VN - Ren'Py - The Nature of Magic [Part 3] [Slate Interactive]

This one blew me away. Absolutely fantastic, and even more impressive considering it is only a version 1 release.

Dialogue/Story:
The dialogue immediately drew me in as significantly better than most other AVNs. The conversations are quite natural and I don't recall any stilted exposition like "Hello, my best friend's dad!" that no-one would ever say.
The story is very well-crafted and held me to the point where I accidentally completed the entire update in a single 4hr sitting. I really like the characters and the magic system, neither of which seem to be a tired reuse of common tropes. The characters actually have depth, which on its own puts this novel above most on this site.
There is a bit too much info dumping due to the large number of "families" to keep track of, which is mitigated somewhat by a glossary/menu but it still gets overwhelming at times. Also the banter is a bit too over-the-top for my preferences, but it fits the characters and scenes well enough that I think it would work for most readers.

Audio:
Good use of background music that I haven't heard 1000 times in other novels. I find it very distracting to hear a song that I associate with another novel, and this one avoided that problem for me.

Visuals:
Good quality renders, but more importantly there are details in the background so that scenes look believable. Time was also clearly put into making each of the character models, and it pays off. They each look unique and memorable.

i almost overlooked this game as i normaly wait for a few updates first but glad i didn't its a good story sofar and good amount of content for one chapter looking forward to more content will be keeping a look out for updates

Honestly, this is pretty fantastic.

There were a few "first-time" HS2 games this year that people were touting as amazing; that I thought were pretty damn mediocre.

This is way above them in the writing department. There's an interesting, coherent story here, a wide-range of characters, all dealing with something that sets them apart as interesting.

My only negative about the writing is a taste thing. I don't like in depth explanations of magic or imagined-science. I like to get the basic idea, and then to move the fuck on. This AVN goes to town on the intricate details, and that's going to be great for you autists and engineers out there, but for me, it's pretty boring and brings the pace to a stutter.

Having said that, I was fully immersed at all other times, and constantly interested in what might happen next. The same can't be said of other, highly-praised, titles that manage to look good-to-great, but read like a first-grader's "learn-to-read" book.

An objective negative is that it is well below standard for HS2 visuals. I assume this is the fault of the dev not having a decent GPU because they show some decent lighting in some scenes where things aren't too taxing, but others just look like they didn't bother with anything except the shitty cam light for real time rendering in HS2.

Some subjective drawnbacks:
I don't really like urban fantasy, so I'm not into the genre. However this is also a subjective plus because the fact that it has me invested despite being a genre I dislike is an incredibly strong argument for its quality.

The girls... Not my type. Bael has the body, but, for some reason, has an old lady's face. Cerys has comically large breasts that I really hate looking at. Same with most of the other girls. I don't like tits so big that the person would have to have a birth defect to possess them. Elephantitis of the mammaries. Some of the faces are ugly too - the developer's character creation is not my speed at all.

However, they all have interesting personalities, and that holds greater overall weight for me.

You're also given a lot of information in this first chapter. It's unavoidable with such complicated lore, but I can't help but wonder if the developer could have offloaded some of it to episodes 2 and 3 . It's going to be impossible to remember some of the things revealed here because it was so dense.

Also, a lot of it is "told" through conversation, rather than dramatised through conflict, scene, and action. Obviously the latter requires many more renders, but might take this to the next level; and I think the developer is capable enough.

In a sea of shit where people write in English, despite being completely incapable of forming simple sentences without the help of ChatGPT - this AVN has the elusive quality factor when it comes to story and writing.

If they can make the small jump higher, this is going to be really special...

... And hopefully get a better PC so they can render images of a quality that the story deserves.

I like it so far! If the developer keeps up the good work, this could turn into a truly great game.
There’s no textbox at all, which makes it hard to read in bright scenes. Other than that, I didn’t notice anything else missing or wrong. Keep up the great work!

This is one of the best starting AVN's I have played! Will definitely be in my Top 10!

The only hesitation I have is with the Combat system, but I will need to see it in action to make a decision on it. Great choice, though, not to have a ridiculous timer punctuating the spell casts!

The story is solid and believable! The humour is good!
The female characters are all beautiful, with lots of Gingers in the mix!

All in all this is a story I will enjoy playing more than once!!

I would normally never write a review for a first version of a game, usually because they are either too short or just lack quietly.. but sometimes something like this comes along and just wow. Too any aspiring developer this should be the gold standard for first versions.

The world building is excellent and its isn't all dumped on the player but carefully dropped in piece by piece through out the game. The writing is also of a very high standard and you can tell time and care went into its structure and the way the characters interact is also very good and consistent. The characters all seem to be highly customized honey select and all have a unique and distinct look and personality. The harem aspect also isn't just there because harem, its part of the world building and seems like all character seem to be optional so far which is rare. Its just excellent from beginning to end and i wanted more after it finished. The only negative I have is the animations are not great but devs tend to get better at things like that as the learn there craft and improve. Highly recommend.

Great start right out of the gate. This is a prime example of how you do a chapter one. Not once was I lost in the story and I particularly enjoyed the ginger characters as I feel the soulless don't get nearly enough love. I look forward to seeing how this progresses.

As of Ch 1:

The game is using what appear to be heavily customized HS2 characters and scenes. That said, graphics quality is pretty much as good as you can expect from this style of render. Chapter 1 is largely setup/world-building so as best as I can tell there's only one sex scene, which does have animation, though it appears to be more a sequence of frames than a video.

The characters are about as good as you can expect from a harem game, and the in-universe explanation certainly helps sell the harem aspect instead of just having every LI inexplicably throw themselves at the MC. While it's just starting, there is the beginning of a decently-written plot with characters that look like they will be more than one-dimensional harem pokemon.

All of that said for those who dislike extreme content please heed this warning:

THIS GAME CONTAINS FILTHY DEGENERATE UNPROTECTED HANDHOLDING.