VN - Ren'Py - The Lost Chapters [v0.6.1 Public] [Asura Interactive]

My first acquaintance with the game was with version 0.3, in the story I especially then did not delve into but I was hooked by the presence of what I like most of all ... so I continued to follow its updates.
And now with version 0.6 decided to return to it again and immediately realized that you need to replay again, for obvious reasons!
Passed several times on different paths!
Actually my conclusions are as follows:
- The plot is amazing and the way it is presented , as well as the text itself ... the feeling that the author copied from some book... of course, you have to take into account that I read it all through a translator ))))
- Renders - the author over time pulled up their quality and at the moment everything looks not bad.
What I don't like:
- Interface - the text of the answer options does not read very well.
- 3d models - I realize that the author will not do anything here, but that is what it is... In general, they are attractive but there are frankly annoying moments.
- Paths - as far as I understand, at the moment, there are two paths with relationships that exclude each other:

V0.6.1 Public On an earlier version I gave this a four star. I thought the story was unique and there was quite a bit of sex. Now the sex scenes have shrunk and the story is just a mess. There are so many new people being inserted in the game and worst of all we have these flash forwards and flashbacks. I have no idea what is going on in the story.

Three years ago, when the first version of this game was released, it had a lot of things going for it. Decent (at the time) renders, an innovative (at the time) UI, and a literate (at the time) story. As far as the story goes, at least in the beginning, there were hints of a fantastical plot and promises for the future. Confusing hints, but I was willing to wait for future versions to clarify them.

Three years on, none of it makes any sense to me anymore. Somebody in the forum complained that there were too many characters. Maybe, maybe not, but NPCs seem to be there for just one purpose: to set up the next sex scene. Or worse, the next extended circle jerk of unrelated fantasy flashbacks that may or may not contain any current characters or advance the story. The whole plot just seems like a stream of consciousness. No real plot, no real consequences. After three years, I still can't tell you what the end goal is or what motivations any character has to complete or thwart that goal.

And if you're just in it for the fap quotient, the renders are out-of-date, and there is no animation.

Side note: Dev, Ren'Py already packages releases in a set format (the top level is a folder that holds everything else). So you can unzip it to the current folder. WHY change it?

Oh man. Let me start this one by breaking down this review into sections, I suppose. First, I'll discuss the graphical presentation of the game. Second, I'll talk about the plot of the game. And lastly, I'll talk about the quality of the sex scenes present in it.

So, the renders in the game are alright. The are just alright. Not great, not bad - just fine. The characters are reasonably attractive for the purpose of being aroused by them in a drunken/horny pinch, but truthfully everything looks quite dated.

Now, let me just vent on the aspect of the game that I absolutely hated. The plot. Oh my fucking lord. It is incomprehensible. Students, demons, knights, queens, inter-dimensional travelers. It's just a fucking mess beyond any rescue. It's honestly almost impossible to tell what the fuck is happening in the game past a certain point. The author wanted to create some insane modern fantasy epic that transcended space and time but what ended up happening is a sludge of insanity that almost made my brain go up in flames. Characters are ridiculous, completely unbelievable and over the top in so many more ways than one. The main character is a doofus. Which isn't anything new, but she's supposed to be smart as a newly hired teacher - which not only she isn't, but it would be fair to say that she's the most retarded character in the game. One of love interests is a student that's also a queen(?) that's also a demon hunter(?) and also a total bitch that has no redeeming character qualities. Another love interest is her knight(?) also a student, also a total idiot and a creep. I could go on. Characters in this story are caricatures, none of which are worthy of any kind of intellectual consideration.

The sex scenes range from fine to good. They're really not the culprit here. A couple of them were quite hot, all things considered. However, this impression is marred by all the batshit-insane plot that is spliced in-between.

All in all - this game should have been right up my alley. Female protagonist, lesbian with futa... However, it was so off the rails with its ambition related to plot that I would have preferred if the plot was dumbed down to - "I'm female - me fuck women - oonga- boonga". That would have been retarded but at least easy to follow, instead of whatever anime-inspired vomit this is.

I wanted to add my 2 cents since I think this game deserves more attention than it's currently getting, not sure I'm going to make much of a difference but here it is anyways.

The Good
I saw another reviewer mentioning some renders looking like claymation sometimes, I can't refute this, but I don't think it detracts from the overall aesthetics and sexiness of the characters, sex scenes are hot and the writing is honestly my favorite thing, the story is actually very interesting.

The Bad
The game is affected by it's update cadence and the writing, I know I mentioned the writing being great before, but the fact that it's a complex story with several characters who are present in different timelines and dimensions makes it hard to keep track of who is who and what is what by the time the next update drops, and this in turn might make people lose interest in between updates.

Final Thoughts
Considering the negatives, would I rush Asura Interactive to update faster or dumb down the story though? absolutely not, I truly enjoy this game a ton, I find the story interesting and I'm always excited to see the next update. If you come back to the game and feel lost with the story, I would like to encourage you to restart and give it another try.

I hope Asura finds success with his game, I do think when it's finished and people can experience it in one go, it'll find a wider audience.

Visuals

• Bravo on the entire UI, dev! Very unique and full of vibrance, I dig it!
• Renders are top notch where environment/textures are concerned (not so much with the models).
• Character renders are either compressed a bit or otherwise low-res, but not to the point that they take away from the experience.
• IMO, character thumbs are a BIT too big; it's distracting from the game itself. Still well-rendered, though, just should be about 50% of their current size.
• We start off with subtle background nudity almost immediately, and it's tastefully done. Who can complain about that?
• There's breast-sucking and nipple biting, which is always going to score points with me. Seriously, not nearly enough VNs have this combo.
• Continuing on with my clear obsession with breasts, I appreciate that we get to see at least slightly larger areolas than is average in VNs.
• I will say that the given model choice for Sarah clashes with the power dynamic in the story. She appears apprehensive, shy, and quite small in comparison to her wife, who is much more daring and bold - both in appearance and demeanor.
• Selene's outfits + earrings + glasses give me Matrix + Van Helsing vibes. One of the more "fun" character makeups I've seen.
• I don't like Cikaandi's appearance. From his uneven and aesthetically unpleasing arms to his unshapely (but large) breasts.

Story

• Superb storytelling from a narration perspective. Actual suspense builds up when and where it should (aided by the audio accompanying it).
• Very interesting that it's an (almost) all-female "cast" in this one. That means all lesbian lewd scenes. Yes, please.
• I especially enjoy the sexual tension between Chloe and Eve.
• This game manages to somehow strike an almost 50/50 balance of storytelling and raunchy lewd scenes. It's quite impressive. Nearly every new scene develops into a sexually-charged one.
• I do find certain intermissions or segues to be a tad bland, so I confess to skipping ahead here and there. For me, that is an automatic subconscious confirmation of a star reduction. You could say it is mood-dependent, but not really. Not for me. If a story is compelling enough, I will go back if I think I may have accidentally missed even a single line of text.

Dialog

• Well-written in concept, overall. Characters have personality and aren't bland.
• I think ESL? At least not American English; we don't say words like "infirmary", and there are other minor issues.
• The dialog would benefit greatly from better English translation.

Gameplay Mechanics/Other Notes

• Great implementation of audio/music.
• I like that there's futa content. Though I would've thought based on the way presented we'd have seen Selene as the futa, not Xue.

Overall, I give it 3 out of 5. -1 star for improvements that I think should be made on the fantasy/dream characters' sequences. At times some of the renders have this claymation look to them and I don't like that. -1 star for English translation. It's decent, but it's also riddled with errors and that's distracting for me.

8/10 story and art, highly recc for good 18+ content/VN! I really enjoyed the various characters, though the staff from the shop did seem a bit to similar to Ashley~ Can't wait to see where the story goes next!

The game is quite starting only now, but there are good and bad points already.

Let start with the good: female protagonist!
That is rare enough to be enjoyable and enjoyed.
That means also there will maybe not have a harem story, which I would find interesting, or a different cast for a harem story, which I would enjoy too as a change from the rest of the games.

So far so good.

So why the bad points intro? Well:
- many spelling mistakes. I get most writers are like me, non english native speakers, but why don't they let someone read their work before publishing? those "your", "quite/quiet" issues are boooring.
- but the biggest issue is the weird looking faces : for example Sarah has a totally unnatural face/color/expression.
- MC hair is sometimes weird, as if she had a 5cm thickness of hair on her skull. Also in some scenes, her shoulders height seem different but that may only be because of the camera angle and the clothing used. It was weird to see.

- there is a real lack of pacing and teasing in the game. Sex happens quite too fast around MC, with no reason. Besides the teachers live in a dormitory... (okay? i'm not sure it's quite common but i'm not a US resident and in my country there are no dorms for teachers...) but those act sexy and all... around students going to their school. That is immersion breaking a lot. So I'm puzzled: is that special student an exception (and the provisor/teachers using her to be their (un)willing sexy acts witness) or an example of a rule? it's weird.
Another example: second day in your new dorm, you meet 2 students. Expect one of them (who loves the other one) to kiss you. As in your student. Knowing you are her teacher. ... Is it only me who find those "random" kisses meaningless and immersion breaking ?

- another thing i do not like : why do so many game put the speaking character face next the name, in the text box ?? if the scene is clear, and the story consistent, you know characters name and can link that to their face; maybe even the dev went above the 0,2 effort mark and let the staging help the player understand who is who and speaking....
but noo. Let's put the face next to the text, as if wasting a big deal of the picture/scene image is a good idea...

So a 3stars game, which may improve in the future. But it can also go on 2 stars level for a "full porn" game without a consistent story nor any sex appeal.

It's really deep, a lot of dialogue and backstory...it takes a few hours before it all starts to make sense. I got utterly lost in it all!
It's like a fantasy novel in visual form, the writing is a bit inconsistent to be honest and the grammar can be a bit 'google translate'...but minor gripes aside, I really enjoyed it.

This is an excellent game. The renders are great and the plot is intriguing. One of the best supernatural VNs I've played. The flashback supernatural scenes and the present scenes can feel a little disjointed at times, but once you play through the whole thing, it makes sense.

The world the dev is presenting seems very intriguing. We don't know a lot about it yet, but the sections we are shown are super interesting. Definitely give this one a try .

What we have so far is pretty promising already. Good renders, a rather uniquely built world, and promises of good times.

Hope the sex scenes become longer, but am happy to see female-protagonist games, especially with this level of writing and renders Best of luck!

I am really enjoying this VN. I find the mix of fantasy underpinnings and contemporary city environment compelling. I don't really know what's going on in the story. Who to trust, who to root for, etc., and that's a good thing.

I've played a little with story branches, and the resulting scenes can be significantly different. Often times, I found both branches equally engaging, and struggled to choose which one I wanted to follow.

I think the art's great, and I'm looking forward to the next installment of the project.

As of version 0.2.2, I'm not quite sure what to make it of it.

I get the general plot of it all but it's done in a way that's rather clunky and skirts around the issue rather than slowly uncovering the mystery. Hard to decide if this game wants to be more plot driven or sex driven with the fetishes involved and how many possible scenes there are

The skin textures are.....interesting to say the absolute least. Sarah switches from being almost completely albino to being a decayed gray at any given point in the story. The only sense of normalcy is her dialogue avatar. Jessica for some reason has a glossy upper body all the time like she's wearing some kind of protective cover. It also seems to be completely differing from all other skin textures. And it's just things like that where Selene also has weird lighting issues where she looks semi-gray and then you have Xue's dong almost a grayish-black when she's pretty much albino. Just a bunch of color issues that messed up the visuals, at least for me

I do enjoy Eve and her family's render and the overall premise is enough to keep me here to see what comes next. Writing needs slight polishing but nothing too major in that department to affect flow. I just truly do think the renders and skin need to be improved before I can increase the rating

Very promising so far. Story seems intriguing especially with the added part of mistery. Models and scenes are hot and refreshing. Looking forward to more, especially for progress in the submissive relationships.

A great urban fantasy featuring an engaging story full of interesting characters presented on a superbly rendered stage.

The last point of the above is actually the first I like to elaborate on: camera angles, lighting, models, poses, and facial expression all make for high quality renders. Depth of field is very well used throughout the game, as are details like freckles and vellus hair – a point I feel worth stressing. There are however a few renders where white balance seems off, and another few that erroneously have the background in full focus.

The cast is very diverse both in looks as well as personal motivations which range from plain, to obscure, to mysteriously hidden. The interactions and power dynamics between the various characters are quite interesting as are the various sex scenes. Some of the former (as in interactions and dynamics) do actually add another layer of mystery to the story. The spelling does need a teensy bit of work but there are no grave mistakes that would hamper ones enjoyment of the story.

5/5 would blueball Xue again.
based on 0.2.1

So, there is still a lot to improve and the plot and the dialogs, but it's not bad, the visuals are good, there are no bugs and it's still in the beginning (version 0.1), that is, very promising ... The only thing that bothered me was that he sends "the realistic situation" to hell and gives the scenes that we usually want, but without the appropriate development of the situation.

Below are my grades for each item where the highest score is 10:

Graphics = 10;
Plot = 8;
Dialogues = 8;
Characters = 10;

Verdict = I will wait for the next update, I didn't think it was particularly bad, even though there was nothing innovative about it.

Obs = It is worth taking a look.

My thoughts on the game.
Pretty good renders and beautiful models. The story starts like a fantasy one and ends like a mystery. But we can't come to a judgment by that because this is the first release . I am a fan of of Fantasy/Thriller/Mystery so i personally enjoyed the story and looking forward to more.
The dev's writing and good renders made the sex scene exiting to watch. They way Selene (A character in the game) took control in sex is written well. As a fan of light femdom I think we can look forward to some good femdom contents.
I hope to see more good contents from the game dev in future updates.
I recommend the players to give it a try. This won't be a waste of time. You can enjoy a good sex scene .
Good Luck to the dev.