VN - Ren'Py - Abandoned - The Intoxicating Flavor [v0.10.6] [PixelsLab]

This game (v0.9.2 at the time of this review) is a slow burn, but once it gets going I found myself completely invested in the story. The game looks beautiful, and I found myself caring about the characters in it, as I would in any good story.

As many have mentioned, in the first few chapters the English translation is not great, but I've seen worse and I personally never felt it took too much from the story. As it goes on, though, the quality of the English improves to essentially perfect.

I think the only kind of real complaint I have, and it's more a complaint of expectation than a critique of the product itself, is that this is almost more of a kinetic novel than it is a VN. There are some choices in it, but they don't really feel like they matter very much. I like KNs, but it's always a bit of a disappointment to play a VN only to find out your choices don't really matter that much. I will say that at least there aren't single-option choices thrown up just for the sake of clicking.

That being said, I really got invested in this game and can't wait to see future chapters.

The Intoxicating Flavor [v0.9.2] review-
Great renders with stunning female models with different personality and good story though English could use a proof reader but I don't mind it much . Likeable main character and no annoying gameplay and nice background sounds which feels nice while playing game . Sex scenes are animated and well done . Overall 5 stars looking forward to next update .

Cons:
This story will bother some people for how linear it is. Not all sex scenes are optional, and the story largely dictates that you get into the romance and other situations. I saw some complaints about the author's english, but it's only a problem in the early chapters, and not impossible to read. The author could always go back and fix it all, but I don't think it is worth slowing down progress on new chapters.

Pros:
If you're here for the sexy, the girls are hot. If you're here for the narrative... this is fucking awesome. It feels very run-of-the-mill for a chapter or two, but stick with it as it gets wilder and wilder. Each character has a distinct and diverse personality, with demons and secrets in their pasts that unravel slowly over time. The MC is an intelligent figure, but is held back by memory issues and a dark, twisted personality forged by a troubled past, but new acquaintances have him changing for the better. This is an awesome story that I'm really excited to see more of.

The models are GORGEOUS and that is something I give the dev credit for.
The writing/English wasn't great, but I managed to ignore it to pay attention to the story... but then it became a chore. It has waaaaaaay to much text without saying anything in concrete, an idea that could be said in fewer words gets unnecessarily extended.
I liked the potential it showed at first, but as it continued I realized the story doesn't appeal to my taste. I won't say it's a bad story, but it feels like it goes in circles and it's too fantastic for me and gives the illusion that, at some point, it stays stuck.

In the start It looked like to be good, but it just become more boring after each update, might as well been a text based game, the hottest scene is in the start, which is not even sex but only grinding. I keep hoping for something good with each update, but I realise now, it's never gonna happen...
Just feels like a milking game... I give 2 stars for the renders and models... The rest is just dragged out boring...

OK... So I tried to like this story. I really did but it was just too long and has become circular in its progression.

The premise is original and if you have managed to get very far into it, you eventually begin to see what is happening and why, or at least you think you do? The problem however is that it takes forever to get to that point and yet it still doesn't completely answer any questions. You end up with a "vague" idea of what is going on but you are never quite sure.

The translation is appalling at first. It is so bad that it gets in the way of your understanding of the dialog in many cases. It does improve as the chapters progress and becomes fairly easy to read but there are still times when you really have to read a sentence multiple times to figure out what is being said.

As the chapters progress the dialog gets long... VERY LONG!! There are multiple scenes where you end up in click hell in a single scene. One scene in particular had me at 500+ clicks solely on a single conversation between the MC and the antagonist. I gave up counting at 500+ mind you! This isn't the only time it happens either. Chapters 5 forward are so dialog heavy that I simply couldn't endure it anymore and found myself speed clicking through scenes just to get to a point where I felt the story was actually moving.

The renders are fine. Nothing we haven't seen before and nothing unique but you really lose all of the visuals because of the slow and arduous reading that goes on and on.

Folks, I get it! So many fans are fawning over this story and using lots of big words to describe just how deep the story goes but here is the ultimate problem however. All of the "depth" of story hides the glaring fact that the story is as of 0.8.8 nothing more than a dialog heavy story that goes in circles. You have sex, you walk around the island, you swim alot and you have these strange dreams that "try" to bend the lines between dream and reality and just become confusing. Then you wake up and do it again, and again, and again.

It's one thing to tell a story that has depth. It is another thing to bury that same story in character dialog that says so much but means so little. Visual Novels are just that. They are visual in nature. The problem with this story is that someone forgot about the visuals and just started writing a novel. After a while It began to remind me of the TV show Seinfeld.

A story about absolutely nothing.

Dropped this game after finishing Chap. 2. I don't mind "bad" English translation, mostly because I'm not a native speaker myself. But the story itself is quite needlessly convoluted and difficult to follow from time to time, and what further bores me is the fact that you are not given much meaningful choice to make: it's just tons of dialogues and narration in order to expand the storyline. If I'm not given the chance to "play" an AVN, I'd rather just read a printed book instead.

Renders while there is a bit of consistency issue, look great, and you get to see some unusual environments. Animations get better as you play through too. I like the evolving relationships as well - bummer that they are pretty linear without much say of the player. Characters are interesting and blooming with each episodes, Maria especially imo.

But sometimes it's soo hard to read the dialogues/monologues - dev should hire a proof-reader because its clear as sky that English is not his first language.

The major thing that I disliked is forced romance and overall lack of meaningful decisions. I understand that it is for the story's sake but I still don't like when it happens and it wouldn't have to be this way. For me personally, it is a big turnoff in VN games as I love to shape the path of my MC.

Great models, but terrible story overall...Boring ass game...Seemed to have potential at the beginning, but now has just turned out to be a pathetic DoD wannabe...A good writer might help this game though...Tiresome experience

0.8.6.5
Huh, I had really good time playing, and this doesn't happen that often. I admit, that first chapters were really hard to piece together because off all those jumps between past, present and dreams, but after a while I was able to get the gigst of the plot. Renders are also looking very good,and story is enjoyable. And what a moment for the ending cliffhanger definitelly recommend

Reviewing v0.8.6.5

I've realised I haven't rated this yet although I've been following and enjoying it for a while, so it's about time to do it.
This has been one of those I look forward to the most for a while. The main reasons being two fold:

1. The renders
The quality has been good from the start but is also very obviously getting better and better.
The setup of the scenes is clearly thought through and adds to the quality.
In more recent updates there are now animations which are of incredible quality. When I play Ren'py games I usually don't want full on animations, but here, they are really adding something.
As for the models they are pretty good, and has one of my favourite girls on the whole site (and I am picky). Furthermore their face expression receives just as much attention from the dev, not just the posing, and it makes a world of difference.

2. The writing
This is an interesting one and pretty unexpected, let me explain.
The story I find a bit complex and must admit I have at times skipped some dialogs that I didn't get. On top of that the dev isn't a native english speaker and one can tell even from the game description (and I sometimes wonder about the proofreaders too...).
However, despite that, I found that the level of detail spent to craft the dialogs, alongside the aforementioned facial expressions, makes for an experience that you sometimes feel in your belly way more than you should. There are certain scenes I know I felt deeply connected to because of that, and I liked it. Certain scenes with Katie in particular, the way she fights with the MC and gradually warms up to him, it's just well done. And I think this is the main reason I hung around when in other games I probably would have left due to a lack of perceived progress and sex scenes.

Now there are bad points too.
As mentioned above I don't enjoy fully the whole story, which may be because I'm not into the supernatural things (but like I said, the relationship building part is wonderfully done).
There's also a lack of decisions so it's more a VN than a game.
And then there is the Alice model which to me looks weird (both old and new models), so in a way I wish there was more gorgeous models. But then that turns into a positive because it means I get to see Katie more

And so that is where it leaves me. I know my attraction to Katie may make me too soft for this game and maybe I try too much to compensate against a potential bias. But objectively this game is quality and a work of art that is very good.
What would make it Excellent for me? Some decisions or maybe variations in the sex scenes if the story is important to be linear. And some variety to the sex which has so far been pretty basic (but oh so well done - now that I write this I'm not even sure as it may not work at all... dunno, still curious I guess).

One of the most underrated and underfunded AVN's out there. Especially considering there is a creator on here that makes almost a million a year and doesn't even really update the game anymore and is one of the most overrated games ever.

My computer recently crashed and burned and so I had to start all over. You can easily see how the creator has improved the quality of the renders by huge amounts over time. Don't even get me started on animations. I've never seen one that does anything close to the hip movements in one of the more recent scenes. Also the story is good and better than 95% of the other AVN's out there.

On the plus side the renders in this game are good. I would say they are excellent but the dev went overboard with Depth of Field. What is the point of having a nice video card, high dpi monitor and HD resolution if creators intentionally blur 80% of any given picture. In some pictures/scenes it makes sense to have a focus but it is so heavily overused it significantly detracts from the visual quality.

I'm not really into MILFs but Maria is maybe the hottest I've seen in any AVN.

The English translation of the first few chapters is so poor it heavily interferes with the dialogue and even affects the story. I honestly can't understand what the characters are trying to say at times and it makes the writing/dialogue so awkward. I wouldn't be able to experience this AVN without it, for which I am grateful, so this is hopefully taken as constructive criticism.

When i started playing this i nearly shut it down after the first 2 Chapters, now im f*cking glad i didnt. I really wondered how it got such a good rating but now i can completely understand, im even sad that i reached the end of the current version (0.8.4) If you are thinking about trying this game, you propably wont read through all my babbling, but i really think you should try this, if you wonder why you can read further The game really gets better so if you try thhis give atleast the first 3 Chapters a chance.
Pros:
The renders and the overall gamedesign look really great, and you notice the improvement in the renders as the storie continues. The Sex-Scenes are properly and good animated in the later Chapters and the girls look really beautiful. The only thing that really disturbs me ist the child-like looking younger Sister. Its weird to look at her as sexual prospect, like the game wants you to, i really wished it wasnt like that, but you can look past that in my opinion.
The Story is really great, i thought it was pretty weird in the first 2 Chapters and thought it might go on like that, but all gets cleared when continuing the Story and it makes sense why the first chapters are designed like that. The unique Storie, the emotions that are transportated within the plot and the feeling of a powerful MC who still has a learning curve and isnt just almighty makes for a really enjoyable gaming experience and got me really envolved with the Characters.
Cons (Things that disturbed me)
Most of the things i list here can easily be improved and i really hope the dev does so. First thing is the choices. In my Opinion it could use more choices, there are some really long episodes where you have no choices at all. The single-choice options you have to click at the start of the game already got fixed by the dev in the later chapters, so you can really see the improvement throughout the chapters. Some of the choices you do have seem to have no impact atleast no immediate impact, it would be great to have some diffrent paths and you can actually choose which one you want to play. Dont know if that really is the case or if it just feels that way...
Second thing i already listed is the younger sister, but i can live with that. Another thing is that you are kinda forced to get involved with all the women who appear and i get that that is needed for the story, but it just enhances the feeling of not really beeing able to impact the Story.
Another thing i noticed which is really easy to fix i think is that this one needs someone who has english as his mothertongue to prove-read. There are a lot of Grammatical errors, and sometimes it could just use better english.
Last thing i wanted to mention is music. I really enjoy Vns with great music and i think this game could use some more. Its not needed when you have other sounds but in my opinion there is too much time just quiet. Ah and also it would be nice if the moaning was on a seperate audiopath or something so you can turn that off seperatly if it bothers you.
I think that was it in conclusion i really look forward to the next chapters because this game is really enjoyable. If you are still reading this you are either the Game-Developer who is really interested in the Opinions of his gamers (which i really hope, after all im mostly writing this with the hope you are reading this) or idk are just weird, cant think of another reason to read through all i wrote, anyways have a good day

The best part of this VN is the story, which is interesting and well organized, if sometimes a little slow to advance.

There is some clumsiness early on: the single-choice choices, some rough graphics, etc; but it improves as it goes along, and the author appears to be putting some effort into fixing up the earlier chapters.

The sound-track is the game’s greatest weakness. Much of the time there is no sound, and when there is you might find yourself wishing there wasn’t. A few of the effects aren’t too obnoxious: the sound of waves when on the beach is fine, for example, but the sex sound-effects are horrible.

Another thing which was a negative for me was that nearly all the models are portrayed with thousand-cock stares. It is a marvel how well the artist captured that expression, but I don’t find it attractive.

I played through the 0.8.4 version, and quite enjoyed the experience. I will be interested in seeing where the story goes from here.

I honestly have no idea how this game has such a high rating. The renders are good, I suppose, and some of the characters are quite attractive (though a few of them look like small children, which is massively off-putting). The writing, however, is absolutely awful. The English is terrible, there are typos, misspellings, and strange wording in pretty much every other sentence. The plot is nonsensical, and the interactions between the characters are unnatural and weird.

The premise of the story is original, but until the dev finds someone to help him with the writing and English translations, it's simply unplayable for me.

Interetig characters, great renders combined with some of the best storytelling I've encountered so far. One of my favourite Games on this site. It is one of the only games where I aam never dissapointed even if an update has only story and no H-Scenes.

REVIEW AS OF UPDATE - 0.7
The game has a refreshing new plot, something that is a very welcome change. The renders are good and there is plenty of content to play with.
I hope the MAIN SCREEN gets a makeover, it looks very common and plain.
Apart from that, it has good characters along with good character development .

Review of v0.8...

I wasn't sure I would like this game at first and almost moved on to another, but I decided to stick with it and I'm glad I did. The story is deep and the characters are unique.

The character models are gorgeous and are emoted very well. The bodies are very realistic...for the most part. The two exceptions are Maria (the mother) and Lillian (MC's trainer). Their breasts are a bit too unrealistically large. Especially Lillian's. A woman with a bodybuilder type body like Lillian does not have the massive tits that she does.

There isn't a single character I hate. And while the story is a slow burn it allows for a lot of character development which is appreciated and serves to enhance the story.

The one thing I could have done without is the awkward moaning sounds added for the sex scenes.

The writing is the games biggest issue. For the majority of the game the writing is rich with grammar and punctuation errors. It sometimes made things hard to follow. I don't know if it's due to a bad translation or some other issue. I did notice during chapter 8 that the writing was much improved.

I would highly recommend this game. Like I said the game is a slow burn, but the story and characters are worth it.

When I started playing this, I thought "Great. Yet another game with supernatural abilities. How original." Yes. Very sarcastic. But I decided to see if it was a bad as some of the others.
I was pleasantly surprised. The main character doesn't have outlandish abilities and the story is very interesting.
Plus, the women are proportioned adequately. There's no one with size triple F tits. I like realism in games. If the characters don't look believable, then I can't take the story seriously.
Keep up the great work, Pixelslab!