VN - Ren'Py - The Last Embrace [v0.2] [NoX Productions]

Very nice project. It is still early on (commenting on V0.2), but the pieces are put on the board and the story is set-up to unfold. The game features some RPG elements and has some dating sim elements to it. For me, the biggest feature on the plus side is the female protagonist and the lesbian content. So far, there are fairly few choices. So a lot of RPG points are given without the player's input. The story just unfolds. I guess that may change going forward, but I guess, we will see. But so far, it is very nice and I am looking forward to how this project unfolds.

Ver 0.1 Prologue reviewed

Possible Spoilers
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is the story of a cute 18 year old vampire who wakes up in a coffin after a 1,000 year slumber. Unsure of how she got there she eventually manages to escape the crypt and make her way to the big city, which she sees on the not too distant horizon.

Along the way you are introduced to a hunger system, which I assume will play a part in decision making as the game progresses.

Upon arriving at the city, the MC finds a young woman named Clara standing by herself in a dimly lit alleyway. It just so happens that Clara was looking to turn her very first trick as a prostitute. Without giving too much away, the two immediately take a liking to each other and the MC agrees to spend the night at Clara's apartment.

Here you are given the option to take the relationship to the next level and have sex. The prologue ends at this point.

Pros:

1- Artistically beautiful. There are a lot of very nice renders to feast your eyes on.

2- A few zoomed in facial animations were really impressive. Well done!

3- Music was integrated fairly well, adding to the mood of the game.

4- The characters were cute and somewhat likeable.

5- The story shows promise.

Cons:

1- Overly wordy with numerous grammatical issues.

2- Some facial expressions were very awkward, especially with Clara.

3- The sex animations were hit and miss, with some actions looking good and others looking stiff and somewhat comical.

4- The font, although very fitting to the games moody theme, was hard to read at times.

5- There were some one choice only option boxes. This doesn't bother me, but I know some people get annoyed by this.


Final thoughts

The developer acknowledged that English is not his native language and although this is an excellent attempt, it really comes off as way too wordy and awkward. Words such as "common" ( come on) and "i" (not capitalized) are scattered throughout the dialogue.

It's obvious that a lot or work was put into the making of this prologue. I strongly suggest that the dev get help re-writing the game if he wants to take this to the next level.

Good effort and good luck moving forward.

Prologue Review

Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy this prologue much despite how promising it looked first based on the description and the images.

It suffers from many issues you see from aspiring, beginner writers and code that's barely holding together. But the most damning issue for me is the blatant use of AI to write a big chunk of the descriptions / inner thoughts and I'm sure many of the dialogues too. But let's go from point to point.

The first thing most people will notice after starting the game is that the dialogue box is not aligned properly with the text, it is not centered. And right after that the second big issue is the font itself which is unnecessarily artistic and hard to read. If you're in the process of learning English, this game might be a real challenge for you to comprehend what is written. I highly recommend the dev to change the font.

For some reason, we get a compilation of renders (without any text) for the crypt after we wake up. Unnecessary. I'm otherwise a fan of textless renders because I'm all for showing over telling, but there was no point to it here other than padding the number of renders. But my show over tell point also goes out of the window, because this game is frustratingly overwritten, but not just overwritten in the usual way you might imagine; it is overwritten in the absolute most impersonal, robotic way that lacks any personality. Reading the narrations and many of the dialogues were reminiscent of ChatGPT's default writing style in every way, and I'm certain it was written with AI, since there is a sharp distinction between the dev "writing" flawlessly, and other times making very basic errors, like writing "common" instead of "come on" (every time) in dialogues. The dialogues are mostly terrible, no human beings communicate like that.

The renders are generally decent, and I'd even say that at times surprisingly busy and impressive, but there are other times where the person's face expression doesn't match the script at all and it makes for some awkward moments. The animations are also fine enough. As for characters, I don't think it's fair to judge based on the prologue, so I'll withhold my opinion on that.

There are a few pointless single-choice menus, there is one two-choice menu that seem to actually matter where the plot unfolds differently. But if you want to see the only intimate scene in the prologue, you need to choose the right path. The one sexual scene in the prologue is nice if you like lesbian content, otherwise, you're probably better off waiting for a couple of updates.

Overall, it was unfortunately a disappointing experience. The code needs tweaking to properly display the dialogue box and the name, the font is hardly readable, the writing is too much and very bland, the dialogues don't feel like real human interactions, and useless features like single-choice menus are needless.

All that said, this is only the prologue, and I'm looking forward for future updates and I'm genuinely hoping that when I review it again, I can give it a much higher ranking. There is potential here, but changes need to be made. The render and animation quality is pretty good, that's why I give it 2 stars, but writing needs to be a lot better if we're ever to go up. If the dev can't write well without the help of AI, it's fine, but at least give the AI a distinct style then, tell it in details what exactly you're going for. You can write very well with AI, you just need to prompt it appropriately so it won't be this bland.