dev is still introducing new characters instead of building out the existing ones (two random characters were added late in the current 0.4.1 version). Who knows if he'll get on a whim to add even more and create additional distractions for himself. That seems like a great idea if a dev, for some wanted a game to take a long amount of time to develop

I really like the artwork.
Especially the animations are lovingly designed and even "stills" were partially animated.
Story is absolutely fine. It doesn't always have to be the literary heavy novel.

Nice Storytelling, loveable characters, very good animations it is a lot of fun - way better as the first version. Im really looking forward. Hope this game is going on for a while. The fairy is really a unique character.

Not much content currently but I'll review what there is.

Art is good. Story and pacing are lackluster.

Dialogue is boring and not realistic. More effort put into the story in both dialogue and pacing could make this a better game.

Animation and voice acting truly make this game great. If there was a quality ranking of these games this would be one of the few I place in S tier. just because it is one of the few that makes sure that Music, Visuals, Story, Voice acting and Animation is covered. Keep it up (would just wish there was a way to help you so you could make more content in a shorter amount of time).