Just played through the game. like always no information before so that there are no spoilers. I like the game a lot, the chapters are really good written, the girls are interesting, every girl has its own kink and there are some good surprises. There are ups and downs in the game that keeps you engaged. Because of a good storyline you like the girls a lot and are worried if something happen to them without spoilering the story. At the end of the game I was a little bit 50/50 in my rating because the are open storyline and some that will not be answered here. Maybe there will be a "List 2" in the future. I give this a 4.2 of 5 Stars.
There are no music, sound effects or ambient sounds.
This game is story-first. If you prefer titillating/horny games, this one isn't for you.
This is a story about "the chosen one". He's being guided to fulfil his destiny, and has little agency because of that.
Not all LI are optional. Don't like one of the mandatory ones? Too bad.
"The List" is not a real harem game. There isn't much romance or relationship-building besides with the main LI. Most girls disappear for most of the game, with only 2/3 mandatory LI having scenes in later chapters.
Adult:
While this AVN has many lewd scenes, they're mostly all the same. Scenes in a bed can look very similar, as do scenes in the shower.
The lewds are also very vanilla; handjobs, blowjobs, cunnilingus, vaginal penetration. There's one MFF threesome and one deflowering (even though two LI had their first time with Rob). At least one scene features anal, and some feature some kind of kinky roleplay.
These scenes are repetitive because they all follow the same format:
LI: Rob, you DTF?
Rob: Always!
They perform some oral on each other
Penetration happens
Rob is shown going full bore
Cumshot is shown, usually with a choice, unless Rob has to cum inside for plot reasons.
Visual: Models: "The List" has a wide variety of models with different body types. A lot of attention was paid to scars, wounds, dirt and grime, and is something this AVN shines at. Posing: Posing is generally fine, but doesn't get a chance to shine due to the cinematography. Models are often posed with weird expressions. For instance; everyone sticks their index finger in the air whenever they're talking. I don't know anyone in real life who does this, unless in school when asking permission, or as a gesture when someone has to wait or be careful. Renders: Environments are generally fine, though some locations seem out of place. The biggest issue with renders is their lighting. Indoor locations are very bright, and I'd like to suggest that the dev lowers the amount of blue (and some green) to make these lights more natural. Cinematography: This is the biggest visual issue for me. Conversations usually happen between a closeup of two people, each appearing with their lines. In other places, the cause and effect isn't shown. For instance, in a trap-filled location, we read a "*click*" of Rob triggering a trap, but get no visual indication of what he triggered or how. Together with the actual trap (barrels falling from the ceiling), this makes it difficult for players to get immersed with what's happening. The barrels literally come out of nowhere.
My suggestion here is to use more wide shots. When two people are talking, show them both on the render, and adjust their body language, gestures and mouth based on their lines.
Novel:
While, on paper, this story has everything it needs, I think it lacks soul.
It has challenges, danger, a capable antagonist, an interesting setting, and characters with tons of potential... But all of this potential is used and combined in the wrong ways.
Rob, our MC, almost gets killed when an assassin kills his family. He lands in a coma for 6 months and wakes up with Alexis next to him. She has taken an interest in him because of Rob's parents once saving her.
Alexis takes him in, and (unless the player opt-out and gets a game-over) starts training him to work for her. She entices Madison (a friend of hers) to sleep with him to "prepare him" for her (yuck). A bit later, without real build-up, Rob informs us that he's deeply in love with Alexis, and Madison, and Kelly, and ...
And this is what's wrong with the story in general. We are told so many things, but it often lacks build-up, context, or consequences.
LI are quick to proposition Rob, and Rob will immediately consider them his girlfriends. He'll suddenly say that he loves Madison and Kelly, but all we've seen them do was fuck. How can I believe that he's madly in love with all of these women, when I'd barely consider them FWB?
A few LI have very interesting backstories. Diamonds/Ellie dealt with sexual assault, and Sylvia lived in the streets for three years. Sadly, the same symptom appears here. We're told their backstories, but it doesn't play any part in the story. Ellie propositions the MC immediately after discussing her sexual assault, and Sylvia apparently never had anything bad happen to her while living on the street between the ages of 15 and 18, we're even shown her virginal blood to prove this. Even better, Sylvia immediately becomes an expert in computers, surveillance, and even learned how to drive in a few short days. Why not give this surveillance job to one of the many other LI, and make her the street-smart one?
Meanwhile, a voice in Rob's head is telling him what to do and how to feel. It's not compelling, nor interesting... The player doesn't get the opportunity to get emotionally invested, which makes the lewd scenes even more bland and unearned than they already are, and undermines the few dramatic moments the story offers.
I felt more sadness when saying goodbye to BB and SB than when a main character was killed. BB and SB are great characters with an over-the-top personality and undying loyalty toward TKA. They're great in small doses, and that's precisely what we got. Though, we arguably spent more time with them than some LI. The only person in the "harem" with an over-the-top personality is Kelly, but for all the wrong reasons. She's just the sex-craving girl who has to make everything about herself.
About the Harem; I'm convinced that the only reason why some LI are mandatory is to save the dev on work. With two exceptions, there is no reason why Rob had to be intimate with any of them. And these two are, in my opinion, the worst characters this story has to offer (Kelly & Madison). But giving the player an actual choice would mean that a few more renders need to be made, and that scenes have to be written to work with an LI as a lover or a friend.
Starts a bit cliche, but quickly becomes interesting. Better than most.
Like most things in life, you only get better with practice. The first few chapters are serviceable, though some standard tropes are mashed hard. All in all, this is a very solid first game for the planned series.
So I thought I would give this a shot since it has pregnancy & incest, which ticks two of my boxes for a game. For one, there really isn't any incest since
which doesn't make sense. The story is all over the place and some serious topics (Rape, losing a child etc.) are said, but then nothing comes of it other than what other members have stated about the rape part. The chick goes, man, I feel so comfortable around you > goes to bathroom > She wants to have sex??? What…
Pro's:
Some models are cute
Con's:
Hardly a story.
Serious topics are discarded / a joke.
False incest.
Could have been a decent game, but was ruined with poor taste for humor (if we want to call it that) no build-up for romance / love.
Story is ok .The main Problem is not enough angles for sex scenes and not clear creampie scenes throughout the game .Personally I only like games that have Clear Creampie scenes shown ,i.e. pussy with cum cleary visible.Not hiding pussy or not showing pussy at all after said cum is pussy in game makes me mad .Like why include cum in pussy or creampie and not show pussy with cum cleary after .This game has some creampie scenes made well but majority of game doesn't have it .Characters renders need to be improved a bit for better success rate .And make proper creampie scenes if u are including it in game .Hope the dev takes these points in mind .
TL;DR: F*cking awful. But i got a lot to say about why.
So, first of all, gotta say what this is because overview is trash and is insanely misleading. In actuality it's a cheap knockoff of a certain vampire filled universe mainly consisting of board games, but much worse. Main conflict has nothing to do with overview and it's about vampires versus hunters with a lof of nonsense like mages and reincarnation and literal devils and angels thrown in.
Second thing i need to bring in immediately is that it is not finished, while the game is stated as completed it's only first part of a saga, ends in the middle of nowhere and developer now works on a side story instead of a sequel, so if you want a full story you very likely will have to wait for 20-30 years at the very least. Have fun.
Now, this review gonna be kind of a mess because SO many things went wrong here and i can't reasonably structure them but i will try to address really bad things. There will be spoilers tho.
Game immediately shoves a disclaimer or dark themes into your face, which is fine, what is not fine how those themes are executed. Immediately at the start of the game you meet a character and dialogue goes something like this:
-Hi, tell me something about yourself.
-Hi, i was sexually assaulted 3 times, one successfully, tee-hee, let's go bang.
I promise you i exaggerate only VERY slightly, and the worst part is it leads NOWHERE. It is never relevant, never mentioned again and treated like a joke. Same thing happens when a girl loses a child because of a physical trauma. It is a sad moment, sure, but it's never relevant again after and doesn't play into anything. Very serious topics that should be treated carefully and with respect are thrown around like a joke for short term shock value, so this entire disclaimer is pointless.
Main character barely exist. He has no personality, he is a pure vessel for the story to continue which will say most basic words and do dumb things. Even worse he literally has sort of magic aura because of which every woman just jumps on him, it is a plot point, this monkey does nothing to earn any love or respect. If you hope for any sensual development, romance or some effort from MC that's a swing and a miss.
Story got ludocrious amounts of dumb events, contrivancies and Eve, especially Eve. It ranges from small issues (at the start when someone is KILLING YOUR FAMILY behind the door and there is a literal pool of blood, our MC goes "ah, let me just get my spare socks before i run") to absolutely mind boggling and story breaking (a trained combat veteran who went to confront dangerous armed people without reloading, good job there), to absolutely insane, like Eve. Oh goddamn Eve.
Starting from the second half of the narrative Eve starting to live in MC head rent free to tell him what to do. And remaining cells of his brain die at this moment because from now EVERY little piece of information, decision making and actions will be given to MC by Eve and he will always obey. Dangerous situation? Eve helps. They need to know something but don't? Here is Eve. No one pays any attention and let worst things happen? Don't worry, Eve will wake up characters to prevent it. EVERY singular shitty writing point and plothole is plugged by Eve-ex-machina, it is an abhorrent example of horrible writing that permeates entire second half of this product.
Variety of girls is nice, BUT. Some of them have only one scene, some that actually have a mark "Not yet in your harem" never become part of it (reminder that it's first part of the saga), one randomly dies off screen for no reason to which i could only shake my head, individuality quickly dissapears and most of the girls become the exact same person in the second half.
Scenes are tolerable, a lot of stills with rare animations which vary from laggy nightmares at the start to decent ones in the end, transitions are... awful at best however. You don't play this for scenes.
Little personal grievance that didn't affect the score, we never get to do anything with BB and SB. Seriously?
It's not for story lovers, it's not for vampire lovers, it's not for banging lovers, it's not for romance lovers, it's not even for harem lovers because you technically only love one girl. Truly awful final product that fails on every single front and incredibly likely never will be fully finished.
This is a low-quality game in every aspect. From the beginning, two characters tell the player that it's a story-focused game and porn is secondary. Well, this same story in the game is absolutely idiotic and highly unrealistic. I would be ashamed of myself if I published the game with strong words accentuating that it is a story-driven game and then presenting this…
Example. A girl you know less than 24 hours reveals to YOU that she was A RAPE VICTIM NUMERAL TIMES, and right after that and a few nice words from MC, they fuck in the toilet. I mean, do I even need to explain this idiocy?) It was so stupid that I even thought to myself, "That can't be real; MC will wake up right now in his room, and it turns out that second half of what happened yesterday was just a dream." And the further we go, the more dumb and unrealistic things like this happen. Dialogs on the same level as story writing: weak, made-up and unnatural.
The visuals are extremely outdated; lighting is weird and a lot of times comes from invisible sources. Surroundings, character models, their emotions, and overall look are between bad and very mediocre. The first sex scene in the toilet was so ugly and badly made that I thought to myself one more time, "Is this dev really not ashamed to publish something like this?"
In conclusion. Objectively speaking, there is absolutely nothing worth 5 stars. As for me to call this game somewhat nice, I should be 15 years younger and play this game as my first AVN, only then could I define this game as something worthy.
This is an otherwise excellent (adult) visual novel held down only by a few weaknesses. I will start with why I am not giving 5 stars:
Excessive framing. I am not sure if this was ever a good idea even in theater, even though Shakespeare did it. But for a visual novel it's generally problematic, and this instance is not an exception. The VN has two presenters (the main character and one of the love interests) who comment about the action as something that happened in the past. This framing always happens between chapters (of which there are 12 so far) and is mostly skippable. Still, The List would be improved if this framing was simply removed without replacement.
The explicit scenes are good and varied in terms of writing, but quite schematic in terms of the visuals.
Something is slightly off about the connection between images and text. Very often when two people speak, the one in the image is the one not currently speaking. To prevent confusion, this should be the exception for when there is an interesting reaction to observe, but here it happens far too often without good reason.
There are a few minor plot weaknesses such as one of TKA's twins having an obviously anachronistic haircut in the statue in the museum.
That said, what we have here is a thriller in the vampire milieu that would totally work as a printed book. Similar to that well-known AVN named after a fictional VR game, you come for the porn and get drawn in by the plot. The main character is likeable, the love interests are likeable and beautiful, and I just want to know how the story continues.
As of this writing, the latest version is 0.12 (Chapter 12), but the latest part of the story is actually version 0.1 (Chapter 1) of the side story The Perfect Town (by the same developer), which tells us what happened simultaneously to Chapter 12 of the main story.
One of those devs that think their game is exceptional and tries to explain to you why for hours instead of just telling the story.
The game starts with 2 characters talking to the player, breaking the 4th wall. Making stupid jokes and how the game is story first and porn second. And it goes on and on.
You skip it and start the story. The problem is something similar happens again, completely ruining the immersion. At that point I just deleted the game despite tags/genre being to my liking.
The List is one of the most comprehensive stories you will find in the AVN genre. It reads a lot like an action-adventure story. Now, you will need to read quite a bit, but stick with it. Uncle Loco likes to sprinkle in hints.
The girls are cute and very varied, from sassy virgins to milfs and the in-between. Alexis is my fav all the way!
As does the dev's skill throughout this very long AVN, the animations improve by leaps and bounds.
You can tell that this AVN is a passion project. The developer is committed and approachable at all times. Whether praise or criticism, ideas or to clarify your own questions. Renders are good, the girls are cute.
The game itself is a Its a kinda goofy, at time semi kinetic novel with the flair of an 80's action movie. It doesnt takes it self too serious. Then again, the plot has a fascinating depth which is obviously overlooked easy if you skim through it. At times the goofyness dissapears and it suddenly gets very dark.
Regarding the 4th wall elements mentioned in other reviews, those are skippable if its not your cup of tea.
I'm really digging this so far. I like the MC, which is rare because I'm normally a self insert kinda guy, and I'm normally not a fan of an MC that is his own established character.
The LIs are all attractive and interesting
The writing, in my opinion is good, I like the humor.
One star is knocked of because of an issue that has been talked to death in the forum... the twins. It's just a porn game rule, you don't make attractive female characters that you can't do porn game things with. Period. The dev gave a perfectly reasonable excuse for this, but at the end of the day, they still broke the rules. Just find another way to pay homage to your dead friend. It's not that hard. Have those characters show up on the tv screen or the MC's laptop like all the other references made to other characters from other games. Sorry for your loss and all, but this could have been handled much better. Hopefully someone can make a mod that replaces the twins with like, two gay dudes or something. That way all their lines can pretty much stay the same.
The renders are ok and the models are excellent - no exaggerated features. Unfortunately has the ever-present shaved head girl that supposedly there must be an audience for, but she still remains somewhat feminine.
The writing doesnt have obvious mistakes and there is a plot.
We seem to play as the awkward brother from Entourage (TV). The MC is an absolute sadsack. Incapable of most things and pretty dumb. When his sister is beign murdered he can only think about whether to pack socks. When he needs to walk down fire escape staircase we discover he is SO weak that he cannot even carry his 'heavy' backpack with laptop, which is sad.
Luckily despite the woman-repellant facial hair he somehow has women throw themselves at him. This is the worst part of the game. Every woman has an empty head and is instant bimbo. I'm not sure how people can claim this is a slow burn.
I want to like it becasue of the girls' models. But there's nothing to get me invested.
I stuck with this game for a while because I did like the love interests, and to me that's the only good thing about the game. There are NO choices involving the story at all. Some games will at least throw in choices even if they won't impact the story , whereas here the only options are which girl you want, and where you want to 'finish' during sex scenes.
The renders aren't great, but definitely not the worst I've seen, and don't think they are bad enough to avoid this games.
The story at times feels super rushed, and personally felt it was poorly written, along with a very dumb MC. Didn't notice any glaring grammar issues.
Interesting how far away the opinions differ about this vn.
I myself like the story, the setting, the renders and yes, it´s not a slowburn, but most harem vn´s are the same.
So i would recomment to try this and judge for yourself.
There are conspiracy theories about 5g covid alien cow abductions with more stability and coherence to their plot. If you like being a delusional schizophrenic that's off their meds with sociopathic tendencies well this is the game for you.
First chapters kind of interesting past that it's crazy town. Unrelatable plot, with unrelatable people, who are generally less interesting than paint drying.
great vampire game which you explore more the story line of him getting powers by killing other vampires who are his enemies and absorbing it until he becomes a new dracula.
Also he get to fuck more and more girls and turn a few eventually as part of his harem.
I launched it without knowing anything and was hooked on the story within a few minutes.
It's extremely rare that I don't use the skip button on a VN, but this one is so excellent that it didn't even cross my mind. In fact, I would almost blame the lewd content for interrupting the story.
I, for myself, are playing several dozen VNs from this Site (F95) and must say, this game is one of the better ones. The girls are mostly cute IMO, my favourite ist Alexis btw.
Renderings are OK (but there are a few lighting errors in the first chapters), the Animations are mediocre at best. But I am more focused on the story, and this is interesting to me. In the moment I am at the beginning of chapter 5 and I am very excited about the rest of the plot.
So I recommend: try it!
I like the game overall, the storyline is not very deep (yet), some romances seem rushed but that does not have to be a bad thing, so we get alot of "action" if you know what I mean.
However the storyline currently unfolding with "the book" seem very interesting and show potential, I am looking very much forward to it.
TL: DR Currently not very deep writing, lots of action and movement. If you prefer a slower buildup maybe avoid this one