VN - Unity - The Northwood Lair [v1.35.6] [Stratovarius]

I would've been all over this game if it released all the way back in 2011, during the global vocaloid craze, a time were i was obssessed with all things vocaloids.

Although more than a decade has passed and i long got over my obssession, i still enjoy vocaloids nonetheless, and this game is (almost) a full course meal for vocaloid (and hentai) fans, mostly because i wasn't expecting this game to have so many animations, with so many different vocaloids too.
I was expecting your usual suspects like Miku, Rin, Luka, Meiko, maybe Haku and Neru at best, but instead i was pleasantly surprised to see that well over 10+ different vocaloids made their way into the game (although most have very few animations, as expected). There's plenty for you to see here, and the animations are very well done and smooth too, even if a little jnak is inevtiable with these kinds of games.

Only reason i won't give this 5 stars is because, well, it's not really a game but more like a glorified animation gallery. That and a few minor gripes i've had, such as bad optimization (any scene taking place near fireplaces, or with multiple NPCs at once will lag terribly bad - thankfully these are only a few scenes); navigating through the menus being a little confusing sometimes; and that the game is obviously unfinished. But we still got plenty to enjoy nonetheless

There IS one thing that worries me, and that is the overworld exploration map. Personally, i think that an open world section for this game is completely unnecessary. I think it'd be better for the developers to focus solely on the animation galleries and the RPG mode (especially the sidescrolling one - that has a lot of potential!)

Nevertheless, i enjoyed my time with this game, and i'll be looking forward to what the devs have in store for us. I believe this is the only Vocaloid H-Game out there so far, so i really hope this rare gem doesn't end up abandoned like so many games... Dev Team, keep up the good work

Umm, its pretty hard to review noting?
Girls looks nice and you can pick some sex scenes with your self or monsters fucking the girls, but it sure isent a AVN it feels more like a demo or some kind and clearly shouldent be released at this stage since there is simply just no story no nothing.

The reason for the two stars is due to the graphics that mostly looks nice, but also fails in some sex scenes.

If this someday turns into a real novel/game it could very well be worth playing but considering its from 2017??? and there is still nothing, i wouldent expect anything to come from this game.

"Entertaining" is a great way to describe this game in it's current state. As others have pointed out, this is not a typical gameplay game (yet), but rather an interactive scene viewer. But it is at that, that this game excels. The scenes are far from perfect - clipping, awkward camera angles, some meshing issues (especially with the fishnet Miku in the alley), but the diversity of actions, poses and situations is more than enough to show great promise for future ones.

The game has a big file size, though, and requires a fairly beefy PC to handle the game at high quality/resolution. These two factors are not "problems" or issues, but rather a requirement to enjoy the game - just because your PC can't handle it doesn't mean the game is bad. Unless you're on an SSD, load times are a bit long, however, I feel that this is less of a "game quality" issue and more of a "this is only a problem if you let it bother you" issue.

Whether you like the style of models or not is just an opinion, so I won't add to or subtract from my rating because of it (I happen to like them quite a bit), just note that they are very "3d Hentai" like, as you probably should have seen already in the preview images.

Overall (and considering the game is still in development) I would give it, as is, a 7/10 for it's current quality, but for it's potential and niche genre it places itself in, as well as the eventual "trainer" aspect that is planned, I would give it a 9/10 if all goes well. Just make sure your PC can run it! (For reference, my old RX 580 could tolerate the game with medium settings [1920x1080] in most scenes, others varied. Current RTX 3070 can run it at ultra [3840 x 2160] just fine).

umm. Ok. So its a hentai based "game" that lets you chose various scenes to watch.
I don't get it?

There's no gamePLAY... like none. Just click and watch. No reason for the scenarios, no "training" of any kind. Calling this game a "Trainer" is like calling an infomercial "Documentary".

The only reason its not a 1 star is the graphics, mostly rooms, are decent. The girls all kinda look the same, and quite plastic, but thats perhaps intended.

No Gameplay, no reason behind any of the actions, no logic in any of it. Hire a story writer and then make what they write would be my advice.

Shows a lot of promise, i hope the devoloper update this game faster, and also with more content. I hope to see news on this, but i love the concept, and as it is a game demo it is a amazing with a lot of content and makes me wander what is the main story about and ai am dying to play it

Shows a lot of promise. Plus I'm a huge fan of the vocaloids so I'm biased. My only gripe is that update notes aren't very clear on what is updated and can sometimes be misinterpreted. The RPG mode could definitely be something worth playing too as a side mini game if the developer makes more progress with content for it. Since I am a big fan of the side-scrolling style of h-game. The animations are also pretty good although I do have to complain that certain things are "locked" and in my opinion it should just say like "Coming Soon" or "unavailable" because it causes confusion with some people as they think you have to unlock the extra scenes somehow. But overall I really enjoy this game and am excited to see it evolve.

i mention first that this game is not really my taste. But still, i think it can be a pretty nice game... if the dev/s fix multiples things.

at first, this game use Unity, on that it make a good job and is not too hungry on ressources, no lags or else.
if you like hentai japan style, then this game is for you. overwise, just pass away.

the game have some serious black points for me.

its an hentai game. that's not really a problem for me normaly, but this one is like ultra hentai. the chars are nothing but some kind of Hatsune Miku clones that look like as low res as a MMD (miku miku dance) model can be. while in the same time, the environment around are pretty nice and a bit more realistic. that make a huuuuuuge stain in the game.
The models.... oh my... i mentionned the female models before with their look. but the male model (the only one wich is actually the player body we play as first person view) is incredibly laughable. The only men i saw as for now witha real mushroom instead of a penis. like.. seriously. in the same quality level as the females.
every others npcs around are just typical japanese hentai game shadows humanoid creatures. with exception of some "guard" that are actually a bit modeled as the same level as MC/girls.

a typical hentai fan service made game, with tentacles, insect and others "standard" of japorn (or nipporn, if you prefer). the game present multiples places, most of them are useless with nothing in it, nothing to do even tho they arent marked as "preview".

the amount of sex position and stuff is ridiculously small. feel like this game is nothing but a tech demo honestly.

some position/sex with girls turn completly wtf... as exempl at the tavern, choose Nuri (or Niru, whatever) and choose the "grind-thing" sex position.. you'll never seen tits that mimic soo perfectly a slimy banana, its hilarious)

seriously, as for now, that game doesnt look like a game, but more like a tech demo of some assets throw together quickly to create some kind of a gam'ish thing in wich you have nothing to do but watching some scene between extreme hentai characters based on a japorn fan service high requested.

i played it some time before, and giving it a try again today... and honestly, it look like nothing changed. a bunch of things where added.. but god that doesnt make the game better at all.

on tavern main menu, impossible to quit for me, clicking ESC didnt do anything, no option panel, nothing... meanwhile clicking ESC during sex scene completly close the game back to windows.

only graphics setting are when you launch the game in the Unity small panel. once ingame, nothing.

meh.. i wont give it another try. doesnt ring a bell at all for me. and progress seems almost inexistant, even tho a pretty long time have passed sinze last time i played it. i would give it 1 star... but i give it 2, just because the gam'ish tech demo is well optimised for me and no lags or else appeared.

EDIT: 3 years later and the game is still nothing more than a scene viewer. So much for that gameplay Stratovarius promised

I've been following Stratovarius since he was still only making videos on other sites. In my opinion the guy can make some pretty decent animations and it shows in the game, but damn is this game unoptimized as hell.

This game's been in development for years and after years of development and 11 freaking GB of space(yea that's how much this game occupies, maybe even more in the future) all you get is a handful of animations, almost no gameplay at all and your graphics card probably reaching 90 degrees Celsius because of the horrible optimization.

Game updates are non existent, I have given up waiting for this game to be done since it has been over half a decade since its first version and it doesn't appear to be halfway finished. The themes and quality are pretty decent but I'd definitely give it a pass and go to something better and that goes harder into the corruption theme and looks better too.