VN - Ren'Py - The Five Star Stories [v0.8.5] [The Narrator]

This review mostly focusses on the VN mode of version 0.8.5

TL;DR
The VN mode of this game is seriously undercooked. If you don't like kinetic AVN, I advise you to wait to play this one in VN mode until it gets updated/streamlined some more.
The main issue, for me, is that choices don't matter. When picking bad options, lewd scenes can be skipped, but the game considers them to have happened. In worse cases the game will just end.
This, in effect, makes the VN mode a forced KN. Players are forced to pick the 'right' choices. When they don't, they get to reload and try again to get back on the railroad. The points that are gained by making certain choices are entirely useless, their condition is never checked.

Story
The story follows Jack, a stereotypical horny 18 y/o who's eager to fuck everything that moves. He's infatuated with his (step)sister, (step)mother and wider (step)family. (All names and ages can be set during gameplay. Names can be changed in the profile/gallery system as well.)

The developer writes, "I decided to make this game by taking inspiration from the best stories on the internet and using my imagination." Sadly, this is obvious. This game's story feels like a collection of concepts from other AVN/porn, with little attention given to combining them in an original way... After a while, it reads more like a fanfic.

The core of how Jack and Lisa (She should've been called Lyna) come together is clearly taken from another AVN, but foregoing its buildup and character motivations. Then, suddenly, Jack is an AVN creator who works hard but has it rough. His mom and aunt are OF creators, and they want him to perform with them because he's hung. Elizabeth couches this with the excuse that working so hard is stressful and bad for his health... I've seen porn with more plot and coherence than this.

Compared to the VN mode, the KN mode is slightly better. It makes Jack consistent because there are no choices. He's young, dumb, and driven by hormones.

I like the game, I like models especially mom and aunt, good graphics that improve with each update. The story could improve a bit but leaves intrigued what can happen and even the story to this point has a lot of potential. Hopefully it continues to improve more and more.

The graphics and good renderings are the main reasons I tested the game and gave it a chance, and the fact that it has very young girls. I wouldn't say they're lolis, but I still like them.
But the game has reached a point where it takes longer to download the game than to play the content itself, not to mention the time it takes to get an update, with content that didn't even take me 2 minutes to complete, the game has practically become one H-scene after another. The story has never been the focus, not even at the beginning of the game, and sometimes I feel like this game is dragging on without even knowing which direction to take, like a boat just drifting with the wind.

In short, I would say it's a good game that's pleasing to the eye, but not something good to follow, since there are easily things with this visual quality out there with a good story.

VERSION: 0.8.0
SUMMARY: Decent enough, 3.5 stars if I had the option. Maybe it improves, will have to wait and see.

PROS:

1. Female models are good looking
2. Animations are pretty decent
3. Writing is solid, structure and reads well.
4. Choices seem to have impact
5. Setting relationships, ages and customising names of love interests is good
6. Kinks like pregnancy is always a win or option for it.
7. Ability to see your stats is useful
8. Music player is OK, least gives you some sound

CONS:

1. Renders are OK quality but not great, looks grainy and zoomed in areas are simply poor quality.
2. Some texture clipping happens e.g. panties and such.
3. Unclear what the love interest affection stats are used for and if they make any difference really.
4. MC is pretty much a FUGLY little bastard, not sure why going for this kind of look was done. (refer to first scenes of MC)
5. Love interests have no inhibitions and getting the MC sexually involved with them is like asking for a cup of coffee...
6. Could use some more kinks, the love interests having no inhibitions screams more kinks would go down well.
7. Interface limitations like the MC's thoughts text having that atrocious red font is annoying. Option to change that also would be nice, thanks
8. Some bugs work out with scenes, like "aunt" where the scene repeats itself. Also here is something to note in difference of work, previous scene, which was the same essentially is actually done better on the next scene with a good animation. Wonder what happened dev?.
9. Stats like pregnancy tracking does not update at least when it comes to the "aunt & mom" yet stat exists, is this a bug or does the option actually non apply to the "aunt or mom"

FINAL THOUGHTS:

• This game is good for the models, animations and kinks like pregnancy. Sure you can add you flair for be able to adjust relationships to be incest, but thats really all that goes for it.
• To be fair the writing is decent and the plot, albeit simple or non-existent is executed well so thats good.
• The game should have had a better looking MC or at very least consistent. The MC looks better .e.g during his hair cut scene than most scenes before then...but still not a good looking MC AT ALL.
• The renders should be more clear and crisp and generally more effort should have gone into this, at least the parts I feel are lacking.
• Some inconsistencies in the game like scenes quality, lack of animation on one scene then having the same scene with animation next "aunt" scene. This can be fixed easily enough, however I do feel there is more quality to the second set of renders which IMO should be the game general standard at least!
• Overall a decent game worth support, maybe we can get a reworked version someday

Misleadingly bad.

The renders in the previews are accurate and it's natural to cherry pick those images, but when you play there are a lot of horrible renders which distract from some of the other genuinley good renders.

The women have great models with good proportions however they are empty headed with absolutely no thought given to their characters, which is a writing problem. They are also horribly hairy and the writing forces you to claim to like it. It is so nasty it actually sticks out the sides in bikini scenes.

The MC is absolutely gross. He's shorter than the girls with feminine blonde hair.He has noodle arms and creepy proportions and a female chin. The first time you see him get undressed he looks like a chimpanzee. This is repeated often with his weird chimpanzee postures

So the biggest letdown - the writing.

Somehow youre able to convince your sister who is worried about being a slut, to give you a blowjob, within about 3 sentences. She then gets naked with absolutely no hesitation.

MC continues to be a loser because he cums the INSTANT her tongue touches him,but somehow that doesn't matter, becasue only the second tiem she blows you, your sister exclaims "yOuRE tHe OnE" and allows full sex.

Eyeroll. Quit.

The story is like in any other average incest game.
Average renders and animations.
There are limitations without patreon. I don't think this one deserves much support anyway.

Pretty average game made worse by locked content.

I'm really enjoying The Five Star Stories! The story has me hooked, especially Incest story is so interesting.

Renders 4/5
Characters 5/5
Story 5/5
Animations 4/5

Overall, this is a fantastic game! It easily gets 9 out of 10 from me. The Incest story is interesting Definitely worth checking out!

A game worth playing! Nice render quality, the characters are really beautiful, especially the cousins. I don't understand why this game doesn't have at least 4 stars, because it's really fun and entertaining.
Good luck dev!

Renders are technically not very good and lighting is bad in some scenes, however they improve noticeably when progressing. MC looks like an alien in some of the first renders. Writing is very basic, there's no build-up in any of the relationships. I encourage the author to go on and keep improving his skills, but as of now the result is just an ok start with plenty of room for improvement.

(Review of v0.7 free version)

A pretty standard incest game where you get to have your way around your sis, mom, aunt and little cousins, though content with the petite girls is very limited in the free version.

Visuals are fairly good except maybe for the fact that your mom sometimes looks your age too, however what may be a deal breaker for some is the fact that the girls are way too easy to get, at most all you need to do is to take the right choices and bang, you're screwing them like that's no big deal at all. You also get to decide whether they can get pregnant or not with a global switch in the preferences.

Sound is there but it's mostly background music that isn't even in sync with what's going on; the same tune can span both a normal scene and then some sex too.

This demo lasts for like 2 hours. At a certain point you get to select between going out to visit your aunt or stay at home with your sis, the former choice includes the most content so go for that one first.

Game with potential. Interesting scenes and good looking models, thanks dev. Also, it's not such a grind. Like others, I'm not very fond of how the MC looks but it's ok. 5 stars if MC had the option to give a facial each time.

For sure, a game worth trying out and supporting the dev financially as they fix things when brought up when they can if someone brings it up. So that gets 10/10 from me

Has pretty good sex content that will leave someone or everyone satisfied. So that gets 10/10

The story is pretty good so far still needs some fixing up as stuff is still being fixed in a way, but I'll give it a 10/10

Character design: The male mc may not be everyone's cup of tea to look at, but he still gets my props and the female characters are actually top notch, so this section also gets 10/10

Bottom line though, it gets my top recommendation for everyone to give it a try and see how they feel on everything.

Really nice game.

The engagement speed of the love interests is very fast, so it is not for people who love very slow burn deep romantic developing stories, but for those who are here for the action, this game gives it plenty and with beautiful LI's and not bad animations.

Strong points: Nice LI's, nice renders, little waiting time to get to the action, obvious incest-heavy content (not the most marketable these days with all restrictions, so actually nice to see this here and here's hoping he doesn't get kicked out of his support/subscription pages soon)

Weak points: totally no challenge on the MC's part to win over the love interests. They literally beg him to have sex with him almost from the start, so the "conquest reward" feeling really isn't there.

came here for an incest game but well....

The renders are OK, and the LIs look good, Animations are so and so, and by no means special. MC is a Blond Goblin but MCs are most of the time merely an afterthought so whatever.

The story is arguably the most important part it's an AVN after all and a Kinetic one at that. The story is a straight forward simple affair, some people would say it is too simple.

The LIs so far are Sis, Mom, and Aunt. The models are nice, that's it.
their characters need a bit of work (please read that as a rewrite)
Sis uses the first chance she gets after getting together with MC to hook up with Mom (basically behind his back cheating on him).

Does that sound bad? LoL it gets worse. Both Mom and Aunt are whores with an OF account and Mom has a history as a porn actress.

Not bad enough? I gotcha covered fam. Aunt is actively whoring herself out to her OF followers, which is shown as a call MC overhears she has with one of them.

The only thing I'm interested in right now is to see what happens when Dad comes back in update 0.5 and how that gets handled. Because the LIs are handled so bad I don't want anything to do with any of them and like I said it is kinetic, so

TLDR:
my personal recommendation for people who want to play an Incest game is don't bother.

Playing 0.4
Overall a good game, with a decent story and decent graphics.

Small suggestion for improvement would be to make the text box opacity controllable. As it stands, the text box gets in the way with some of the scenes.

FYI, I quit this game after finishing the third part.
I don't enjoy giving bad reviews especially for the smaller, relatively new project, but there're a few annoying aspects in this game just irk me a bit too much, so take it with a grain of salt:
1. MC. The single most annoying aspect of this game: the ugly face and short height combined with too much of the dev's self-insertion (I'll talk about it in the second part) just make me really hard to enjoy especially when this game is basically a kinetic novel with no substantial relationship choice to pick. Honestly, seeing him and his TALLER not-sister walking side by side is just not a good selling point.
2. Self-insertion. The first two parts of the story are OK, but starting from Part 3 the MC suddenly rants about how hard it is to be a porn game dev and how envious he is towards the big shots of this industry. I mean, I really get it. Developing a game from scratch especially when the initial financial incentive is almost minimal is quite challenging and frustrating and I do hope the dev can fulfill his wish one day. But we as players just want to chill and fap when playing these games, not having to add some unnecessary psychological burdens that aren't us to take. In addition, there're also too many words spent on MC's inner thoughts and it's tiring to read. As one reviewer said, You really need to emphasize the "visual" part of the Visual Novel: show, don't tell.
3. Lack of agency. MC and his not-sister clearly are still at school and even though we can adjust the age of each character, your not-mother's complaint about MC not having a job will not change, which is even more jarring because MC's more childish face and short height. It's at this point I realize we have no agency in this game (shocking I know, considering this is essentially a KN), and the fact that both the two adult LIs have done porn before doesn't help either. You're bound to bang them one way or the other, yet such lack of freedom is just not my cup of tea.
Overall, I can't really recommend playing this, which is really sad considering Incest, Harem, and Pregnancy are my TOP 3 tags, but the horrendous MC render, the dev's self-insertion, and lack of agency really don't make the game an interesting piece to taste.

The story starts off with introducing the MC and main LI's, allowing you to customize the names, ages and relationships. I did this.

The game offered a bio page (upper right) where you can view the characters and change the names, and I found the relationships did not remain the same. I entered one of the name fields and the last 4 displayed the relationships correctly, but not the Step-Sister. The dev should fix this.

I have also noticed some strange action in the text field, like the game was doing something. The dev should just allow the player to type anything in the text field, make changes, etc.

As an application developer, I consider bugs to be an unforgivable sin. I usually don't leave a review, but I think the game does have potential.

Also, the renders were quite nice which earned 2 stars.

Fix those bugs and good luck with the game.

Reviewing up until chapter 3 end.

Giving it 2 stars as the milfs backstory came out of nowhere and I wanted to quit right there.
If it wasn't for that particular story element I would give 4/4,5 stars since it looks promising.

So yeaaah.. Should've read the thread before playing. Everything was fine until the milfs background came to light, I've played through it, but not going to continue playing.

Just a heads up for future players (spoiler):
Both milfs are essentially whores, even if one of them only been one in the past. They are/were sex workers(shooting porn and so on), both of them have an OnlyFans at the present and both are active on it. Yeah MC will probably join them, but that doesn't make it more appealing.
I've lost all interest in the Aunt as soon she started talking about fucking dudes left and right and especially the way she ended that phone call waiting to be with another dude in the evening. Sure it might not happen in chapter 4, but still it's a huge turn off from her.
The whole OnlyFans thing could've been introduced like that they had the idea to sign up for a few months now and Mom could've met MC's father in the grocery store or something... Their backstory is unappealing, and if it only comes to light after 2 whole chapters I'm afraid to find out what will happen later with other LIs or with these two.
Also the dev haven't really been responding regarding future tags so who knows if it will have swinging/sharing/cuckolding later on just out of nowhere.

Another warning about lesbian content (spoiler):
The game has unavoidable lesbian FF scene(even in VN mode), now it's not a problem for me but some people don't like it so I just wanted to mention it as a heads up. It looks like it won't be the only one, as this is heading towards a poly relationship and the FF scene happens through the Sister's POV, so later on it can happen with anyone. But I don't know what will happen and I might just be talking out of my ass, so take that with a grain of salt.

This looks like a harem game but it ain't one. I don't want sex workers in a harem and since they are unavoidable I'll skip the whole game.
I advise the dev to mention this on the home page in dev notes, it will spare the people of being disappointed and spamming the thread about it since players will only find it out in chapter 3.
Also prostitution tag is probably missing, sharing/swinging tag might be missing from the tags too. (but I'm not sure where the story goes from here so that's probably fine for now)

The renders are OK, animations are kinda mixed since a few looks decent but a few looks mediocre.
The story itself escalates quite quickly, no buildup whatsoever on the incest front. Sure I don't like blueballing games but it's progressing rather quickly and kills the fun of seducing/corruptuing Mom/Sis/Aunt/Cousins since that's not really happening.

LIs (spoiler):
Sis: MC helps her with her sexual inexperience after her bf breaks up with her. They start fucking after 2 days, then she seduces the Mom (this happens after a 1 month time skip) and has sex with her without the MC in an attempt to get her joining in on the fun MC and Sis is having.
Mom: MC finds out about the Aunt doing OnlyFans and while looking her up later he also finds Mom's OnlyFans. MC starts jerking off to Mom's OF and she cathes him. Later on she comes to MC that she did porn back in the day and would like MC to participate on her OF.
Aunt: Aunt have the hots for MC from the beginning, not much happend with her so far. She is hooking up with guys, at the end of chapter 3 she is having a phone call with another dude she is going to meet that night.
Cousins: MC catches one masturbating and the other one kisses him on the mouth as they greet each other. Nothing else so far.

Even if I haven't really enjoyed chapter 3 and not going to come back I'll wish the dev good luck!

If you love incest and is interested in a straight to the point story when you need that sweet release, this game is amazing at that.
The renders are great!
If you like characters with very relaxed and casual attitude with no shame in regards to sexual stuff, then you're in for a treat! If you like that, then you know that it's not easy to find.
It's still new but you can see that the dev is being very consistent with updates and communications.
I hope he can keep up in the long run because if this is the case, this is setting up to be an amazing game, which is raunchy exactly the way we love it!

The story is too simple to immerse myself into.

The constant thought narration is poorly written and with the "**" and lack of control over the text-box opacity - it intrudes into the visuals. Let your visuals do their job, Developer. It's called a visual novel, there's no need to narrate what we can already see.

Basic quality of life functions are missing. Text box opacity control is always required. Naming save files is basic and also missing.

Animations are lackluster at best, there's other games doing it a lot better.

The women are pretty and have attractive, realistic bodies. Well, the women I've seen are, the mom and sister. This is a plus. The MC's face isn't very attractive.

You have a start, developer, but it doesn't seem like you've played many VN's and learned from them what makes them easy to play and fun and immersive to read and "get into."

Some design pluses, I see there's interest in choices effecting the story. This is good. More choice, the better. A person who's diving into a story and getting into a role, like an actor, will feel more like the fictional person the more they can control them, according to their tastes. Help immersion into the fantasy.