Ren'Py - The Daily Life of the Pan Hero [v0.8.1] [Steradianfauns]

V 0.8.1

I think I like this game? It's a possibility. I feel there's a lot of things wrong with it yet I sunk the better part of maybe hours of playtime into it.

Shorthand: Stills are serviceable, if not sometimes very bright and animations are excellent. The gameplay itself is very grindy, more than to be expected but not necessarily a bad thing. The story and tone could do with some work and extra care.

Full review:

Now I will admit, I'm not a fan of base Koitaku Characters anymore. After playing so many games that use Koitaku for a base, it's gotten stale for me (with a few exceptions). However, I do find the character designs cute, each of them are unique and fit the personalities of each character well. The animations for the sex scenes are the expected quality, which is good. I'm always a sucker for sex scenes that last for hours in game, and I do enjoy the heart eyes, even when the MC has them. However some till frames are jarringly bright, one instance comes to mind when the Princess character is wearing her hair in a bun, and the lighting makes it so that she blends into the beige wall behind her and the only thing that can be made out is her eyes.

The gameplay is very grindy, especially with the mechanic of stat degradation. I am not necessarily a fan of this, especially when it comes to miss able content, but with that being the case, none of the content itself is miss able, as there's always the option to see the sex scene, warn the player of a bad ending, and just unlocking it in the gallery for later viewing. The "miss able" content in this case is failing a stat check and either gaining or losing like, 1 heart or lust for a character, just fluff dialog, which isn't the worst thing for me. I do think the system could do with some tweaking but I like it, and could see myself grinding it out rather than using console commands if/when the game gets better.

My main issue with this game is frankly the story, tone, and the MC. The MC being the "pan hero" and being a light-hearted gimmick parody, I'm fine with though I don't prefer it. However, when you take that, and put it beside the prologue, and the almost rape and very heavy themes of gore, it's tonal whiplash to me. I understand there is no rape or NTR, and the option to turn off gore (which just removes blood I think?), but it doesn't help. Because when it comes to the funny cross dressing scene, I can't help but be reminded of the very heavy conversation with Mira about how none of the girls felt good because they were traumatized by nearly being raped. To me, tonally, it's all over the place, and the flip back and forth could be handled better, in my opinion, but I understand it's very subjective. It just doesn't sit right with me and that's my main issue with the game.

I enjoy it, I couldn't get to the pregnancy content, which is unfortunate but I just couldn't see myself enjoying any more of my time and I didn't want to force myself to play it, which would make me dislike it.

Decent game, not my cup of tea but I'm sure people enjoy it and like it a lot.

3/5 I want to give this more, I want to like this more but it's just too unfinished for me. Also most (i think) of the H-scenes are just dreams or fantasies which just doesn't really do it for me :/

+ Is silly and humorous with out just always being straight up stupid (very much an opinion)
+ Easy to follow along with
+ like the characters, they are cute
+ Story is interesting enough even though there isn't a whole lot of it yet hopefully

- Very much unfinished
- I found it to be too bright, just over all, as if Bloom was just maxed out. Became very, very noticeable after the 3 Girls change their hair to very vibrant colors
- Would come across an error every once in a while but nothing game breaking
- if you want to succeed all or even just most of the skill checks then you really do have to grind, and I mean Grind. I don't mind some grind but having to spend in-game weeks just boosting one stat so I can see what happens to change in one conversation felt a bit much! Maybe if there was more In the game it could feel more natural but not as it is

3/5 Just unfinished and a bit lacking. I still enjoyed it! I still want to see more from this project

Overall, a pretty solid game, very much woth playing even in it's current incomplete state.

I liked the character designs, with the exception of Liz, though that is mostly because I personally don't like the overly shy archetype.

The models are cute af, and the animations are pretty solid, though not exceptional. I've seen that some people found the haircolor change after the prologue a bit jarring, but I cant confirm it myself. If there is an improvement to be made there, it is maybe providing the already existing explanations for it right away/sooner.

The storytelling is also quite good, I liked that it didn't feel too rushed.

The combat system is a bit too in-depth for my liking and the element of luck in it is, imo, making it worse. I feel that most of us are not playing this game for the satisfaction of winning a boss-battle
That being said, I do think that it should remain in the game, as having a little challenge improves the game quite a bit. Maybe implementing different difficulty options would work, though I honestly have no idea how you'd do that in Ren'Py.

Here's to hoping the dev eventually comes back to this game, it's got a lot of promise.

I kind of liked this game in its early versions, but there's a fundamental issue with the storytelling. In the early parts of the game the MC becomes endowed with an alter ego that has amazing powers, then the story transitions to an open-world grind in which the alter ego is totally ignored. It starts to feel like a bait-and-switch.

This is tuff to rate at the moment, theres alot of good but still to much missing to really make it playable, atleast in full sandbox mode.
Theres a few bugs in dialogs if you name the MC yourself like most proberly do, sometimes it shows as Gerard (default name) making you wonder who the fuck he is lol but its rare.

Story is very vanilla, but its still good enough to enjoy and there is some fun scenes as well, MC is a lazzy wimp after he got dumped by hes girlfriend, i do wish it was better explained what happened and why she would leave him, her just wanting to explore the world seems a bit idiotic considering shes been waiting for MC for years and when they finaly became a couple she leaves him? that feels like a shitty background story.

But thats not really what game is about just a hole in the story, the main part is MC finding a dagger and gets to share hes body/mind with a beast that gives him powers to be a killing machine, which you only really see once and after that he goes back to being just a wimp and its all about hes so called side effect of not being able to controle hes lust, something you have probely seen in many games so not really new or inspiring.

What does set this game a part is the choices, you have full controle over who you want a love or sexual relationship with and that supprised me ALOT considering the plot and i love that you get a choice its really what makes game better then games with the same type of plot.

As for MC hes has the mindset of a 12 year old constantly thinking about tits and sex and gets boners very easy, its blamed on the lust plot but it dosent make it less cringy.

Theres really not many sex scenes other then a few dream scenes, and personaly i hate dream scenes since it has nothing to do with the personalities of the LIs and i dont really care to see them untill its happens in the real world in the game, and right now there is still not a single LI that MC has sex with outside hes dreams, maybe Kat? not sure if its possible to have stats the early for it...but in any case theres really not much to come for yet.

Girls/LIs 4/5
Well you know what you get from this character type, you either like them or you dont, theres a good diversity in builds and personalities which is the most importen.

Animations 3/5
They are just average for this character type, they are good enough to enjoy but its really nothing special.

Music 2/5
Cant say i liked the music much, its alot of the same and not good, think of it as being stuck in an elevator, a bit better then silent but not by much.

Sandbox 3/5
But when it comes to the sandbox and the RPG aspect its just not that playable yet, but its mostly due to the lack of content, like making money to buy skills would take proberly hours and hours of pointless grinding if you want to buy all skills up to lvl 5, the few jobs you can do barely pay anything maybe 1 or 2 silvers but when a single skill cost up to 150 silvers you can do the math and see the grind, you can also do adventure quests but they barely pay 1 silver and theres no quests ohter lowest ranked quests, even after doing 25 quests to level up rank there is no content for that which is a bit stupid since there are skills up to lvl 5 in that as well, so theres pretty much no real way to make money in the game yet, and considering how many skill checks there is and how early its as high as 50-60 or more, its not really playable without cheats.

For now i would say play it with universal cheat to atleast get money or wait untill theres alot more content to balance it out and become more playable.

I will revisit this again once it has alot more content and adjust my review, but for now i dont really see it as more then a average game.

v0.7.1

A game with a great mix of VN and sandbox. Nice story and game elements.
The game has some grinding on it. It seems a lot at first, but stats build up quickly. There is option to go only story mode and avoid the grinding.

Very nice renders and animations. Even though I'm tired of koikatsu assets, this game makes much better use of them. It felt like a fresh experience for me. Also, the scenes are awesome.

Characters and MC are very likable. Fun and light dialogues, which makes the game not so tiring. Interface is very good too, which is important for the sandbox genre.

This game is pretty underrated in my opinion. Can't believe I took so much time to find it. Very worth following it, even though is in early development.

v0.5.1
-Good writting, even small details are being taken into account in the world building and they make sense as well (like the sister strength and its relation with her physique).
-I really like the humor (The armor fashion show was too much tho, but it was good ...bearable ).
-Great renders.
-Good animations.
-Interesting story with a lot of potential.
-Good UI.
-Great characters.
-(For the RPG mode) Very grindy but with the coming content and more updates should be "fine".
-Great MC, kind but not an idiot.

great game, reminds me a lot of Hero's Harem Guild and others like it, I like the mechanics and gameplay, besides the scenes of course, I just think I should have more freedom to modify the mc, other than that for now it's perfect

Swirling through the gutters of yet another fantasy town's visage, I find myself washing up against yet another adventurer's guild wondering what new drunkard blew in for a job.

Whether the ale they have there is good or not is up for debate, but, from the sips I've taken, so far the ride's been good.

Any biases I have of note before getting on with this review is that I did do the lite version of the game in not playing through the grindy version of it, more so choosing the VN/Semi-sandbox mode instead (which for sandbox lovers it opens up at some point, it's not strictly linear and does feature repeatable scenes).

Anywho, as always I'll try and be as honest as possible, onto the review.

You play as a guy that pretty much finds out he's got that inner power that feels slightly Gary Stu-ish that many mangas, animes, and YA fiction books feature in which you have a dormant beast mode in you that you never knew about which allows you to truly kick ass when needed. In universe it is explained with said trigger for it, and perhaps even nudges towards why a lot of ladies start falling for you (which is pretty easy to figure out). And even though it is a chosen-one-esque power, it does do a good job in not letting it get too in the way of being an asspull, just some nice pizazz on the MC overall.

You and your fam discover this through a certain event that happens when you try to move from your humble village out towards the kingdom, and later down the line you find yourself getting drafted by said kingdom. And instead of dying on the eastern front ala witcher (or well, WW2), you instead skimp out by joining the adventurer's guild, which in many ways is just as bad but doesn't send you off to some god awful corner of the world. Instead, it just sends you to the god awful corners of the kingdom, through that, you realize that without your beast mode you're pretty much just another guy. You can't even swing a sword right, and well, there is a reason why you are called Pan hero which I won't spoil.

That's pretty much the synopsis of the setting, as for the other part, it plays like your standard sandbox affair. If you go the route of no-grind mode, it's pretty nice. The build up and quests to get into that lewd still holds a nice burn in, and things don't get hot and heavy too quickly. You can see a lot of characters struggle in wondering why they're falling way too quickly for you (or even at all to begin with), but again, no jumping the shark for content. On top of that, many of the characters you do meet are fairly realized as well, the dialogue is top notch and pretty funny, everyone feels distinct in who they are and don't feel tropey at all (or at least if they do they quickly build themselves out of that role).

On top of that, beyond slightly grinding (more so progressing through a character quest), you pretty much just zoom throughout the world forwarding quests, meeting new girls, or furthering your quests with ones you already met. There are a lot of LI's which brings some concern on scope bloat, but so far the content for many of them is building up to something pretty prominent.

The only thing I can only critique so far that other reviews have brought up is that there is confusion as to how much content there is for characters. There's no real indicator saying that you're at the end of content for girls, just, a sudden stop that leaves you guessing as to whether you're at the end or not. Which isn't further helped that when clicking accept quest launches the quest onto a separate journal screen from the original quest selection screen (hence erasing the quest from the original selection menu), not a terrible element per se, just nitpicking at this point.

Overall, there isn't a ton of content (in terms of lewd), but for the story proportion, I'm surprised at how long the prologue was to get into the main part of the game. And I mention that in a good way, it's one those intro's that makes you think that this actually isn't an interactive sandbox, but at some point it does open up and show promise as to what this game will shape up to be. In the end this game has charm and I decided with that, whether foolishly or not, that it currently sits at a nice 5/5 for now. I mainly give it this as I feel as though the way it handles characters and it's setting, there is nuance, and once there's more meat on what bones it's got now (which are healthy) then it'll easily attain what I give it currently. Can't wait for more!

Reviewed as of [v0.2.2]

TLDR:
I like this. Good renders, character design, etc. Pretty good story. Open world could use some improvements, but not bad. Tad bit grindy for stats, but I'm generally a bit impatient with that.

Looking forward to seeing where it goes. Definitely seems like the dev put in a lot of effort.

/////////////////////

I've been playing this on and off for a while now. Not sure if I've finished the open world content, but I think I have done most of the stuff available.

Anyway, I like this game. In particular, the segment before the open world felt pretty strong. I think, from the changelog, the open world is still pretty new and a work in progress, so that's easy enough to overlook.

The good:

- Really liked the design for most characters.

- Good renders / scenes.

- The story is pretty interesting, although it does seem to slow down quite a bit when it gets to the open world segment. I think that's newer and in progress, so again that's easy to overlook.

- Scene replay with maxed out stats is a clever idea.

- I didn't encounter any bugs despite some people complaining about them. This, along with the responses I've seen from the dev to other people, seems to indicate that issues tend to get addressed, and that the dev is paying attention to feedback.

- Despite generally disliking open world games, I thought the map was fairly well made aesthetically. I've seen better, but I've also seen much worse. It's still early on, so there's time for improvements. At the very least, it seems like the dev is putting effort and thought into it.

What I think could be improved:

- Being a bit more clear on when content is finished. I find this fault in a lot of open-world games, so nothing too unique, but it would be nice to have a clear indicator that "you've finished all the content for this character." Otherwise you end up wasting time trying to increase stats that no longer serve a purpose. I'm still not sure if I'm missing something, or how I'm supposed to raise lewdness, get scenes, etc, besides for one time events. For all I know, this is in the game, and I've just never finished all the content... in which case I would say some more pointers towards content you've missed would be appreciated

- I generally find open world games somewhat tedious. That said there's things that make them a little easier for me to enjoy. One of those things is being able to directly travel to a character, without looking at the map... This is in the game, but you have to spend in-game money to unlock it... It's not hard to get, but honestly, I don't see why that's necessary. Just allow the player this option at the beginning to save them time and a headache.

- Quality of life improvement: The option to directly travel to a character should have pictures to go along with the names, similar to the character screen. Sometimes I forget a name, so this would be nice to have.

- The (unimplemented) perks and skills clutter up the screens and make it harder to see the things you can actually get. If you're going to keep them visible, then maybe keep the (available) ones at the top of the list?

Anyway, that's pretty much it from me. Thanks for the hard work dev! Again, I enjoyed the game, and my complaints are pretty minor from my perspective. I wish you the best of luck, and I'll definitely keep my eye on this.

Great Start. Has a lot of potential but also feels like a ton of work. Hopefully the story and pace can be done correctly. Some grammer issues here and there but not really a big issue. Good luck. Hopefully doesn't get dropped.

This is a review of the 0.1.1 of this game

For an early build, there is a lot of promise being shown here. Renders are good, and it does a somewhat balanced attempt to teach new players how to play, no infodump nor a figure it yourself aproach

In the middle, there is not enough story to give an honest opinion, but what I see is really good. Also going through the stats and perks can get a little cumbersome if a particular thing you are lokking for is at the bottom of the menu

Though I would agree that navigating the house can be troublesome, I personally enjoy going through it, only sugestion Ihave for this is for the dev to tell the player on what floor they are on, and what each door leads to when going through them

Updated for 0.2

Renders are good
More story and introduction about the shops and houses
more sex scenes
Map now has name
Able to see the result of picking bad choice
Really great navigating option now
You can choose your own hero name
Keeping a eye on on updates for sure