VN - Ren'Py - The Coven [v0.9.5] [Former Flame]

VERSION: 0.9.5
SUMMARY: Not bad, but average to good at best due to porn logic.
RATINGS: (out of 5):

NOTE: The following categories and scoring method are my own criteria and may require more context.

1. Model Visuals........................... : ⭐⭐⭐⭐
2. General Visuals......................... : ⭐⭐⭐⭐
3. Animation Quality....................... : ⭐⭐⭐⭐
4. Character (Persona)..................... : ⭐⭐⭐⭐
5. Story Quality & Pacing.................. : ⭐⭐⭐
6. Writing Quality & Dialogue.............. : ⭐⭐⭐⭐
7. UI & Game-play Mechanics................ : ⭐⭐⭐
8. Playtime & General Quality.............. : ⭐⭐⭐
9. Sounds & Music...........................: ⭐⭐⭐
10. H-Content & Fetishes.................... : ⭐⭐

Average: 34 of 50 possible points giving a 68% rating i.e. 3-4 stars.

PROS:

1. Models are nice look and LIs overall are attractive.
2. Animations are decent, better than average but not up to the quality of some games we have seen. Small things like the character smile is done well.
3. Story is generally good, but has some porn logic when it comes to sex, nudity with "family" members.
4. Writing is pretty good, structured and reads well. Not bloated and boring conversations and things are drawn out enough to keep the player reading and interested.
5. Sounds that are there are done well, like the LI in the pool has headset on so the player hears music but when taken off the music is off, those details are great. BUT! See cons.

CONS:

1. Animations while nice and smooth can be a bit grainy with pixilization happening, this does unfortunately spoil from the render quality when the transition occurs.
2. Regarding porn logic plot holes, this does annoy me a bit, especially when the "family" members are so blase about being nude in front of the MC or the fact that LIs throw themselves at the MC. Added to this the main plot is non-existent and ignored ultimately. See Comments
3. While sounds are sometimes done well, the issue I have is that there are too few, even basic music during the game is missing. Note: this has been implemented later only.
4. Little to no kinks, pregnancy seems to be suggested but doesn't happen. No other kinks really come into play and things are fairly vanilla.

FINAL REMARKS, OPINIONS & SUGGESTIONS:

NOTE: The following remarks are my personal opinions and thoughts, which may provide more context and could be useful to the developer.

• The "household/family" get quite sexual and suggestive early on with the MC. The game is clearly made IMO to imply family, as he inherited his power. However the "family" have little issue being fully naked with the MC like its the most natural thing ever, there simply are no inhibitions to show EVERYTHING, yet there is a no fucking the "family" rule that was never explained to the MC or the player??? WTF.
• Added to above, the main plot is totally ignored, that being the MC being a male i.e. wizard, but so what? He is constantly missing class, never learns his powers and they speak of danger and threat but no one knows from who? Its all flimsy and focussed on the MC banging everyone BUT the main characters and the dev constantly creates more LIs and distractions to fuck the same way as half a dozen before...BORING. 4 Years later with game development and the game has hardly progressed and only churned out more FAP material which you can easily just watch porn for online thats better...
• Per above point the woman all fawn over the MC and his super power initially is to cum inside at least 2 woman to prove he has magical abilities. The all just adds to that porn logic which cheapens the game overall. Its not a deal breaker though and this is an adult VN...so I get it, but sometime I wish devs would build this around more natural and logical dialogue to make it work rather than just throw it out there.
• Sounds can be improved, there are not enough ambient, environmental sounds and the very important lewd scene sounds like moans, gasps, slapping sounds, etc are not present. This is a very important method for creating immersion and adding quality to a game, IF done correctly. While some music and in game sounds have been added later on it still feels a little like an afterthought and the first part of the game should be reviewed for consistency.
• Sexual scene animations particularly intercourse looks a bit just like shoving the dick in a hole and does not have the FX or detailed look that I would prefer. Its rather bland but not horrible. My critique is mostly due to the game having good quality overall but it drops the ball in these moments. Breast moving effects are nice though, not 100% accurate and there are better, but im nitpicking here, its still good.
• I am a bit concerned about the pace and amount of content that comes out, seems pretty slow and not a hell of a lot. There is a good amount of content if you start playing at the time this review was done, but keep in mind this VN was dropped 4 years ago and that does change the picture significantly....

TLDR:

A fairly good game with good renders and solid idea for a story/premise. Its told pretty well, but does feel a bit lower on the quality only because its not consistently good or great as it should be, particularly for lewd scenes that just feel like a rinse and repeat of something we saw before, including the annoying "continue" button that fuck knows why is there when you can simply scroll back.

Further the plot holes, flimsy story and the developer burying the story under more girls for the MC to bone, for no reason but because he can, the main plot goes nowhere and its all pretty boring and stale in the end because it never gets anywhere...pity...

At first I thought this has a really good premise but seemed a bit ridiculous in execution. The girls just drop their panties as soon as they see the MC. However as the game has gone on the story is getting better and better and everything is starting to make more and sense. I'm really pleased you don't have to have the incest if you don't want to. There's lots of beautiful female characters of all ages so you don't have to play at home. I would like to see a little more foreplay and more in the finish of the sex scenes as there's loads of sex in the middle but its quick at the start and finish. Can't wait for the next update.

Doesn't disappoint, has an interesting premise where I am interested in where it goes. The only real down side is the frequency of updates but when it does update they are never a disappointment and by now there is a decent amount of content available.

First my english is not so good, sorry.
This Game has a Story that has up and downs, it makes you think : Nice Nice ... ok ok ... and then Wow what comes now. It has a realy good balance between Story and Sexual-Scene´s .
The look and Renders of every Charakter is realy good and i like it a loot.
I can say every who like a Game where is both, Story and Sex-Scene´s, good should give this Game a try.

Does the world need yet another Harry Potter inspired AVN? Actually, yes. Unlike most, this one is purely kinetic except for the possibility to opt out of specific love interests. The renders are made with Daz but are so good that I almost don't miss Honey Select (which I generally prefer). A few of the girls are actually as beautiful as the best Honey Select girls, and that's not something I expected to ever write. This is important because while the plot is well thought out, it clearly just exists to carry the sex scenes. Don't expect deep psychological development here; that's not what it is about.

In the world of this story, only some women have magic abilities, and must strictly keep them secret from everyone without them. The main character unknowingly grows up with five witches: his mother, his mother's lesbian partner, and three sisters. The plot begins with the discovery that the MC is the first man in centuries who also has magic abilities. (The sex scene that leads to this has a very poor, cliché, script. But the writing get better soon afterwards.) Consequently he ends up in a small, female-only kind of modern Hogwarts which turns co-ed the moment he becomes a student there. This setting naturally gives rise to plenty of sex scenes, which are generally substantial and quite good.

There is an element of adventure because the MC is obviously a 'chosen one'. He has far more power than female witches, although he does not yet know how to use or control it. His power makes him a perceived threat and a likely target of assassination attempts. For variety of sexual partners, other witches' covens in other countries as well as the nature-loving Dryads are introduced.

Overall, this is a very expertly crafted AVN for what it wants to be. Although it's a bit by-the-book and misses that spark that would make me put it on the list of best AVNs of all time, it's fun and without any major flaws, and therefore automatically worth five stars by my rating principles.

This piece is such a missed opportunity!! I mean, the women are hot, for the most part (some a bit dated artistically, but ALL VN's that have persevered for awhile have that cross to bear to some extent), most have intriguing personalities, backstories, likes and dislikes, etc. And the story itself is worth pursuing, with historical weight and myths aplenty.
So what's the problem?
For me, one thing: THE MC. Good God, the boy has ZERO affect. Like, NONE.
Any view we have the misfortune to see of his face shows NADA.
Which has the regrettable effect of making all the females (99.9% of the other cast members) seem incredibly stupid and gullible. Okay, sure, the kid has certain warlockish gifts that apparently make them all go gaga. But does that mean he has to be a block of wood? BORING!
Really, he's supposed to be, or at least be SEEN to be, this charismatic exemplar of male magnetism, and the dude can't even raise his eyebrows, let alone crack a smile. Makes Eddie Munster seem like Jim Carrey.
So, yeah, too too bad.
"For want of a male..."
And so much delicious incest potential, if only...aaah! )

When i play a game i usually expect 2 things from scenes, Some relationship development or the world construction, in this game feels like 70% of them are just waste of time, just characters talking something irrelevant.

When it comes to sex scenes they are good, but there's no development into them, the game just throw a lot of nude at you and block you from the rest, the sex scenes that happens are side girls or the older ones ( not much my thing)

I came back after over a year and the only new content is a sex scene with literally who side chicks that has about 458 different angles and 191 different animations. Except, you know, side chicks. There is still no movement with the sisters or the moms, and I could not be more disappointed.

The setup is great. A man with limitless magical power among a sea of hot witches, I mean how could you possibly screw that up? You screw it up by creating a great world and then after introducing interesting people you turn it into a fuckfest with everyone other than who people care about. I do not care about Gwen and Hannah, there was fifteen seconds of conversation and then a twenty minute orgy that I clicked through as fast as possible, hoping to move back to what I wanted. Except nah, "end of version" etc etc.

I can safely predict that within a couple updates (aka nine years or so) you'll sex all three sisters and both moms up out of nowhere, and it will be about as boring as reading a review on a porn game website. Unless you're okay with shiny butthole/30 women with the same vagina model/random no-backstory women, avoid this one at all costs.

That was a fantastic game! The storyline is incredibly engaging, and I’m excited to see how it develops and whether we’ll have the opportunity to choose our own path. So far, it appears we’re playing the role of a good character, but the history of male sorcerers has led to significant conflict among witches in the past. Personally, I’m drawn to the nature coven with the oracle. There’s something intriguing about it that makes me feel we’ll uncover more powerful magic there. Great job overall! I can’t wait to see what comes next.

If you come here looking for the Dostojevskij of porn you're in the wrong place, hell I'd say you're in the entirely wrong genre. That being said, this is a fun little harem romp with some real nice models and a better than average story for harem games, with the potential to become really great. All I ask for is a little more bush and a little more story focus.

Fairly boring visual novel without any gameplay, the story did not make any appeal or even sense. Lots of girls, maybe too much, models of them are average or below average in quality.

The characters don't make any feelings, and just jump on MC D as soon as possible, some models are taken from other games like midnight paradise, but somehow look worse than original.

This VN has "visual", it doesn't have "novel".
Immersion, emotion, build-up...all things that make a story engrossing and enjoyable are somehow dead cold here.
The plot serves as a fast-paced background and a very basic pretext for another occurence in a pretty primitive "everyone jumps on my dick" fuckfest.
It's not catching. It's not feelable. It's disappointing.

I really love the story about magic and one person which have so much more strength than the rest and I am this person
Most renders are very good. A few things about in the first szene they have pubic hair and in the following they don't have is a little bit sad but these are minor irregularities. Thank you for your good work!

I will give this game 5/5 because I cant think of a single thing I would change, other than that I don't know why this one sticks out among many others, but it just does. My favorites are the "landladies". This is 1 of 3 games I keep looking forward to playing more. The updated takes a while, but in my eyes it is well worth the wait.

Short summary:


So here is the gist - MC has a magical dick and his cum is the most precious thing in existence. Every girl around you, including your relatives, is a witch that wants nothing more than your cum.


The writing isn’t great either. That made me immediately tune out and then watch on autoskip.


There are a lot of naked and sex scenes. Of course, MC has magical x-ray vision as well. Most models are pretty dated, but some are nice and sexy. Renders are low to average quality.



Good Things

• Some models are pretty hot, especially their tits
• Situations can be interesting, due to all the magical handwaving possible

Bad points

• Faces on most models are bad, blurred, and dated. Contrast with bodies greatly
• Childish premise
• Most renders have flat light, boring expressions
• Animations are very basic
• Choices are not well implemented
• Inconsistencies between frames and in character actions

Good game. The story is really good, I can't wait to see how it will grow and if we will be able to choose a path. For now it seems we are a good guy, but past men sorcerers leaded to war between witches so ... I prefer the nature coven with the oracle.. I dont really know why but it seems we will be able to learn more strong magic there. Good job.

The only problem I have with the game is the MC design, which to me is kind of ugly and old-fashioned. Besides that, the game is perfect; the story, the girls, and the relationships are all 10/10.

Fully recommend.

so far so good.. the writing seems to be clear and understandable compared to most VNs.. the characters are well planned out and the premise of the project does have interest for the future episodes..
At time of review it could use some music and effects to add to the appeal and dead silence that we currently is..
Good luck devs and i'll be following this on patreon

TLDR: rough and unpolished but a good material at the core.

Gameplay is linear renpy visual novel. Choices seems to only be there to select if you wish to see a scene or not, so far I've seen no consequences from choices. (other than knowingly refusing to interract further with a girl)

Animations and renders are good and above average. Girls are well done, lights are beautifull, backgrounds too. You can tell this is the strong point of this game.

Pron is quite disapointing as of now: very vanilla, climax is often poorly conveyed and quite frustrating, lack of text making the scene a bit mechanical. It gets better towards the later part of the game though, so there is some promising improvement.

Story is the main problem here. The writing is lackluster, confused and confusing. The world is barebone and even the girls have very little noticeable personalities. Just a bunch of babes craving for the D of MC for wtv reason.

Conclusion: core of the game is strong animations. Writting needs a lot of work to really make the technique shine. Right now it is more a succession of random pron scenes rather than an engaging story.

It's a 3.5 as of now (V 0.8) but I believe it can become a 4 easily if some work is put on writing both of the story and in the scenes.

First of all, the story is progressing really well right now, everything about the game is good except for a few minor problems, but what is missing in the game is that the characters are not introduced to us.

and the person who made the game didn't make the mistake in other harem games, whatever you say. In other harem games, mc has to choose between girls all the time, or he can only have a relationship with two of the girls and not live with either of them.
but in this game, mc can hang out with all the girls around him. In the current version of the game, he is not dating anyone, but most of the girls he talks to are given the option of being a girlfriend.

Render quality ✭✭✭ 3 stars - The game hasn't received any more updates so it's 3 stars for now but I'll probably reorganize it and give it more in future updates because the game maker shows that potential

Story ✭✭✭✭✭ 5 stars - The story in the game is usually based on magic and witches. It is not a very common story style, even if it is done, most people cannot progress successfully, but the game maker has advanced the story so well that it is neither too mysterious nor too complicated for now, I hope it continues like this.

MC or Protagonist ✭✭✭✭ 4 stars - Even though everything around him is new to him, he doesn't react much when he learns what magic is. He even knows how to talk to girls and he also knows how to talk to not only girls but also women.
Not much attention has been paid to his appearance, but as in other games, the clothes he wears are not always the same, they are constantly changing.

Character design ✭✭✭✭ 4 stars - You can really tell their age from the faces and bodies of the milfs and young people around you, only some of the characters are too similar to each other, other than that most of the characters are beautiful and hot

The Coven [v0.7]