VN - Ren'Py - The Shrink R&R [Season 2 v2.7] [OneManVN]

First and foremost, the original version of The Shrink I would say was a four stars our better.
The rework has removed choice like for the "Maid" scene from the original.
Cutting corners and out right being Lazy I mean Four years and the first two
I've supported this cash grab, should've now better with Apples of Alison Harem Ending that isn't even done, yeah, the Dev had problems at the time, but far as I know with The Shrink there been no problems.
Stop supporting after fourth our fifth "Rework Update".

Why do I keep coming back. One word "Investment". Good Luck Dev Happy New Year!!

The Shrink R&R is a visual novel made in renpy made by OneManVN and it follows the same lines of his previous games, a very strange story that doesn’t make much sense followed by a vast array of female characters in rotation to get the attention of the protagonist. In this one the protagonist is the young male of a rich family that is surrounded by a very fit group of relatives with big proportions, especially below the navel. As expected from OnemanVN the story is bare bones, existing as a justification for the many romance scenes you get through this long game. Branching paths are also almost non-existent, serving only to unlock kinks. Most of the story happens around a mansion and the pool, to explain why the girls are constantly wearing bikinis. If you don’t care for the story this can be a good addition because what dev lacks in patience for writing he compensates in sculpting. The models used are very pretty and well rounded, hitting exactly the buttons the developer wanted and all the tags he promised. Sadly the game that is entirely focused on scene hunting doesn’t have a gallery, an always good element for visual novels. From this kind of game and this developer you get what you expect.

Good day to you o/
There are some parts I like but there are way too many cons to continue..
- Some choices don't matter at all (mostly bad code but some are not code related)
- forced trans relationships, you get no choice in that, I understand He is a good friend of the MC but the writer doesn't take the time to at least tell it to me in a way that I could've been on board with it...
- junky models, weird awkward body formations
- Idiotic, random 4th wall breaking...
in the end maybe I find it tiresome to play as some dude that gets hard and pervs on anything and everything in his view.
I actually think the previous version of this game that I played was better.

I have literally never had a ren'py game crash on me before, that was enough to bring this game from boring to just down right disappointing, I'm not saying it's terrible but it clearly needs work, I apologize for the harsh review and I am not sure if this is really all that constructive but I do hope you will improve this game somehow, I do think the content is good if a bit lackluster. Edit: I would like to add that the renders are very nice

I don't understand this game.
Oh, don't get me wrong - I recognize it's a harem game, with an MC that looks like he just finished upholstering all his living room furniture with human flesh. That part I can recognize easily enough.
No, it's the way this game is constructed that baffles me. There are all these moments in the game where I'm expected to click on text on-screen before the story continues.
You see, it's like in other games when there are these things called "Choices", where the plot of the story changes based on what you choose. Except in The Shrink: R&R, the story never changes, regardless of which text you click.
Say you dislike Girl A (forgive me, there's roughly 82 "love interests" in this game, and none of them are memorable enough for me to know their names). Great news! Here's a pseudo-choice on-screen, with one of the lines of text including this message: ("Not Interested").
Phew! I hate Girl A!! I don't want her mucking up my harem!
Except wait, four or five minutes later, the serial killer MC is plowing Girl A! And then he's out on a date with her! WTF, bro! Weren't you listening to me?
Here's the secret that took me about 25 minutes of "SKIP UNSEEN" to figure out -
The Shrink: R&R does not have 'choices' in the traditional sense. Unlike all those other complicated, messy AVNs, with branching storylines and complex relationship dynamics, The Shrink decided to instead have your 'choice' only affect the order in which you hook up with all 79 of the women in the game.
Take the scene where 3 of your roommates are watching TV with the serial killer MC, for example. You're prompted to decide which of the girls you want to... idk, sit next to, or cuddle or whatever. So I pick Girl J, thinking that's the girl the MC is going to put the moves on. Nope! Instead, you'll just have to wait five or six minutes before Girl N and Girl O get their requisite lewd scene. Don't like Girl N or Girl O? Too bad! You don't get to decide which girls the serial killer MC hooks up with, so shut up with your demands for interactivity and choice!
Pointless. Very, very pointless game.

ver 7-11-2023
I don't know if the remake improved the initial version, as I didn't play the old one. That said, the new one is oddly endearing. It's honestly better than it really needs to be. There isn't some in depth story that is plumbing new depths here. Its a game with a rich young MC that is a horndog, but maybe not for the reasons we think. And suddenly everyone around him want to jump on the magic dick, and maybe there is an unexpected reason for that too. Silly plot. But it works here.

The dev has a type. If you think that thicc girls are gross, you might want to stay away. But that said, the girls are all adorable. And curvy and thicc, but in an actually realistic(-ish) sort of way. There is plenty of trans content if you are into that, including the options to top OR bottom one of them. That content is entirely optional though, so don't be scared away if that isn't your thing.

The renders are average-ish but not bad. Animations ... exist but are breaking no new ground here. And there is sound which I promptly turned off. Its technically above average across the board with some lewds. Not tons yet, but I'm thinking that eventually the lewds will be frequent. The game is trending in that direction anyways. At this point there is one or two for most of the girls (not the "landlady", the chef or pizza delivery girl though).

tldr- Not bad! Well worth playing imo.

Not deep, but light and fun vn with great chemistry between MC and his "roommates". It lack buildup and just throws new girls at MC great speed. And there could've easily been couple of hours of gameplay before the official start of the game, dedicated to the development of relationships with "roommates".

The fact that a player can't skip certain scenes, with Brenda, for example, may be called " a minus". At the same time you must chose only one of three "roomies" at a movie party. Weird.

Still the game is great thanks to the humour and girls kinks. It's a solid 4 stars but I am marking it as 5 stars in hope that Aiko will keep having that agressive attitude and maybe some femdomish scenes later on.

The models look not bad, but not super either. The plot was probably written by some schoolchildren: the main character wakes up on his birthday and for some reason his sisters or "neighbors" immediately run naked in front of him and are in no way ashamed to even chase after him when he easily slaps their ass. Without any explanation or prelude, they almost immediately all jump on him and want sex. Against this background, a childhood friend met on the street, who invites herself to a birthday party and for some reason stays in the house without any reason and is also immediately naked - is not even surprising.
Yes, in some places the rapid development of events should be for intrigue, but at the same time there should be some kind of script, as usual in games, and here the events are immediately like in a porn movie. Either too many of the same actions to achieve success with the girls, as in some games, then immediately debauchery without any backstory, as in this case. There should be some balance, it would be more interesting for both sides of the coin.

The initial writing for this game in the early development were lacking and the whole reason to follow the story was that it was getting in some direction. While being goofy and kind of trying to go for some kind of "Sex Zombie due so some genetic modification creating addiction to sex" it got out of hand.

Since Early 2023 there's been a re-writing and while I was mad to restart the whole thing I thought it was much better made and the storyline makes more sense. The scenes are well done, very explicits and there's a little of everything for everybody and I'm into it. I only wish there was a little bit more storyline each update in light of the large amount of storyline/materials that were pre-existing but this is a full redone of the game so it will take some time until we have more than 1-2h of gameplay.
TBC.

I want to love this game so much, but the storytelling needs work.

Starting with the good, The Shrink has many interests that aren't available in many games of its art quality. Interests like D/S where you can be dominant or submissive, trans content where you can be top or bottom, and some S/M. I love it when games explore these, so I want to love The Shrink.

However, the storytelling in this game lacks engagement and immersion. Because you're dropped into the story at the point of, "It's your birthday and a dozen love interests are in their underwear throwing themselves at you from minute zero," it's hard to feel connected to or invested in any of them. I wish we would've had more time to connect with the characters outside of sex or a sexualized setting. This is the foreplay of smut, and foreplay is just as important in smut as it is in real sex.

What's especially sad about The Shrink is that some of the sex scenes actually have some very spicy storytelling. The author has some good dirty talk between characters and spicy narration of what's happening inside the characters that I wanted even more of. However, again, because of that lack of connection with the characters you're having sex with, that spiciness feels depersonalized and diminished.

Overall, I think there's a very hot story in The Shrink, I just wish we hadn't been rushed to the sex, and that maybe there were less characters to focus on.

It's not terrible, but after a reasonably strong start the game takes fucking ages to get anywhere. After the first half hour or so it just develops into repetitive and boring sex scenes combined with a variety of story choices that don't seem to mesh well with what's occurring on screen.

Wow lovely remake, love both the remake and original version, the character model is just perfect for me really love the game, hope for the dom/sub with the eldest like in the original but I just enjoy the game very much

the best thing about it was the alices model, now thats been butchered for some reason... Why? No one knows, and whats the point of remastering it either if you dont add anything different, the og has far more content, but no, every word needs to be milked twice, i hope the dev wakes up and restarts work for the og version, but perhaps keeps the new render light and female "transes"

Game was good. Now game is not good.

Dev 'reworked' game to be worse than original. Should be called a downgrade rather than rework.

I'm just confused about what this dude was thinking.

Play the old version and just pretend it got abandoned.

Trans and futa girls are great. This game is one the only games I keep up with.

Is it the best? Not currently.

Is this the game that go to for some futa fun? Yes. I always come back to this particular game for some reason.

Story? I like the story, it is not just the MC fuck everyone. You get some interesting back story about the world they are living in. All of which will get you hard one way or another.

v1.7 part 1

visually this VN hits a lot of kinks and will please a whole ton of people who are not even slightly fussy about the visuals beyond 'show me something i can fap to'.
they are not great but average enough to hit those buttons

as with writing and story well, this misses the buttons by so far that its on another dashboard.
an intelligent life wrote this....apparently, yet if aliens ever do land, they will find no evidence here.

just like the games design itself, this just seems like a throw-together, without any planning, with on-the-hoof writing.
it has a premise it loosely follows, eventually, but no signs of any real effort.
a little thought into the writing and this could easily be better.

how anyone can rate this amongst the best VN's available on this site, i will never know

I feel that this game deserves a lot more spotlight and hype around it. I can understand why the previous version got low ratings, since the storyline wasn't really going anywhere, and interaction with all the girls wasn't possible. But arguably the characters, their designs, the hot scenes with them and the fetishes and genres in my opinion gave the game a higher rating......
Since the remake I feel that the game will probably bring back those who might have previously given the game a low rating. Purely based on being able to interact with all the characters and also having more of a fluid story.....
I have high hopes for this game and look forward to see where it goes.

A well-made porno romp where the MC is gifted with a fantastic set of models surrounding him; a small measure of diversity in the body types is present, but without straying far from a clear dedication to T&A. Every girl is distinctly curvy - and the developer clearly recognises that the best asses are often found on tgirls - essentially, the man knows his audience.

Progression is a little slow but we're rewarded with numerous scenes of as much emotional investment (that is, development or clarification of the relationships between the MC and the women) as eyecandy, which together enhance the eroticism of what we're seeing. Looking forward to more updates!

i will rate the remake, everything is better, the models, story etc, one of my favorite women models game, curvly shaped, its restarting but for now its a great promise, and i hope the dev continues his work

I played the first game this dev created up to a point, before it became so bad, I couldn't stomach it anymore.

New game, new chance, I thought, and tried again.
And for the first one or two versions I played, it was alright enough, just like before, but then it rapidly took a turn for the worse and from there steadily dove deeper.

The story is inane, the writing is a convoluted mess (with that I mean it just meanders from here to there and back and jumps over there etc.. it also veers completely into a new course at least two times) and without any nuances, the characters are not even two-dimensional, they are one-dimensional.
The dialogue, oh man, the dialogue. Just horrible. So completely unnatural and ridiculous. It almost hurts to read.
And the renders, while not horrible, are also nothing great. The hair colours and cuts are probably the worst and as usual with this dev, the butts of certain characters are ginormous. If you like that, great, if you like a certain ratio between breasts, hips, butt etc.. this might not be that great.

All it amounts to basically is some ridiculous, nonsensical reason for the MC to have a lot of girls living in his house, several actually being maids/almost slaves, and having sex with all of them, including his own family.

It's just too much and nothing really makes up for this basic bitch of a plot.
If the other factors were good, you could just take it in stride, but since dialogue, characterization and even renders are either average or just as bad, this has become quite the clusterfuck.

I have my thoughts as to why this happens with so many games, but they aren't just specifically related to The Shrink, so I'll put it in spoilers, read if you are interested:

I do feel tempted to give this just one star, but if I compare the game to some of those I rated like that, at least this one can be halfway understood and if you just want porn without the excuse of a story, you can probably even have some fun with it, so I'll leave it at two-stars.