VN - Ren'Py - The Grey Dream [Ep. 5 - Steam Halloween Side Story] [TheGreys]

Some of the best (if not THE best) 3D models, renders and animations in this industry are bogged down by some of the worst writing in existence.
It feels like the game is missing a dialogue every 2-3 frames. Conversations just end abruptly, scenes change out of nowhere-if I didn't know any better I'd say they were paying a writer on a per-word basis and decided to cut back on the writing budgets by about 70%.

Like holy crap, I've never seen such an amazing AAA quality-looking game with some of the worst writing decisions in existence.

Story 2/5
Theres just not much to come for in this one, story is boring and really dosent make much sense, MC a new lawyer gets hired a the best or atleast biggest company in town, but does absoutly no lawyer work but hes put to work to get shares in the company from someone who has 51% so hes boss can run the firm.

Then he plays superman by entering a house with 15+ guards knocks one out to save a girl that has been kidnapped and runs away with her, it just dosent make sense.

He also learns that hes new boss apprently paied for hes education which MC had no clue about which also feels a bit weird but oh well.

When it comes to the girls/LIs they are just boring, they all have the same facial fetures lacking emotions making them bland, it dosent help that they all have the same build as big tittet bimbos, when it comes to dialogs they are also bland and boring.

As for the speed its a slowburn in most cases, take Kelly first girl you meet and there has been 0 content with her other then a kiss on the cheek....

Overall its just to vanilla and bland in every way, including sex scenes.

Girls 2/5
They all have the same facial expression with fails to show any real emotions and makes them look to much alike, it dosent help that it only has focus on big tit fetish meaning the diversity in build is pure shit, they pretty much have the same bimbo build and a few just have even bigger tits, absolutly no smols and they all look like milfs even though they should be right out of college for alot of them.

Animations 3/5
They are average and again bland and boring, no real kinks or anything.

Music 3/5
Again average nothing special and nothing with lyrics.

Choices 4/5
Main story feels very kinetic but the choices for relationships works great, you can pick who you want to be with which is great so atleast game got this right.

Nonsensical story, a fresh hotshot lawyer gets hired and is tasked with something that has absolutely nothing to do with law, proceeds to break into a mansion that is guarded like a fortress to rescue a kidnapped girl that promptly runs away. hobo safehouses, pi work, wtf An AI could do better at this.

The game's name makes sense because playing this game feels like that dream where everyone's speaking in a language you don't understand, because the writing here makes zero sense.

It's literally gibberish.

The dev does not speak english and seems like they used some crappy translator for the dialogue in the game. The 'english' used here is a barely intelligible mish mash of words and you will have no idea what the hell is going on in the story.

The renders look nice, but the presentation is extremely stale. The story feels random, but also boring and uneventful, so I guess the 'Grey' descriptor also fits the game.

There's not nearly enough lewds or anything interesting happening to justify the time wasted selecting dialogue options.

Honestly the only two good things this game has are renders and animations.

While writing is ok, the conversations with most characters are hollow and not interesting. Pacing is odd as fuck, and I had the feeling that there was no plot at all. At some point I was just skipping through dialogues, something I rarelly do.

Sex scenes are just ok I guess? You have no choices at all, just angle changes, 95% of them are vanilla, you have some light femdom but the game would benefit a lot from some kink adding and more options during sex.

Overall I found it pretty boring, and the fact that a game with just 4 updates is already in Steam... I've seen it before, I give this game a maximum 2 years prior to start receiving bad reviews.

The Grey Dream [v4.3 Steam]

Pros:
+ Beautiful models and renders
+ Great animations
+ Action-packed story
+ Most conversations feel decently written

Cons:
- Not that much content yet
- Pacing feels a bit too fast
- Story feels a all over the place
- Overall plausibility of story narrative feels very poor
- Linear story progression
- Lack of emotional impact


The renders are beautiful and the game is very visually pleasing. However, the story progresses at a pace that takes you all over the place and a lot of things just don't make sense. Events feel very unbelievable or not very thoroughly fleshed out.

Part of the reason the story feels so action-packed is because we are presented with small conflicts, one after another, without pause. And each of these minor conflicts seem to go start to finish without any real substance in between. In a sense, it feels like reading a storyboard narration rather than a fully fleshed out story. And, despite being presented with so many points of conflict or obstacles, the overarching plot doesn't progress much at all.

The game has potential once it has more content. However, I believe the overall story's integrity and pace are things that will need to be addressed, or they will always end up hindering any kind of emotional impact.

Overall Rating: 7/10

Fantastic renders and an interesting plot. I think what I liked most about the plot is the villain; he seems competent and spices things up. Unfortunately, so far, the MC is not up to the task, he has been pretty incompetent. Hopefully, that will all change in the coming updates, but we'll see, I guess.

There's some sigma/alpha personality concept to shape your MC and honestly, it's a great idea, but I don't think the game really nails down either personality. Whatever your choices, the MC is still pretty milquetoast of a person. Still, by the AVN standard, he's above average for an MC, but the problem is that he's dealing with powerful people so he really needs to up his game.

Decent amount of choices, though, and aside from the sigma/alpha thing, it seems that the choices do indeed matter in this game so it puts it above average.

The LIs are all interesting so far and likeable, my only complaint is that the tension with Helen just kinda dissipated as if by art of magic. Even when you she makes a move and you reject her, absolutely nothing happens. She was kind of a bitch so I was itching for some satisfaction and wanted to reject her, but when you do, there's absolutely no drama and you never punch back at her despite everything. Massive blue balls there.

I was going to give this 4 stars, but despite its faults, it's still far above other AVNs with a better rating. As long as the choices seriously start shaping the MC's personality and we get a more satisfying conclusion with Helen and future LIs, I think this one will be great.

Surprisingly underrated for how much quality and attention to detail is put into this game and the quality of the renders and girls. I also appreciate the MC not being a douche most of the time and the best friend character isn't completely intolerable (most of the time, part of his charm though).

Recommend giving this a few hours of your time and you'll walk away satisfied and hungry for more. Adding it to my watchlist and waiting for future updates, good luck to the dev! Look forward to what comes next, especially more lewd scenes for these beauties...

I can't shake the feeling that this game has story all over the place.
It's as if it's locked into one choice, and if you don't make it, it cuts off parts of the story and continues as if you have to know what happened.
Having played the latest version without mods, in several episodes, the game made no sense to me.
The characters don't have any integrity in the story, and the story feels too naive?
The protagonist is hired as a lawyer, but throughout the game, he does nothing to match his position.
The protagonist's ex-girlfriend is the daughter of his new boss, and he doesn't even know about it?
The protagonist risks his life and rescues a woman from captivity so that she can theoretically help him in the future?
The head of a criminal group has a grudge against the protagonist, and so we go to a meeting where this person will be, to observe?
Too much illogical in my opinion.
Judging by the reviews, I expected something different from this game, but as they say, my expectations are my problems, so if someone likes this game, it's cool, but it seems this game is not for me.

Nice renders although the general level of renders has increased over time so it doesn't stand out as much as it did on release. Update cycle is about half a year or so, content amount isn't huge, and at this point a few years in the story and characters are still not really developed. Story had its first major beat at the end of the last update, almost as if we just finished the prologue, reviewing v4 release.

The game is mostly linear, very few choices that don't seem to have much deviation. Maybe a lewd scene here or there that you can skip or plays out differently.

It could still pick up more but I'd kind of recommend not picking it up now, maybe in 3 years with more content, if you are really looking for a light story adult VN with nice renders. But even then it's just that there are no real relationships right now and little to no choices so it's hard to name something that would hook someone, outside of the renders.

Pros

1. Story is intriguing, nothing earth shattering but pretty good for an adult VN. That alone keeps me interesting in game and reading the dialogue.
2. Models are beautiful and animations are very well done!
3. Dialogue is good, script is also nicely put together and there is a flow that actually makes sense.
4. Characters are interesting and are fairly unique in their own ways.
5. Several choices exist through the play-through, the long term effect is still unknown obviously but some have immediate effect which is always good and gives weight to choices.

Cons:

1. At the time of the review, I can't rightly give any negative critique to the game. I am still gauging the game and will provide more info once I have completed the latest update.
2. The rate of updates and amount of content per update could be something to monitor

A fair amount of work and effort went into this game and I would highly recommend it to all and support the developer if you can.

A non-fantasy (which I like) visual novel with quite good renders. Writing is also good (as of season 4).
The (currently only) free-roam event in the last episode feels a bit pointless (as so often in such games), but if you take it as what it is - a visual novel - it is really one of the better ones

i'm halfway through episode 2 now but allready wanted to comment a bit.
Graphics are great, i love some music in the background so that's a plus. The language could do with some cleaning up (so someone who would corect some things would be great). Apart from that it seems nice, i'll update this post probably when i finished episode 4

good charcter disgine and great graphics but ep4 ending dosint make sense and the party was very short i wish if they make it longer but overall its a very good game i like it and i hope to see more of it

Apart from the fact that the sex scenes feel like they've been written by someone who's only sexual experience comes from watching porn, I think it's a pretty decent game with a story that is (maybe) going somewhere intriguing. The LIs look very pretty although many of them look very similar, the MC is likeable enough which not enough games manage to get right imo.

Review for The Grey Dream Ep.4:

Overall: 5/5 - I played this game for the first time at Ep.4. The game nailed the visuals and still did well on everything else. I'm impressed look forward to future updates. I will consider supporting depending on how the next couple of updates go.

Story: 4/5 - The story started out pretty good. It's heavy on drama, and has a few conversations that are way too long. I'm concerned about the mafia theme, though. It's so overused in adult games it makes me want to vomit. There are a few weird things that made me kind of roll my eyes, too. For example, the MC didn't know who Helen's father was even though he dated her for months and spent time at the family beach house. He also didn't recognize Helen's sister (and she didn't recognize him) but later they talk about stuff that happened at the beach house when he was dating Helen. I think the story could use a little work with how it tries to tie things together in the first two episodes. The way this story flows with occasional flashbacks and such is really hard to pull off well without very thorough planning.

Writing: 4.5/5 - The writing is near-perfect which is surprising. The reason I say surprisingly is because I think it's been translated. The reason believe that is because there are occasionally some subtle mistakes, such as cases where it's not appropriate to substitute "I'm" for "I am". There's also a choice screen that says, "You peaked my interest." Then, later in the game dialogue, the correct word "piqued" is used in almost exactly the same sentence. And things like Judy calling herself a "secretary" which is a title really hasn't been used for 30 years.

Renders: 5/5 - The renders are absolutely beautiful. The models for both the women and the men are really good. Kelly's septum ring is a turn-off, but then I realized that it's better than the stereotype skank that shows up in almost every VN who is pierced, tattooed, has part of her head shaved and hair dyed pink/purple/blue/green.

Animations: 5/5 - Animations are fluid and natural and don't look like the resolution dropped by 80%.

Content: 4/5 - The quantity is good for 4 updates but a little light for the 18 months or so that the game has been out. It's hard to gauge where the story is at, but this game seems like it could easily take another 3 to 4 years to complete at the current rate. As for the content quality, the excellent renders and animations make the lewd scenes pretty hot, but the erotic build-up could be a little better.

Sound: 4/5 - In general, the background music is good. There is one piece that is annoying where the balance drifts from left to right and back over and over and that was annoying. The sound effects are also really good, but the game could use more of them.

Gameplay: 4/5 - The game is mostly a VN with only occasional choices and a couple of free-roam segments. For the choices, it's really not clear at all what they do. You can save at each one and check but sometimes you still wonder why the choice exists. The free-roams don't really add anything to the experience, but they're not annoying, either.

Bugs: 5/5 - I didn't encounter any bugs.

Other annoyances and WTFs:
MC goes to help Haley plan a party and he basically does... almost nothing. This segment seemed strange other than to give some more backstory.

I've been following it for almost a year now that I'm going to do a review , it starts out that this game is good, its feel is good, the girls are very pretty, charismatic and fun
History: 8.5
Yield: 10
Animation: 10
Models: 10
Fun: 10
Sex Scenes: 10
Let's see how the story will take the direction of what the MC will do from now on

Congratulations to the developer and good luck with your project as it continues until the end of the game

nice characters....good renders, the story is quiet, no, really still enjoyable
Mc is kinda likable too 9/10
Visuals 10/10
characters 8/10
sex scene animations 8/10
Renders 10/10
story 7.5/10
humour 8/10
just love this game
just really hope it doesn't get cancelled like one my favourite ( Food Truck Story)

Very good game with amazing renders, a pretty good story.

The sex scenes are very well done and quite hot.

Scene/location changes could be a bit clearer here and there as sometimes you're suddenly in a different location.

For my taste most of the women have boobs and butts that are too big, (Except for Lilly who has a mighty fine derrière.) They are very pretty though and have a huge variety in faces and hairstyles. I would have liked a few more athletic or petite girls,I know it's personal preference, but hey, it is a review: my personal opinion.

Still a pretty good game that I will be following with a lot of interest for sure.

First of all i love the story and graphics of the game gyatt damnnn
Animation - 10/10
Renders - 10/10
Models - 10/10
Story - 9/10
Overall had a great experience enjoyed every moment keep developing dev. Keep this shit comingcan't wait for the next update to come out