A well thought out, comprehensive and intricate fantasy story world backed by a huge cast of characters that far exceeds typical AVNs. The frequency and mass of each update is also right at the forefront of the industry, so this already enormous game is still rapidly expanding even as I write.
Finished Part 1 and we are talking about ~10 hours of gameplay with normal reading speeds, so one can imagine the finished product would easily stretch beyond 20 hours.
Story
MC is a recently graduated battle mage under the tutelage and service of the Lord of Wildale. In this fantasy world, the number of females far exceeds males due to a curse and it is a norm for guys to bed multiple women and have a harem of wives and concubines. MC forms an adventure party with other females that takes up various assignments around town.
The main plot is not that apparent at the start, though it comes along nicely as you progress. Naturally with such a setting, expect MC to collect lots of gals for his harem and fuck his way out of many situations.
What is rather unique for Fiery Scion is it avoids the cardinal sin of information downloading during story world building. Instead snippets of information of this world - its geography, politics, culture, magic and economy are slowly introduced to the player during MC’s adventures.
Players are nicely eased into a believable fantasy world without information overload and the fact that we are able to interact with so many characters through MC does create immersion at a level seldom seen in other AVNs.
Game Mechanics
There are no choices in the first few hours of the game after which there are occasionally rare choices that seem to be along the lines of choosing a light or dark path. From what I can tell, it varies dialogue at some later stage, but otherwise the main flow is decidedly linear.
Background / Character Renders
In terms of quantity and customization the backgrounds are certainly top tier, however some of them are rather unrefined with rough edges, lack of detail and inaccurate size proportions especially from certain perspectives. I guess it’s an inevitable trade off for the rapid pace of updates and development.
A shout out to the developer who does not hesitate to expend character models - there are many many minor characters in Fiery Scion and all of them regardless of gender and importance have their own models. There are no shortcuts like colored silhouettes, blur unfocused background people or third party narration without a formal appearance in this game.
Unfortunately a major drawback of having players witness so many character models is the LIs become indistinguishable - other than Karla, Monica, Erika and Arwen, most of the time I had difficulty telling who is who.
Character Development
MC’s character development is fine, we do get a feel of his thoughts, dilemmas, love for his family and frustrations throughout the adventures.
Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the LIs - MC has sex with so many girls on a fuck and go basis skipping character or relationship development. I understand it is expected in a harem AVN that LIs are predisposed to the MC, but the cock worshiping in this game is simply too much. Most of the LIs come across as brainless zealots who will do anything to have sex with MC and by the time the 20th girl does that you simply don’t care.
So far only Karla, Arwen and Monica and potentially Erika in the future behave like husband and wife in a “normal” relationship and can have a proper conversation without going all gaga over MC’s cock. It’s a shame to have such a well built up universe let down by a myriad of 2 dimensional love interests.
Sex Scenes
There is certainly no lack of quantity in Fiery Scion, but it would have been better to focus on customizing each scene for a smaller number of LIs and make them memorable rather than the current strategy of doing an avalanche of scenes using the same stock renders and animations with different girls and background.
The same set of pussy eating, cowgirl, missionary and doggy animations repeat in many scenes with only minor differences in background and models. In fact I struggled to remember who is who and who/when/how MC had sex with previously.
BGM and Sound Effects
BGMs are ok abut limited, the game could do with a larger repertoire of tracks in the playlist. After all Fiery Scion is a hefty game and should be matched with a befitting variety of tracks.
Conclusion
I like the lore - it is well crafted and believable and players learn something new about the world as they play along even in the later stages. The number of characters that MC interacts with is very impressive and coupled with the rapid updates make the current size and potential of this game beyond expectations.
This would have been a platinum benchmark for AVN if not for the lack of character depth with most LIs and the repetitive sex scenes which lack variation. Overall I consider this a slightly flawed but overall impressive 4.5 stars game.